Want to jump straight to the answer? The best HR outsourcing service for most people is Rippling or Paychex.
Human resources are a vital part of every company. But not every company has the budget to staff an in-house human resources department. That shouldn’t stop you from getting the help you need or having access to the best solutions.
The Top 9 Best HR Outsourcing Companies
Best of 2023: ADP, Engage PEO, G&A Partners, Insperity, Paychex, Rippling, Tandem HR, TriNet, Zenefits
HR outsourcing allows you to be flexible with some or all of your HR-related workload. These HR professionals can take care of everything from payroll taxes to benefits administration.
Read on for reviews of each of the services listed below, plus a methodology framework to help you find the service most suited to your business needs.
Our Favorite HR Outsourcing Services for 2023:
- Rippling – Best for saving time on HR tasks
- Paychex — Best HR outsourcing for complex payment cycles
- TriNet — Best for big business benefits on small business budgets
- Insperity — Best HR outsourcing service that runs itself
- ADP — Best HR outsourcing to handle some (or all) of your HR needs
You’ll find that some of these options allow you to offload HR tasks one by one, whether it is payroll, benefits administration, or something else.
Alternatively, you can outsource all your HR responsibilities to a professional employer organization (PEO). If that sounds like something intriguing, take a look at my review of the best PEO service providers.
For the list I’ve compiled here, though, I’ve included a mix of HR outsourcing services, including those that offer PEO-type services. I offer in-depth reviews of each, covering their features, benefits, and other key considerations.
I also included a summary of the criteria I used to review each product. Read on to find the best service for you.
Best HR Outsourcing Services Reviews
There are a lot of services that will help your organization manage its human resources tasks. I’ve reviewed them all and only included the best of the best. Here’s the skinny on each service that made my list.
Rippling – Best For Saving Time on HR Tasks
- All-in-one HR & IT platform
- 500+ app integrations
- Workflow automations
- Fast implementation
The details you don’t know about are what can sink a business, generate huge fines, and even create tension between employees and management. It can take years to perfect HR & IT management.
That’s where Rippling comes in. This service handles onboarding, off-boarding, payroll, taxes, and reviewing state regulations no matter the state.
The platform has everything integrated you need to separate HR and IT but still keep all your data unified for your workforce. Rippling is your single source of truth. And it’s just $8 per month per user to be able to control all the major parts of workflow for your business.
Plus, practically every workflow you have can be automated with the Rippling Automator, such as adding new hire information, application reviews, employee compensation, and even updates for engineering documentation.
Even if you don’t know anything about managing IT or HR, it’s all laid out for you. Plus the Rippling resource help center provides you with best-in-class information about every nook and cranny involving how to get the best out of this platform.
Even better, Rippling has what it calls “recipe templates.” You can choose among these hundreds of templates to save time when setting up features that you want to use in Rippling.
Pick among templates for things like employee engagement surveys, work-life balance monitors for employees who go more than 6 months without taking time off, tracking document signings, and creating reminders about employee benefit enrollment deadlines.
Whether it’s for reporting, workflow, or GitHub pull requests, it’s dead simple to implement. Rippling is ranked #1 in workforce global management in HR and IT services for a reason.
Save yourself more than just time and get started with Rippling today.
Paychex — Best HR Outsourcing for Complex Payment Cycles
- Wide range of HR services
- Pricing based on # of employees
- Great for smaller organizations
- Knowledgeable HR professionals
Ensuring error-free payrolls for your workers is one of the most important tasks for any HR department. True to its name, Paychex is one of the best online payroll services on the market today.
Paychex excels at this because it offers solutions to handle virtually any payment situation you can think of. Do you have:
- A mixed workforce of contractors and full-time employees? Paychex handles that with ease.
- A unique payment cycle goes beyond the typical “twice a month paycheck” routine? Paychex can handle that, too.
- Employees that want to be paid via prepaid debit cards? Paychex makes it simple to honor those requests.
