HR outsourcing on the rise in Asia Pacific

While it was previously reported that HR outsourcing is on the rise in North America and Europe, there are indications that a similar trend is brewing in Asia Pacific.

Convergys, a US-based call center operator, recently acquired Singapore-based companies Out-Smart and i-Care.

Both companies offer employee care services and already have an established regional base among clients like American Express, Citibank and Dell.

A Convergys exec claims that the reallocation of services among Asian companies is growing faster than any region, especially among multinational companies.

According to another report, a similar trend in HR outsourcing also exists in India, which has the biggest concentration of outsourced service providers in the world.

Indian companies feel the need for HR outsourcing in order to cut down on employee costs.

But a study by Hewitt Associates shows that a lot of companies in Asia Pacific are either unfamiliar of procedures and processes involved in HR outsourcing or even provides these services locally.

The head of a Bangalore-based recruitment firm defines HR outourcing as "a process of outsourcing involving particular tasks like recruitment, making payroll,training and development to a third party having expertise in these respective fields."

HR outsourcing can happen in areas such as payroll, employee benefits administration, fixed assets administration, network, receivable and logistics management, hardware maintenance, telemarketing, call centres and database management.