Human capital services encompass a broad range of assistance provided by external organizations and consultants to help companies address concerns regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of the people they hire. Usually, the objective is to maximize the performance and potential of human capital within an organization. Services provided often include staffing services, executive search, recruitment, assessment and verification services, talent management, HR management and outsourcing, software solutions, consulting and outplacement services. Most human capital services providers will specialize in one or more of those areas, but seldom does a provider offer assistance in all of these key areas. Due to an ever-increasing competitive landscape among qualified staff and potential hires, efficiency in human capital processes is a growing concern, which is the driving factor behind such services.
Providers of human capital services that specialize in staffing and workforce solutions help organizations by providing qualified personnel on an as-needed basis. Doing so can help the organizations mitigate the risks associated with hiring a full-time employee who might not work out, while also reducing overhead associated with hiring, training and staffing a position that might only be temporary. Employees in turn can benefit with more flexible schedules, multiple work experiences and the potential to find the right company to work for before entering into a long-term commitment.
Talent management providers usually help organizations retain the talent in which they have already invested. This type of human capital services focuses on key areas, such as designing the right compensation packages, providing the right work environment, and addressing the concerns of employees effectively. Executive search on the other hand is a service that helps organizations locate and recruit the best executives to lead the company at any given time. Based on the premise that different types of leaders are needed at different stages of an organizations growth, executive search firms usually represent a diverse pool of executives and understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Recruitment providers assist organizations in maximizing their recruiting efforts, which usually consists of helping with the entire recruiting and hiring process. Assessment and verification providers usually pick up the time consuming and expensive process of assessing potential candidates for a particular job and verifying the backgrounds or candidates identified as a proper fit. Software companies that specialize in human capital services assist organizations in storing, accessing, analyzing and making decisions on data related to the use of human capital effectively within the organization.
Outsourcing of human resources and related management are also important services offered by human capital providers, in particular for smaller organizations. Such a process usually includes taking over some or all of HR functions from recruiting to processing payroll and terminating employees. Consulting, however, is usually the most extensive service provided. This often includes the human capital service provider coming into the company, analyzing all human capital operations and processes, identifying deficiencies, making recommendations, and implementing those recommendations when given the authority to do so.