Beyond payroll processing, Paychex also delivers fantastic HR outsourcing services. So if you’re in need of more than accurate payroll processing, Paychex is also a great option for:
- Retirement services
- Insurance services
- HR professionals
- Benefits administration
- Compliance services
Paychex offers solid mobile apps, too. Choose from Paychex Flex, Paychex Oasis, and Paychex Flex Time Kiosk. You can use the apps to track things like hiring, labor costs, and employee turnover. Employees can also easily use the app for self-service and training. For mobile and remote workforces, this is a huge win.
For businesses with an existing HR department in place, Paychex can act as an extension of this department by providing a dedicated outsourced HR manager. This professional can assist with hiring, onboarding, and retaining top-level talent.
They can also manage workforce analytics, benchmarking, corporate culture strategy, benefits, and basic employee training. It’s everything you need in an HR manager, without the overhead of hiring a full-time, in-house employee.
If all this sounds good, you can learn more at Paychex. For a limited time, you can get three months free. Read my in-depth Paychex review for more information.
TriNet — Best for Big Business Benefits on Small Business Budgets
- Full-service HR solution
- Wide range of industries
- Comprehensive HR platform
- Flexible plans and services
TriNet is another full-service HR outsourcing solution. It provides flexible plans and services to meet the needs of any sized business.
What makes TriNet really stand out though is its ability to provide some of the most competitive benefits on the market. This is a surefire way to attract top talent to your business.
TriNet has partnered with some of the biggest health insurance carriers throughout the country to help you get the highest quality coverage for your employees. Some of these top carriers include MetLife, Kaiser Permanente, Transamerica, Aetna, Aflac, MassMutual, and UnitedHealth Group.
It also offers premium benefits for dental, vision, life, disability, retirement, and transit insurance along with a massive list of voluntary benefits like home policies and even pet insurance. That’s right. When you use TriNet, your employees can make sure that Fido is set up, too.
TriNet’s 401k plans are flexible and transferable. TriNet also gives you a ton of discounts for computers, books, office supplies, and even services from places like Verizon, AT&T, and AVIS.
And, of course, you get key HR services beyond benefits administration, like HR consulting, benefit options, payroll services, and risk mitigation. You’ll also benefit from TriNet’s comprehensive HR platform. The platform contains tools for employee self-service and mobile access, too.
The best part is that TriNet caters specifically to startups and small businesses. This means your small company gets very competitive rates for very big-league benefits.
If you want to offer your employees the same level of service and convenience that the Fortune 500 workers expect, get started today at TriNet.
Insperity — Best HR Outsourcing Service That Runs Itself
- Full-service HR solution
- Individual & custom HR packages
- In business 35 years
- Best for mid-sized organizations
Insperity offers excellent PEO and HRO services. But the astonishing thing about them is how they offer to bundle services, making this provider a true “set it and forget it option” for HR task management. Find your bundle and you’re done.
While it does offer individual HR offerings like other products covered here, Insperity is a real winner because of their full-service solutions. Their offerings are often bundled, which gives you broader HR services in one package. For example, payroll comes with their human capital management software.
With everything you could need under one umbrella, all your HR tasks will work seamlessly with each other. But it’s the bundling in my opinion that allows you to fully customize your HR package.
Insperity also offers your employees great benefits including medical, vision, and dental coverage, and lets you outsource processing payroll, handling W-2s, W-4s, and employment verification.
It’ll also help you with liability insurance, workers’ compensation, and other areas of risk management. This service provider helps with HR-related compliance for things like unemployment claims and government reporting.
Insperity also assists with talent retention, by helping you create recognition programs and an employee handbook, and improving your employee training process.
I recommend Insperity to mid-market organizations. While it has solutions for businesses of five to 149 employees, its main focus and expertise is for companies with 150+ workers.
In addition to the full-service HR packages, you can also use Insperity for individual solutions including:
- Recruiting
- HR consulting
- Retirement
- Payroll
- Performance reviews
- Expense reports
- Time and attendance
- Insurance
- Accounting and bookkeeping
With more than three decades of expertise under its belt and over 70 offices across the country, Insperity is a top consideration for HR outsourcing that your midsize organization will never have to worry about.
