Five ways to rein in rogue spending across your organization

You keep a close eye on your business's sales performance and marketing effectiveness. But do you give the same attention to your HR, IT and finance teams? Few business owners do, and they're losing money because of it. These teams might not generate revenue, but they can certainly affect your bottom line.

Lack of oversight on business processes like hiring, benefits administration, and technology management are common sources of uncontrolled spending. These five tips can help you rein in spending across your business:

1. Re-evaluate your human capital strategy

People are your company's biggest asset. They may also be your company's biggest source of unnecessary spending. One of the biggest culprits here is the hiring process. According to a 2012 study by the Center for American Progress, the additional cost of replacing a single hire earning $75,000 or less is a staggering 20 percent of their annual salary.

This amount includes the often overlooked costs of hiring, training, and ramp-up time. It does not, however, include the cost of management and benefits administration. These add up quickly, especially if you use contingent labor.

One of the easiest ways to lower your human capital spend is to adopt a workforce solutions program like Adecco's Master Vendor Program. These solutions work with your business, alleviating much of the costly time and effort that goes into hiring, training and administering benefits for your workforce.

2. Review cost management policies with your staff

Your business probably has a number of cost-management policies in place. But do your employees actually follow -- or even know -- them? If not, meet with your management team and consider holding small team meetings to review policies like overtime, utility usage, and T&E. 

Better policy compliance will not only reduce your overall spend, you'll also save on the time and manpower that finance and HR devotes to processing expense reports.

3. Examine how technology is impacting your workforce

Whether you're in an office, a manufacturing facility or out in the field, you and your workforce are surrounded by technology. 

Work with your IT and management teams to get a handle on any inefficiencies or gaps in your company's current technology. You may discover that your employees aren't using the fancy CRM system you invested in because it doesn't suit their day-to-day needs. Likewise, you might turn up software licenses you're paying for but not using, or paying fees to vendors you never use.

4. Get help with billing and reporting

Rather than finding savings, the man hours you invest in to provide reporting and process billing may be costing you more than you save. A Master Vendor Program can reduce your spending on the personnel resources needed for billing and reporting. It can also help you find additional savings through top-shelf accounting support.

Master Vendor Programs can facilitate consolidated invoicing on a single billing cycle. They also handle associate payroll processing and financial reporting. These programs don't replace your internal HR teams -- they augment them. Their ability to provide reporting and billing support eases the operational burden on your finance and HR staff.

5. Find a better way to manage your cyclical staffing needs

If your business uses seasonal employees, or if it brings in additional resources to help you process taxes, you're losing money by launching the hiring and training process again and again. Instead, consider a contingent labor strategy. 

The right workforce solution provider can save your business money by handling the hiring and onboarding processes, as well as the day-to-day management, billing, documentation and payroll responsibilities. Not only does this save you money, it saves you time.

Contact us to learn more about our staffing solutions.