Outsourced HR Services
Outsourced HR Services
Manchester & the North West
Your entire HR function, handled. Employment law compliance, employee relations, policies, contracts and day-to-day people management, for North West SMEs who want it done properly without building an in-house team.
CIPD Qualified Consultants
Bolton, Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire
No Long-Term Contracts
In short: Outsourced HR — you'll also see it called HR outsourcing — means DaisyHR becomes your HR department. We handle employment contracts, handbooks, disciplinaries, grievances, absence management and ERA 2025 compliance, so you get a full HR function without the full-time cost. Built for North West employers across Bolton, Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire. No long-term contracts.
What Is Outsourced HR?
Outsourced HR means handing your HR function to an external provider who handles it on your behalf: everything from employment contracts and absence management to disciplinaries, grievances, and employment law compliance.
You'll also hear it called HR outsourcing or a managed HR service. It all means the same thing: an experienced HR team working for your business, without your business having to employ one.
For most North West employers, the reality is this: you do not have an HR department. You have a business to run, a team to manage, and a growing pile of HR questions you are not sure how to answer. Outsourced HR solves that. DaisyHR becomes your HR team, available when you need us, handling the things you should not be handling alone. As an employer, you're legally responsible for getting these things right whether or not you have anyone in-house to manage them. HR outsourcing puts that expertise on your side without adding headcount.
It is different from a fractional HR director, which is a senior individual embedded in your leadership team to own your people strategy. Outsourced HR is broader. It covers the full operational HR function across your business. Many DaisyHR clients use both: a fractional HR director for strategy and leadership, with our outsourced HR service handling the day-to-day layer beneath.
Outsourced HR vs Your Other Options
A full-time HR manager
Typically £35,000–£50,000 a year once salary, employer NI and pension are counted. One person, one skill set — and gaps whenever they’re on holiday or off sick.
A national HR outsourcing provider
Big call-centre advice lines, template documents, and often multi-year fixed-term contracts. You get scale. You rarely get the same adviser twice, or advice from someone who knows your business.
Doing it yourself
Free, until it isn’t. One mishandled dismissal can cost an employer more in management time, legal fees and settlement than years of proper HR support.
DaisyHR outsourced HR
A named CIPD-qualified consultant, rolling monthly terms, and advice from people who’ve run HR functions inside North West businesses. Strategic when you need a plan. Hands-on when it kicks off.
What DaisyHR's Outsourced HR Service Covers
We do not hand you a folder of templates and disappear. Outsourced HR with DaisyHR means we actively manage your HR function on an ongoing basis. Here is what that looks like:
Employment Contracts and Documentation
Every employee you hire gets a contract that is legally compliant, up to date with current employment law, and actually fit for purpose in 2026. Not a template downloaded from the internet in 2019. We draft, review and maintain your employment contracts, offer letters, and associated documentation as standard.
Employee Handbook and Policies
Your employee handbook is the foundation of your HR function. We write it, keep it current, and update it every time the law changes, including the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes rolling out through 2026 and 2027. Your managers know what to do because the policies tell them clearly.
Disciplinaries and Grievances
When a disciplinary situation or employee grievance arises, we manage the process with you from start to finish. We advise on the right procedure, draft the letters, attend hearings where needed, and ensure every decision is legally defensible.
This is the area where getting it wrong costs the most, and where most SMEs without HR support come unstuck.
Absence Management
High absence costs you more than most business owners realise: in lost productivity, management time, and the knock-on effect on the rest of the team. We put absence management frameworks in place, conduct return to work processes, and advise on when and how to escalate persistent or long-term absence. With SSP now payable from day one of absence from April 2026, having a proper absence management process is no longer optional.
Employment Law Compliance
Employment law changes constantly. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the biggest change in a generation and most SME contracts and handbooks are already out of date. DaisyHR keeps your business compliant. Not reactively, after a problem has arisen, but proactively, before it does.
Employee Relations
When relationships break down, when performance falls, when an employee raises a concern, we are there. HR advice you can actually use, from people who understand the practical realities of running a North West SME, not a call centre operative reading from a script.
Onboarding and Offboarding
How someone joins your business and how they leave it matters enormously: legally, culturally, and reputationally. We build onboarding processes that set new starters up to succeed and exit processes that protect the business and maintain dignity on both sides.
How Outsourced HR Works With DaisyHR
Free Consultation
Tell us what is going on. We listen, ask the right questions, and give you an honest picture of what your HR function looks like right now and what it needs to look like. No sales script. Thirty minutes, no obligation.
HR Audit
Before we start, we conduct a rapid audit of your existing HR documentation: contracts, handbooks, policies, any previous correspondence. We identify the gaps and the risks. You know exactly what you are dealing with before we begin.
