Human Resources Outsourcing Company For Sale

Business description

This long established Human Resources/Personnel Management business has been established by the current owners in excess of 20 years. Since that time it has grown to be recognised as one of the HR/Personnel Management service providers of choice to the small and medium enterprise market (SME) in the South of England.

The company has developed on the back of the trend of businesses to look to outsource those areas of operation where real HR and employment law expertise is necessary, but cannot be justified financially and is provided at a significantly lower cost than an in-house function. This trend affects both small and large enterprises. It is however more acutely felt within the SME marketplace, where businesses have to manage their people with the same degree of expertise as larger concerns, but where financial and people resources are often very constrained. This service enables SME’s to have the full resources of a major corporate organisation, including qualified and experienced legal advice, recruitment and assessment expertise plus people management consultants, but to a level of need and cost to match their specific and personalised requirments.

In broad terms the company delivers through four major service lines as follows:

• Employee relations
o Advice & guidance on employment legislation including contracts of employment, maternity and sex, race and disability discrimination.
o Minimising attendance, time-keeping and absence issues through effective management.
o Preparation of employment contracts and company handbooks.
o Implementation of changes to contractual terms & conditions.
o Handling disciplinary and grievance procedures.
o Defence and representation of clients at Employment Tribunals.
o Union negotiations.
• Recruitment assignments
o Design & administration of professional and effective advertising.
o Creation of job & candidate specifications.
o Screening all candidates and conducting preliminary interviews.
o Psychometric profiling.
o Co-ordination & liaison with employment agencies
• Staff Development
o Design of job evaluation, appraisal and salary review systems.
o Training needs analysis.
o Employee attitude surveys.
o Development & presentation of in-house training courses including:
? Employment Law for line managers.
? Disciplinary & grievance procedures.
? Selection techniques.
? Appraisal skills.
? Time management



• Organisational development
o Departmental restructuring.
o Development of job descriptions and competency frameworks.
o Redundancy & restructuring planning and project management.
o Remuneration and commission schemes.

Turnover is evenly split amongst employee relations, recruitment assignments and staff development. Most organisational development work is handled as a bespoke project.

The company provides services through the following channels:

• Annual contracts – advice and support contracts (A&S) where a nominal annual retainer fee is charged based on the number of employees and, in addition, a per occasion fee is charged for telephone advice. Hourly based rates are charged for all general projects undertaken.
• Annual contracts – where a total annual fee is charged for a fully outsourced contract (FOS & see further notes), and other fees become chargeable for special projects outside of the scope of the FOS contract terms.
• Non-Contracted Service – where clients do not enter into an annual contract a higher hourly rate is charged.

Many organisations now wish to completely outsource the full gambit of the HR function, (FOS contracts) and over recent years, this trend has been growing at a substantial rate within the SME sector. The major functions provided through a fully outsourced HR contract are as follows:

• All personnel administration duties including offer letters, replies to Social Security enquiries, taking up & issuing employee references, contract of employment changes and updates to sickness, time keeping & absence reporting.
• State of the art, web based HR record systems enabling client management and also employees to have secure and managed access to HR records.
• Employment law and case law interpretation and advice to line management and the co-ordination and implementation of practices to secure the integrity of procedures/practices in line with statutory requirements.
• Regular computerised reports on sickness, time keeping & absence reporting.
• Regular site visits by senior personnel manager to supply advice and guidance to management on personnel and employment related issues.
• Telephone advice service to management on employment law and all HR related topics.

The company currently provides services to thirty nine clients of which seven are on the FOS contract and thirty one are on annual AS contract. Clients operate within a broad spread of industries including: Professional Services, Motor Industry, Insurance, IT & Telecoms, Engineering, Care sector, Manufacturing etc.



Customer Service

The business was founded upon a modus operandi of excellence in the quality of their support, servicing standards and above all their commercialism. The fact that many of the clients have been with them in excess of 10 years and some as long as 20 plus years, underpins their claim to have maintained these standards at all times.

Property information

Location:

The company utilises excellent, high quality serviced office accommodation with circa 400 square feet dedicated to the business. Meeting rooms are utilised as demand dictates for interviewing and meeting clients.

Other information

Expansion potential:

The existing owner who initiated the business, has created a sound and professional organisation, but now considers that a new fresh approach and vision will enable the business to achieve the next stage of its development and realise the true future potential that exists within the SME market place. It is considered that with the right management and the implementation of a more aggressive sales stance and possibly the benefits of synergy with the right partner, that there is ample opportunity within the market place to achieve growth well in excess of 100% within the next few years.


Key Opportunities

The company is in the initial stages of implementing a new internet based HR software service, usually only available to corporate organisations, which will be a major development for its existing fully outsourced clients and will undoubtedly enable the company to convert other clients into this higher level of service contract. This is already starting to and will continue to generate substantive new revenue streams for the business.

Currently the consultancy team primarily consists of very experienced consultants employed by the business. However, a new strategy of balancing this highly experienced team with up and coming HR professionals, will enable the organisation to recruit marginally less experienced consultants who can undertake assignments lower down the ‘value chain’. This would generate incremental fees, but at a lower hourly cost

Competition / Market:

With the exception of the website, which is professionally designed, hosted and maintained, little direct marketing activity is currently undertaken. The company would undoubtedly benefit therefore from the development and execution of a strategic and promotional marketing plan addressing all media activities.

Support & training:

Unusually the current owner will agree to an extended period of training, handover and familiarisation and if required is able to provide continued support for the new owners for the short term, to ensure a smooth transition to new ownership.

Reasons for selling:

The current owners consider that they have achieved a good base from which its true potential can be realised and are looking in the short to medium term to pursue other interests. . The owner is continuing to pursue expansion and service development plans and is offering the business for sale not only as an organically expanding going concern, but with further significant growth potential.