ADP — Best HR Outsourcing to Handle Some (or All) of Your HR Needs
- Full-service HR solutions
- Flexible plans and services
- Solutions for any size business
- Top notch customer service
ADP offers a full-service suite of HR software and solutions.
However, I really like this company because it’s also great for companies that need a la carte HR services.
You might not need the full spread of payroll from retirement to insurance—and ADP allows you to choose one service, all of them, or only what you need right now.
This is great for small businesses that might not have the budget for everything under the sun. As you grow, you can add more until it makes sense to go with their PEO arrangements.
ADP also offers enterprise plans for companies with more than 1,000 employees.
Some of ADPs HR services include:
- Payroll
- Time and attendance
- Retirement plans
- Insurance
- Recruitment
- Consulting
- Employee management
- Benefits
ADP offers business insurance as well, along with group health insurance for your employees. Since ADP is such a large company, they have leverage and bargaining power with all major health insurance providers.
I also love ADP’s support team of knowledgeable HR professionals who can be reached via phone, email, or live chat. These pros can create and distribute all of the necessary forms, policies, and job descriptions for your organization. You can even create a custom employee handbook in compliance with local and federal laws.
From benefits packages to compliance and setting up employee self-service tools, ADP has it all. Check out my full ADP review to learn more about these offerings.
Its pricing is not shared on the website, but you can get a free quote from them today.
More Great HR Outsourcing Services
Zenefits — Best HR Platform to Wrangle Your Current HR Systems Together
- Best HR software
- Built for small businesses
- Streamline your HR tasks
- Pricing starts at $8/month
Zenefits is a bit unique compared to some of the other options on my list.
That’s because, technically, Zenefits is not an outsourcing service—it’s software for human resources.
The platform offers a way for you to integrate and centralize your HR systems into one intuitive platform. It serves the same purpose as an outsourced service in terms of ease and cost reduction. It’s also a cheaper alternative than a full-service outsourcing firm.
The best part is that it streamlines everything. You and your employees will be able to take a look at your org chart, access your benefits, request time off, and take care of onboarding all from one easy-to-navigate dashboard.
Zenefits’ software has everything you need to get your HR tasks and administration in order:
- Creating compensation packages and sending them to new hires
- Self onboarding for new employees
- Employee management tools
- PTO policies and managing time off requests
- Intelligence reports for your workforce
- Mobile accessibility (for administration and employees)
They also offer dozens of integrations out-of-the-box. The platform also has options for payroll, employee benefits, employee scheduling, and time tracking.
Most HR outsourcing services require you to get a custom quote from the provider. But, because this is software, Zenefits’ pricing is straightforward and available on the website.
- Essentials: $8 per employee per month. It includes employee management features, time-off tracking, schedule tracking with automated payroll synching, and a high-quality mobile app.
- Growth: $14 per employee per month. It includes everything in the Essentials tier, as well as employee performance review tools, compensation management and comparison tools, and predictive analytics for measuring workflow trends.
- Zen: $21 per employee per month. It includes everything in the Growth tier, as well as automated surveys for measuring employee engagement and a message area where employees can make announcements and ask questions.
You have the option of enhancing the features in any pricing tier with add-on services. These include:
- Payroll: Receive a tool for running the company-wide payroll for $6 per employee per month.
- Advisory services: Receive advice for dealing with HR situations from Zenefits’ experts for $8 per employee per month.
- Manage benefits: Rather than using one of Zenefits’ benefits broker partners, you can bring your own broker to your Zenefits account for managing employee benefits programs for $5 per employee per month.
- Recruiting: Receive tools to help you recruit, interview, hire, and onboard new employees for a monthly cost starting at $35.
If your small business needs to improve the way you handle HR tasks but don’t have the funds to completely outsource the service, Zenefits is the perfect solution for you.
Engage PEO — Best HR Outsourcing for Unique Compliance Needs
- Full service PEO provider
- Manage complex HR legal needs
- Every consultant is an attorney
- Strict compliance standards
Engage PEO is a full-service professional employer organization. They provide a PEO experience that always aims to put the client’s needs first with its innovative business model.
