Building a More Scalable HR Function Through Outsourced HR Support
As hospitality organizations grow, their HR needs become increasingly complex. Managing employee relations, benefits, leaves, compliance, payroll, recruiting, and workforce strategy across multiple locations requires dedicated expertise and consistent support.
When a growing hospitality organization began reevaluating its internal HR structure, leadership partnered with Empowered Hospitality to provide comprehensive outsourced HR support. With approximately 1,300 employees across multiple locations, the organization needed an experienced HR partner that could take on the full scope of its corporate HR function while continuing to support the teams managing HR at the property level.
Empowered Hospitality stepped in as an extension of the organization’s leadership team, providing full-time HR support across employee relations, compliance, benefits, leave administration, workers’ compensation, payroll coordination, organizational design, team development, and strategic HR initiatives.
The Challenge: Creating a Scalable HR Structure for a Growing Organization
As the organization continued to evolve, leadership recognized an opportunity to rethink how its HR function was structured and supported.
The organization had HR resources at the property level, but needed dedicated corporate-level leadership to provide consistency, strategic direction, and oversight across the broader organization.
Leadership was looking for more than a replacement for a single internal position. They wanted an HR partner that could provide the breadth of expertise needed across the organization while also taking a fresh look at existing processes and identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, strengthen compliance, and support the employee experience.
With approximately 1,300 employees across multiple locations, the organization needed an HR model that could scale with the business while giving leadership greater visibility and support across its workforce.
Key Challenges
- Establishing consistent corporate HR leadership across multiple locations
- Supporting employee relations and workplace concerns
- Managing leaves of absence and workers’ compensation
- Coordinating benefits and open enrollment
- Strengthening HR processes and compliance
- Supporting organizational design and team development
- Identifying opportunities to improve HR and payroll efficiency
- Providing strategic HR support while maintaining day-to-day operations
Our Approach: Full-Service Outsourced HR Support
Empowered Hospitality stepped in to provide full-time capacity as the organization’s outsourced HR function.
Rather than focusing on a single area of HR, our team took on the broader responsibilities typically managed by a corporate HR department. This allowed the organization to access experienced HR leadership and specialized expertise across multiple areas while maintaining the HR resources supporting day-to-day needs at the property level.
Our support included:
- Employee relations and workplace support
- Leave of absence administration
- Workers’ compensation support
- Benefits administration and open enrollment
- Payroll coordination and process review
- HR strategy and organizational design
- Team development
- Compliance support
- Special projects and organizational initiatives
- Corporate HR leadership and day-to-day HR operations
As part of the engagement, Empowered Hospitality also conducted a broader review of the organization’s HR and payroll practices. This allowed our team to identify areas of risk as well as opportunities to improve processes and reduce unnecessary costs.
One example came through a review of paid break practices for back-of-house employees. EH identified a payroll practice in which paid break time was being included in hours worked for overtime calculations. Because the practice was occurring across the organization, it was contributing to additional overtime costs for a significant number of employees.
The review identified an opportunity affecting approximately 500 employees and resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in payroll savings.
Measurable Outcomes: Strengthening HR While Identifying Cost Savings
By partnering with Empowered Hospitality, the organization gained a dedicated HR function capable of supporting its workforce while also taking a broader look at the effectiveness of its HR infrastructure.
Full-Service HR Support: Provided comprehensive corporate HR support across employee relations, compliance, benefits, leave administration, workers’ compensation, payroll, organizational design, and team development.
HR Leadership & Continuity: Provided dedicated HR capacity and leadership while supporting the organization’s evolving HR structure.
Risk Identification: Conducted a broader review of HR practices to identify potential compliance and process risks.
Payroll Savings: Identified a payroll practice affecting approximately 500 employees and uncovered tens of thousands of dollars in payroll savings.
Strategic HR Support: Supported organizational design, team development, and broader HR strategy in addition to day-to-day HR responsibilities.
Scalable HR Infrastructure: Provided an outsourced HR model that gave leadership access to a broader range of HR expertise without requiring the organization to rebuild its entire corporate HR function internally.
The Value of Outsourced HR for Growing Hospitality Organizations
As hospitality organizations grow, their HR needs don’t always fit neatly into a single internal role. Leadership may need strategic HR guidance, employee relations expertise, compliance support, benefits administration, payroll coordination, and workforce strategy—all at the same time.
An outsourced HR model can provide access to a broader team of HR professionals with expertise across these areas, while allowing the organization to scale its level of support as its needs evolve.
For this organization, Empowered Hospitality became an extension of the leadership team, taking on the full scope of the corporate HR function while identifying opportunities to strengthen processes, reduce risk, and improve efficiency.
The engagement demonstrates that outsourced HR can be more than a way to fill an HR staffing gap. With the right partner, it can give growing hospitality organizations dedicated HR leadership, specialized expertise, and an outside perspective focused on making the entire people function more effective.
At Empowered Hospitality, we provide comprehensive outsourced HR support, HR consulting, employee relations, compliance support, payroll and benefits administration, recruiting, and workforce strategy designed specifically for hospitality organizations. Whether your organization is restructuring its HR function, preparing for growth, or looking for a more scalable approach to HR, our team can provide the expertise and capacity to support what’s next.
