Evaluating HR Options - Speed, Cost & Quality (Part 1)

The old adage from car racing of: "speed, cost, quality... pick two!" wonderfully illustrates the challenges many business owners face when developing their plans for growth as well as evaluating the services of third party vendors. Very rarely will you have two options where there's a hands down winner across all three categories, so it's important to decide what is most valuable to you. When considering your choices for human resources administration, this decision will have far reaching consequences if you're not careful. Over the next three days, we'll take a closer look at these factors applied across the core HR duties of payroll, benefits and compliance.

• Speed - How quickly do I need things done?
• Payroll: Delays in payroll processing could get messy if checks are not issued when due. Depending on your pay cycle, you will have 7-10 days to issue checks after the cycle has ended. When dealing with terminations, you may even need to provide them a check on that same day!
• Benefits: Enrollment applications are usually done in advance of the effective date because most employers have a waiting period, so speed may be less relevant in this area if you're organized.
• Compliance: Timing can be critical when dealing with legal issues as deadlines can vary and huge penalties could apply. Although there may be lulls in the activity of this area, when something happens, you need to act fast.