We Agree Scope
Every business is different. We agree exactly what the outsourced HR service covers for your business, whether that is a full managed service or support in specific areas. You know the cost before you commit to anything.
We Get to Work
Your DaisyHR consultant gets embedded. Within the first 30 days we typically have your contracts updated, your handbook reviewed, and your managers briefed on process. The reactive firefighting stops. The proactive HR management starts.
Ongoing, Scaling With You
As your business grows, your HR needs change. We scale with you: more support during periods of growth or change, lighter touch during steadier periods. No long-term contracts tying you to a fixed cost you cannot adjust.
How Much Does Outsourced HR Cost?
Outsourced HR is tailored to the size of your business and the scope of services you need. Here is how we structure it for North West SMEs:
Essential
Quoted to your business
Employment contracts maintained, employee handbook kept current, employment law updates, telephone and email HR advice line. Suited to businesses between 10 and 30 employees who need the foundations in place and a reliable source of advice.
Managed
Quoted to your business
Everything in Essential plus active management of disciplinaries, grievances and absence, monthly check-in, ERA 2025 compliance management, onboarding and offboarding support. The most common engagement for businesses between 30 and 60 employees.
Full Service
Quoted to your business
Everything in Managed plus strategic HR input, people planning, manager coaching, TUPE support, redundancy management, restructure support. For businesses between 60 and 100 employees or those going through significant change.
What does HR outsourcing cost across the UK market? Published 2026 guides put typical UK outsourced HR at £15–£50 per employee per month, or £100–£500 a month on retainer for most SMEs, with ad-hoc advice at £60–£150 an hour. We work differently: a fixed monthly figure quoted to your business — not a per-head rate card — agreed in full before you commit. If your headcount moves, the conversation happens before the invoice does.
What you do not pay: employer NI, pension, holiday cover, sick pay, or recruitment costs. Book a free consultation and we will give you a clear, specific quote for your business before you commit to anything.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 Is Live. Is Your HR Function Ready?
Most North West SME employment contracts and handbooks haven't caught up with the Employment Rights Act 2025, which became law on 18 December 2025 and is rolling out in phases through 2026 and 2027. Here's where employers stand today:
6 April 2026 — in force now – SSP is payable from day one of sickness absence. The three-day waiting period and the lower earnings limit are gone (£123.25 a week statutory rate, or 80% of average weekly earnings if lower). If your absence policy still mentions waiting days, it's wrong.
6 April 2026 — in force now – Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave became day-one rights. Statutory paternity pay still requires 26 weeks’ service — a detail plenty of handbooks miss.
6 April 2026 — in force now – The protective award for failing to consult on collective redundancy doubled from 90 to 180 days’ pay per affected employee. Every redundancy process must be airtight.
7 April 2026 — in force now – The Fair Work Agency opened: one enforcement body for minimum wage, holiday pay and SSP, with the power to inspect employers directly.
1 October 2026 – Employment tribunal time limits double from three months to six for most claims. A dismissal handled badly this autumn can come back at you well into 2027.
1 January 2027 – The unfair dismissal qualifying period drops from two years to six months, and the cap on the compensatory award is removed. Anyone with six months' service on that date is protected — including the people you're hiring right now.
DaisyHR's outsourced HR service includes full ERA 2025 compliance management: we update your documentation, brief your managers, and get ahead of each phase before it lands, not after. Start with our Employment Rights Act 2025 employer guide.
Read Our Full Employment Rights Act 2025 GuideBuilt for North West SMEs, Not Corporate HR
Our outsourced HR clients are typically businesses between 5 and 150 employees across Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Warrington, Wigan, Bury, Preston, Lancaster, Chester, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire.
They look like one of these:
The Business That Has Never Had HR
Running on gut instinct, manager judgement, and a set of contracts written years ago. One near-miss away from a serious problem. This is the most common starting point.
The Business That Has Outgrown Informal HR
What worked at 15 people does not work at 45. The processes are not there, the handbook is vague, managers are making it up as they go.
The Business That Lost Its HR Person
One HR manager covered everything. Now they have gone and there is nobody to hand things to. Outsourced HR fills that gap immediately.
The Business Preparing for Growth
About to scale fast, raise investment, or go through an acquisition. The HR function needs to be in shape before that happens, not after.
Why North West Employers Choose DaisyHR
No invented testimonials here. Real client case studies, with real names and outcomes, are being published with our clients' consent — the first is live: how a Bolton wholesale distributor got HR compliant. Until the rest are up, judge us on the things you can check today:
- Qualified people, not an advice line. Every DaisyHR consultant is CIPD qualified with at least ten years’ senior HR experience. Sam, our founder, is Chartered MCIPD (Level 7) with a specialism in employment relations.