What makes Engage PEO so unique as an HR services provider? It’s the people…who are also all lawyers.
Seriously. Every member of their HR consulting team is an attorney. These legal professionals have significant experience with labor and employment law.
It also means that they’ll make all of your nitty gritty compliance headaches disappear like a magical ibuprofen for annoying legal issues.
That makes this a perfect solution for companies with complex HR legal needs. I’m talking about industries with strict compliance like construction, marijuana, healthcare, security, finance, and more. Engage PEO will be a top choice for you to consider.
Here’s a quick overview of some of the top outsourced HR functions offered by this provider:
- Employee policies
- Employee handbook
- EEO, ADA, and FMLA compliance
- State and US Department of Labor and Hour compliance
- Administration of unemployment claims
- Hiring and recruitment assistance
- Background check and drug screening
- Employment practices liability insurance
- Employee training
As a PEO provider, Engage PEO also offers payroll and tax administration, workers’ compensation, risk management, employee benefits, and integrated technology solutions.
Bottom line: If you have complicated compliance matters, Engage PEO is your choice.
G&A Partners — Best HR Outsourcing for Employee Training and Development
- In business for 20+ years
- Full-service or á la cart
- Payroll, recruitment, & more
- Best for niche industries
G&A Partners offers full-service HR outsourcing for things like payroll, benefits, compliance, workplace safety, performance management, and recruitment.
There are two different ways that your company can work with G&A Partners—you can also work with them through a PEO or an ASO (administrative services only) model. So there’s a little bit of flexibility in terms of what you’d like them to help you out with.
But, what I really like about G&A Partners is that it offers an automated training and development system for all of your employees. This gives you access to almost 1,500 training courses that can be scaled and customized to your company’s exact needs and specs.
You can assign any number and combination of courses to your employees, and track their progress as they learn. This is a great centralized way to develop and train your employees no matter where they are in their careers.
There are also plenty of reporting tools and dashboards for you and your employees, so you all know exactly what they need to work on.
Training content includes things like quizzes, videos, interactive assignments, and AICC and SCORM courses.
Is there something you want that G&A doesn’t offer? You can work external training into its programs as well.
Overall, it’s a great option if employee training and development are important to your company (and they should be).
Another unique standout of G&A Partners is its employee development services. This HR function includes candidate sourcing, job description, job postings, resume screening, and pre-hire assessments.
Once an employee is hired, this outsourced firm can handle onboarding, benefits enrollment, and performance management as well.
In addition to human resources, G&A Partners offers payroll services, benefits packages, and HR technology. They’re a particularly great and experienced choice for these types of industries:
- Nonprofits
- Health care
- Manufacturing
- Professional services
- Franchises
Boost your employees’ ability from the moment they’re hired by utilizing G&A Partners.
Tandem HR — Best HR Outsourcing for Minimizing Your Risk Liability
- Fully customized plans
- Easy to scale
- Wide range of services
- Full-service PEO provider
Tandem HR offers a wide range of human resources solutions for small businesses. This provider has the tools and expertise to help small businesses as they scale.
What sets them apart is their standout risk management solution. They give you solutions such as safety audits, OSHA record keeping, accident investigations, and more to make sure that your company is ready for the worst-case scenario.
And if things go bad, they even offer you worker’s compensation conversation and claims resolution services.
Remember: a safer workplace is a better workplace is a cheaper workplace. It benefits not only your employees, you, and your business, but it also helps everyone’s pocketbook. That’s like a quadruple win.
As a full-service PEO provider, Tandem HR also has tools and solutions for:
- Payroll
- Human resources
- Benefits
- Risk management
- Technology
These custom HR solutions will help you save time, save money, boost employee productivity, retain talent, and remain compliant at the state and federal levels. Get started with Tandem HR here.
How to Choose the Best HR Outsourcing Service For Your Business
With so many viable HR outsourcing services to choose from, finding the right one for you and your business might feel like a daunting task. Below, you’ll find the evaluation criteria that I use. These considerations will simplify your process and help you narrow down the best fit for you.
