Insight Performance has a wide variety of HR service offerings that can benefit both employers and employees. Learn more about them in this podcast with Jane O’Connor.
John: Hi, I’m John Maher and I’m here today with Jane O’Connor, Director of Business Development at Insight Performance, a human resources consulting firm based in Massachusetts. Today we’re talking about Insight’s HR service offerings. Welcome, Jane.
Jane: Thanks John, great to be here.
What Insight Does
John: Jane, tell me a little bit more about what Insight does.
Jane: Insight is a human resource consulting firm and we work with small to mid-size businesses and offer them a comprehensive outsourced HR function.
Service Models
John: Okay. You have three different service models. Can you tell me what those are?
Jane: Sure. Those three service models are the managed HR services. We can work with our clients on a project basis [and] we have a subscription service called HR. Solved.SM
Managed HR Services
John: Let’s go through each one of those and you can tell me a little bit more about them. What are your managed HR services?
Jane: Managed HR, as we’re going into an organization, we’re essentially managing all different aspects of HR for that organization. It could be tactical, which is compliance employee handbooks, new hire paperwork [and] things of that nature. We can also work with that business on a much more strategic level.
Working with senior leadership, [we ask questions like] “Where is the business today?” “Where are you looking to grow the business?” “How do you align your HR function to meet those overall business needs?”
John: Do you actually go into the companies and say they’ve just hired some new people, you actually go into the company and work on getting those people set up that sort of thing?
Jane: We do. It’s a mix of on and off site support. Many of our clients want us there. We’re the face to HR. We’re working with managers, senior leadership along with individual employees to respond to different questions they may have. If somebody was newly hired, we might be reviewing the new hire paperwork, the benefits that the organization is offering.
We support managers as they are managing their teams and they have different questions and issues that people are coming to them with. We should really be their first resource to help navigate the different HR questions and issues that come up as you’re running a business.
Project Based Support
John: Okay. Your other service offering that you mentioned was that you work with clients on a project basis. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Jane: Sure. A client may have a very specific project need. They need to have their employee handbook written. They’d like us to come in and do a compliance assessment to make sure that the business is in compliance with all state and federal laws. We have someone on our team who manages compensation.
An organization may have specific needs in the area of compensation so we can come in and work with them on a project basis to fulfill that need. We also have folks on our recruiting team. If a client has specific recruiting needs, we can come in and manage that on a project basis.
HR. Solved.SM
John: Finally, you have another service offering called HR. Solved.SM Tell me a little bit more about that.
Jane: HR. Solved.SM is a great product for smaller businesses who maybe don’t need the full boat of Insight services yet but they do need a resource to turn to for HR questions and issues. They want to make sure that the organization is in compliance, they want to make sure they stay in compliance.
We’ll send them all different state and federal updates, changes. They have access to our best practice library for templates forms things of that nature.
John: Is there a particular size company that HR. Solved.SM is designed for?
Jane: It can be for a very — there really isn’t. It can be for a very small organization who again the level of HR need is on the smaller side but they definitely want to resource to turn to. HR. Solved.SM is also great for a larger organization who may have a solo internal HR person within the organization.
Being a solo HR person can be a very lonely place to be when you have questions or a complicated employee relations issue. They could reach out to our team and run something by them. “This is the situation I’m dealing with. I’d love to put my head together with another HR professional so that I can figure out the best way to solve the problem for me.” [From a] legal compliance standpoint but also from a best practice standpoint.
John: You mentioned that you work with companies that have a solo HR person who works for the company. I believe that you also work with companies that don’t have any HR at all. Do you work with companies that have a whole HR department but still need some additional support?
Jane: We can. We can definitely augment internal HR departments. Again it could be something like an employee handbook that the internal HR person has been trying to get to for a year and it’s always on the bottom of their To-Do list, and we can come in and just handle that and get it done for them.
Again I mentioned compensation earlier. Comp is a very specialized skill set. Many folks internally within an HR department may not feel that they have that expertise to manage a comp. They also may not have the time to do it. Recruiting is another great thing that an organization may not have. They may have an HR department but they don’t have people who specialize in recruiting.
We can work directly with the hiring managers to help support whatever the recruiting needs are for the company.
John: Try to find the right employees for that company.
Jane: That’s key in this day and age — finding the right fit.
What Makes Insight Performance Unique
John: Right. What are some of the things that make Insight unique?
Jane: Insight offers and unbounded solution to HR. Where a company is now, they may be a smaller organization and have a certain set of HR needs today. Two years from now, [they] might be a very different looking organization. They may have grown a lot [and] have a lot more employees. They may be in different states.
We have the ability to structure our team to support an organization. It’s really a both ends of the spectrum. Where you are today and where you may be in the future. We also have a phenomenal team at Insight. All of the members of our team at Insight are all employees of Insight. We really, truly do work together as a team.
We have folks who are great, generous, who really are up on all compliance, [both] state [and] federal. They do a great job at employ handbooks, things of that nature. We also have folks who are really very senior in their HR experience. Who are really working at more of a VP level of HR, so they are going to interact very well with senior leadership and strategically figuring out where an organization is? How do we align our HR function to what the overall needs and goals of the business are?
There’s a lot of support if you look at organizations who have HR very proactively set within the organization. They’re managing their team, they’re a highly engaged team. They’re making sure that the employees at their higher are really fit for the culture within the organization. Those companies are much more successful in their overall business as they’re running it and meeting the goals that they’ve set for the organization.
We also have folks who specialize in, as I mentioned, recruiting [and] compensation, and we also have a phenomenal employee benefits team. It’s really anything that you could think of than an internal HR department in a larger company would have, we offer that to the small and midsize businesses that we work with.
John: All right. Great. Well, that’s really great information Jane. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Jane: It’s a pleasure. Thank you.
John: For more information, visit insightsperformance.com or call (781) 326-8201.
