To outsource or not to outsource, that's the HR debate

A survey of human resources professionals in Fairfield County has found that small companies have roughly 85 employees for each HR professional on staff, while larger companies have about 200.

Human resources departments tend to outsource functions such as the administration of payroll, COBRA

and benefits, according to the survey, and larger firms may be doing more outsourcing The survey could be useful to local growing companies debating whether or not to but more HR employees or keep the departments smaller and do more outsourcing, said David Lewis, owner of OperationsInc, a 5-year-old HR outsourcing company in Stamford.

"You could certainly argue that if you find companies that have lower ratios of employees per HR professional, those companies should look at what they could have in-house versus out-of-house," Lewis said. "It isn't ironclad, but it is certainly a worthwhile exercise in terms of answering whether you want to have that kind of overhead." The survey was conducted by OperationsInc and Performance Management Inc. for the southern Connecticut chapter of the Society for Human Resources Management. Lewis is also a vice president of the local chapter. Some 400 members of the chapter were asked to complete the survey, which got 40 responses. About half of the group's members work in HR departments within companies; the other half are in outsourcing businesses.

In places like Fairfield County, where it can be difficult to find qualified human resources employees without paying high wages, outsourcing may be even more advantageous than elsewhere, Lewis said. He said his own company has benefited from the layoffs in human resources employment in the county. It now has 18 employees, up by five in the past year.

Jill Coscia, director of human resources and administration for The Ashforth Group, a Stamford-based commercial real estate company with 240 employees in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Oregon, said that as her company grew, the HR department has remained small. She has one full-time and one half-time employee working on HR functions. Coscia's company outsources COBRA administration, payroll administration benefits administration and workers compensation. COBRA, an acronym for Consolidated. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, is a federal law that mandates companies make health insurance available for a limited time to employees who leave the company. Administering COBRA, workers' compensation and health insurance can be tedious, clerical and sometimes esoteric, Coscia said, so outsourcing it is good for her company. But Coscia said she does not want to outsource the enrollment process for health insurance benefits.

Coscia said she believes employees are more comfortable going over the options face-to-face with another person rather than interfacing with a computer screen.