Outsourcing is its own BASK key concept, separate from service models and structural models. The testable part is the list of examples, and knowing which items belong to other functional areas.
The six named examples
The BASK gives these as examples of outsourcing of HR functions:
- Recruiting
- Benefits administration
- Payroll
- Legal
- Contract management
- Investigations
Investigations is on the list expressly. When a scenario raises impartiality concerns in a case involving a senior leader, the BASK supports outsourcing it. There is no rule that outsourcing investigations requires a particular service model, and investigations is a service, not a structural model and not a metric.
What gets slipped in
Wrong sets add concepts from elsewhere:
- Succession planning, knowledge management, workforce forecasting, mentorship, cross-training: Workforce Management concepts.
- Progressive discipline: an Employee & Labor Relations concept.
- Matrix reporting: a structural model.
- Balanced scorecard: an HR-function metric.
- Workforce profile: a Workforce Management key concept about the composition of the workforce.
A set is only correct if every item is on the six.
The judgment pattern
A 300-employee firm with one HR coordinator who spends most of each month on payroll and benefits questions, and no added headcount available, is the classic setup. The keyed action is to evaluate outsourcing payroll and benefits administration so internal capacity shifts to services that drive organizational effectiveness.
The reasoning chains back to the functional-area definition: HR exists to deliver services that create and drive organizational effectiveness, and payroll and benefits administration are the two functions the BASK names as commonly outsourced. Cutting hiring support sacrifices the service with the clearest business impact. Handing benefits questions and new-hire paperwork to managers pushes compliance-sensitive administration onto untrained people. Stretching the payroll cycle changes pay timing rather than the delivery model.
Carry this: outsource the transactional, keep the work that drives effectiveness.