Sample Research Proposal on HR Administration Outsourcing: How HR Professionals Optimize the Core Activities

1.0  Title The working title of the research is initially drafted as – HR Administration Outsourcing: How HR Professionals Optimize the Core Activities   2.0  Background of the Study Human resource (HR) administration prescribes structures, policies and processes rather than outputs or outcomes. The fundamentals of HR administration center the core functions that include recruiting/hiring orientation, benefits administration, payroll administration and laws/policies compliances. As such, HR functions can directly or indirectly add value to the firm that could probably result in superior individual and organizational performance, reduced turnover and greater profitability. Some of these are consultancy, learning programs, professional development opportunities, rewards and recognition and compensation and benefits strategy.             HR administration could be as tedious if not challenging to majority of the organizations. Considered to be non-value adding functions to organizations, still HR administration requires competence, expertise and diligence to handle. Modern organizations jump into the bandwagon of HR offshoring. The global trend nowadays is to outsource, or to establish on-site outsourcing, non-core HR activities, mostly HR functions, into vendors or service providers which are either generalists or specialists. The shift that the global HR management experience is from being tactical, administrative functions towards strategic and consultative.             Why outsource? Answers to the question will generally direct to acquiring the competitive advantage. In gaining the speed and flexibility needed to compete in the global business environment, companies are obliged to reduce large capital expenditures on non-core functions and leave them to vendors. As such, the companies need not to invest capital in maintaining and upgrading their HR administration systems and infrastructure. Outsourcing non-core functions also frees the HR professionals to focus on more strategic, higher-value activities.     3.0  Statement of the Problem The problem that will be addressed is how outsourcing non-value activities can free up HR professionals to do more value-adding works. The basic services that organizations outsource include HR system administration such as overseeing organizational structure and staffing requirements and tracking department objectives, goals and strategies; recruiting, training and development for employees and managers and employee orientation programs and compensation and benefits management. How the process of outsourcing of these basic functions optimizes the strategic role of the HR professionals will be addressed as well. The study will answer the following: 1)                           How the outsourcing initiative can help the companies reduce costs and provide high-quality products and services when HR staffs are freed to focus on strategic works? 2)                            How non-core functions outsourcing contribute in gaining access to outside and maximizing HR expertise for HR professionals? 3)                            How the outsourcing initiative contributes in achieving HR administration excellence?      4.0  Objective of the Study The aim of the study is to explore the rationale behind optimization of HR professionals' strategic role through transferring the non-core HR functions to HR business process outsourcing firms. The following specific objectives will be addressed: 1)                             To investigate how HR administration outsourcing could result in improved organizational performance and greater profitability 2)                             To determine how HR administration outsourcing could deliver competitive advantage 3)                             To analyse how HR administration outsourcing could contribute in optimizing strategic and higher-value activities    4)                             To investigate how HR administration outsourcing could maximise the performance, competence and expertise of HR professionals        5.0  Research Plan Primary and secondary research will be conducted in the study. In primary research, the study will survey HR professionals and staffs regarding the outsourcing endeavor. A semi-structured questionnaire will be developed and it will be used as the survey tool for the study. It is planned that the questionnaire will have a 5 point Likert Scale, as well as ranking questions. Data on both medium will be compared and evaluated using SPSS. A secondary research will also be conducted in the study. Sources in secondary research will include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, organization statistics, etc. Sometimes, secondary research is required in the preliminary stages of research to determine what is known already and what new data are required, or to inform research design. In this paper, existing findings on journals and existing knowledge on books will be used as secondary research. The findings from the journals and books will be evaluated in the data analysis. Types of research journals chosen are all related to issues on human resource, human resources administration and human resource outsourcing. Interpretation will be conducted which can account as qualitative in nature.