To remain competitive in today’s business world, organizations must become increasingly efficient in managing employee benefits and other human resource functions. Maintaining a human resources staff and keeping current with the latest technology and regulatory issues can be daunting.

Consequently, more and more companies are looking to human resource outsourcing as a way to cost efficiently meet their human resource requirements. The biggest challenge is finding the right outsourcing resource that can help make the transition seamless and bring new value to managing the function.

The NIA Group, with its decades of experience in benefits planning and execution, has developed NIA Outsourcing to meet this challenge and more.

"Virtually any size employer can outsource HR functions," notes Mike Goodwin, senior benefits specialist with The NIA Group. " The key is finding an outsourcing firm that understands your specific level of need, that can identify efficiencies you can expect from carriers, providers and service suppliers, and can guide your organization through the process seamlessly and quickly."

NIA Outsourcing consists of a team of experts whose sole purpose is to manage and administer HR functions that were once considered employer-based responsibilities. The services provided for clients include:

• Employee benefits management, such as quality health, dental and retirement plans designed and packaged at reasonable rates.
• Compliance with ever changing local, state and federal employment laws and workplace regulation.
• State-of-the-art technology to help employers administer their human resources functions with ease and success.
• Streamlining existing human resource functions resulting in time and labor efficiencies.
• Review of premium costs and prior claims history to uncover processing mistakes that may result in savings today.
• Communication of programs based on employee population size and the level of experience and education.

There are a number of ways in which outsourcing programs can be implemented. Programs can be set up via Intranet portals where employees can seek out their own information and make decisions easily and efficiently. Other models exist where the individuals receive a kit from the company and have access to an 800 number and a customer service representative who can walk them through the benefits or claims process. "It really depends on the individual needs of the company; NIA works very hard to identify those requirements and match them with a viable outsourcing program," notes Goodwin.

"As corporate technology advances, companies – no matter what size or what field - have less and less of a need for an in-house HR function," says Denise Angleman, senior vice president of The NIA Group. "NIA Outsourcing helps businesses capitalize on such advances by contracting their human resources functions at a considerable time and labor savings. It also enables in-house HR staff to concentrate on more pertinent issues."

For more information, contact Mike Goodwin via email at mgoodwin@niagroup.com or by phone at 201.845.6600, Ext. 1262.