Take A Load Off!

Kim Dushinski had had enough. A partner in MarketAbility Inc., a Golden, Colorado, book publicity firm, she had spent too many hours struggling to fill out personnel forms for the company's four employees. "Human resources isn't what I want to do or know how to do, and it's not how we bring in revenues," she says.

Then she heard about outsourced human resources, where specialty consulting firms take over the HR duties of a business. So the 33-year-old entrepreneur contracted with an outside firm to handle MarketAbility's human resources needs--from payroll to administering a health insurance program and a 401K plan. The monthly fee Dushinski pays to have this company handle all the HR chores is less than $50 per employee. Although she'd initially hesitated to spend that money, nowadays Dushinski says, "I feel relieved of a burden and our business is doing great!"

Robert McGarvey writes on business, psychology and management topics for several national publications. To reach him online with your questions or comments, e-mail rjm@mcgarvey.net

This article was originally published in the August 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Take A Load Off!.