A Hands-On vs. Hands-Off HR Partner
Some of the HR outsourcing services on my list double as PEO (professional employer organization) providers. PEOs provide services like HR, payroll, benefits administration, and workers’ compensation. You can even get recruiting and onboarding assistance from a PEO provider.
Most PEOs are considered “co-employers” of workers—meaning if there’s a legal issue, both your business and the PEO provider are responsible. When the PEO provider takes a hands-on role, it means things are more hands-off for you.
Other options on my list are ASOs (administrative service organizations).
ASOs are not co-employers of your workforce, and they don’t typically offer the same comprehensive range of services as PEOs.
In terms of price, there isn’t much of a difference between PEOs and ASOs. So It’s just a matter of how much responsibility you’d like to assume when it comes to handling HR tasks.
Customizable and Sweeping Service Packages
Your HR solution will ultimately determine how many and what types of services you can offer to your staff.
For example, ADP TotalSource is great if you’re looking for a comprehensive PEO with payroll, time tracking, recruitment, retirement planning, medical insurance, vision, dental, and more.
If you’d rather pick and choose different HR services to build a customized package, G&A Partners is an excellent service to consider. It’s perfect if you have specific needs that you want to prioritize without having to sign up for everything that they offer.
Regardless of your situation, you can usually find HR outsourcing companies that specialize in your need.
Make sure you evaluate the employee onboarding process as well. Employee self-service portals for things like health benefits, retirement planning, and time off requests are crucial.
Requesting a demo before you commit to a contract is advisable. This will give you a chance to test out the dashboard on both the admin and employee sides.
Current Level of HR Maturity
The level of HR systems a business currently has in place should play a big role in outsourcing considerations.
Your business might be a startup looking to offer employees medical insurance and 401ks. Or your business could be an enterprise-grade operation that wants to supplement (or replace) the HR department with a good third-party solution.
Outsourcing firms typically have experience working with certain types of businesses. It all really boils down to if you have an HR system already and, if you do, how long you have had it in place.
For example, if you’re a small business owner with no HR infrastructure, you want to choose a service that has experience building from the ground up with smaller organizations, such as Tandem HR.
Large companies might not need that type of assistance. Instead, a larger business might just need a certain role or task outsourced. TriNet is a good solution for flexible HR services. ADP is another good one if you already have a few HR systems but just want a platform to manage it all from a single dashboard.
No matter what, decide whether or not you’re looking to simply add onto your current HR infrastructure or if you’re looking to fully outsource it.
Prompt Customer Support
Like a jumper cable or toilet paper, the worst time to realize you don’t have adequate customer support is when you need it but don’t have it.
Some common headache-inducing examples include:
- Your employee can’t access their health insurance group ID and policy information—and have a medical emergency they need addressed ASAP.
- You need to recruit and onboard a new employee to fill a role quickly.
- There’s an issue with an employee’s or contractor’s recent paycheck.
- A global pandemic just hit and you need to completely reorganize your employee structure immediately.
That’s why the level of customer support played a large role in determining my list of HR outsourcing services.
Some HR service providers are on hand at all hours to help you at all hours of the day such as ADP. They have live payroll support available 24/7/365 to help answer any questions you might possibly have.
Paychex also has 24/7 customer support along with a massive HR online library that gives you resources and tools for everything you might need related to HR.
Also worth noting is whether the HR service you’re considering gives you a dedicated account manager. If they don’t, who is your point person when issues come up?
Be sure to note how support is doled out throughout each of the HR providers you research. Some of them offer the same level of support no matter what pricing plan you choose. Others, such as Gusto, offer more intensive, hands-on support with more expensive pricing plans.
Best HR Outsourcing Services: Your Top Questions Answered
The Top HR Outsourcing Services in Summary
Rippling, Paychex, TriNet, Insperity, and ADP provide the best human resources outsourcing services. Whether you need an entire HR department or just need to outsource a single function, the best HR outsourcing services in this guide have you covered.
From payroll assistance to benefits administration and HR software, there’s an option for every business to lighten its load.