Once upon a time, most HR departments provided one-stop shopping for employees with questions or concerns about benefits, hiring, training, complaints, colleagues, etc. For leaders, HR was the place to go for recruitment, retention and terminations. HR is a critical function and most companies handled it in-house. That’s all changing very rapidly. Today an estimated 50 percent of large companies outsource all or part of their HR needs.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither. Like everything else in business and talent management, a one size culture fits no one. The key is to develop a strategy and solution that works for your organization.

Here are the 5 top reasons so many companies are turning HR over to outsourced experts:

1)  It frees them to concentrate on core competencies. HR does not produce a product, yet it can eat up a lot of an organization’s time and energy. A great HR department demands resources and continual oversight and innovation. Many organizations would rather focus on their core strengths and/or moneymakers by outsourcing HR.

2)  It saves money. Running an effective HR department costs bucks, sometimes big bucks. Many organizations do the math and just decide it’s not worth it. It also allows organizations to hire world-class specialists they could never afford to bring on-board permanently. This kind of virtual workforce will continue to find momentum.

3) It improves compliance. There are a whole lot of regulations out there these days. There is the constant threat of lawsuits for sexual harassment, wrongful termination, safety violations, etc. When you hire a compliance specialist, these headaches become theirs.