- Rolling monthly terms. No multi-year lock-in, so we have to earn your business every month.
- A named consultant who knows your managers, your site and your sector — the same person this month and next.
- Fair-process HR. Employers who treat people fairly see fewer grievances, fewer tribunal claims and better retention. That’s the approach we bring to every case — it protects your business and your people at the same time.
Then book a free call and put the ten questions below to us.
Who You'll Be Working With
Founder & HR Director
MCIPD · Fractional HR Director, Bolton & North West
Sam spent 10 years building HR functions in North West businesses, not just managing the day-to-day, but shaping how companies hire, develop and retain their people as they scale.
Before DaisyHR, she led HR across manufacturing, professional services and high-growth SMEs. The businesses where HR wasn't a support function. It was a commercial lever. She's seen what happens when companies get their people infrastructure right early, and what it costs when they don't.
She's also been in the room when it kicks off. Disciplinaries that escalate. Grievances that get personal. Redundancy programmes that need handling properly. That's the bit most HR consultants outsource or avoid. Sam runs toward it.
She started DaisyHR because she kept seeing the same gap: businesses that needed strategic HR thinking and someone who'd roll their sleeves up when required. Not one or the other. Both.
What Sam brings
- Helped growing businesses get their people structure right before it becomes a problem
- Workforce planning and organisational design that grows with you
- People strategy that connects to commercial goals
- The calm, experienced presence when difficult conversations need having
- CIPD Chartered (Level 7) with a specialism in employment relations
Bolton based. North West focused. Strategic when you need a plan. In your corner when you need backup.
Every DaisyHR consultant is CIPD qualified with a minimum of ten years' senior HR experience. We don't use generalists. We use people who've sat at the board table and navigated the exact situations our clients face.
Ten Questions to Ask Any Outsourced HR Provider Before You Sign
This is the checklist Sam gives employers who are comparing providers. We'll answer all ten on a free call — and you should put the same ten to anyone else you're considering, including instead of us.
How long is the contract? Rolling monthly, or a multi-year fixed term? Ask exactly what it costs to leave after 12 months.
Who will actually advise me? A named consultant who knows your business, or whoever picks up the phone?
What are their qualifications? CIPD level, and years spent running HR inside real businesses — not just advising from outside.
Is the advice insurance-led? Some HR outsourcing packages are built around a tribunal indemnity policy, and the advice must protect the policy first. Ask what drives recommendations: your commercial situation, or the insurer’s terms.
Who attends disciplinary and grievance hearings — and is that extra?
What exactly changed in my documents for the 6 April 2026 SSP rules — and when would you have changed them? Any provider worth paying can answer in one sentence.
What happens in month one? A proper audit and a prioritised plan, or a login to a template library?
Can the service scale down as well as up?
What’s the response time when something urgent lands at 4pm on a Friday?
Will you tell me when I’m wrong? A good HR partner sometimes says no to the employer. Fair process isn’t just decent — it’s what stands up at tribunal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Outsourced HR means an external provider manages your HR function on your behalf. With DaisyHR this includes employment contracts, employee handbook, disciplinary and grievance management, absence management, employment law compliance, employee relations advice, onboarding and offboarding. You get a full HR function without employing an HR manager.
A fractional HR director is a named senior individual embedded in your leadership team. They attend your meetings, own your people strategy, and operate at director level. Outsourced HR is a broader managed service covering the day-to-day operational HR function. DaisyHR offers both, and many clients use a combination: a fractional HR director for strategy, with outsourced HR support for the operational layer beneath.
Outsourced HR is significantly more cost-effective than hiring a full-time HR manager, which typically costs £35,000–£50,000 including salary, NI and pension. The exact monthly investment depends on your headcount and scope of support. Across the UK market, HR outsourcing typically runs £15–£50 per employee per month; we quote a fixed monthly figure for your business instead of a per-head rate card. Book a free consultation and we will give you a specific, transparent quote before you commit to anything.
In most cases we are up and running within two weeks of your first call. We start with a rapid HR audit of your existing documentation, then prioritise the highest-risk areas first. For urgent situations, such as an active disciplinary or an immediate compliance concern, we can move faster.
No. DaisyHR works on a rolling monthly basis with a short notice period. You should stay because the service is excellent, not because you are locked in. If it is not working, we will say so before you do.
It is our job to stay on top of it and update your documentation accordingly. The Employment Rights Act 2025 is a good example: we manage every phase as it comes into force, update your contracts and handbook, and brief your managers. You do not need to monitor it yourself.
Yes. DaisyHR is based in Bolton and serves businesses across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and the wider North West. We also support businesses nationally where work can be delivered remotely.
Yes. Some businesses have a junior HR coordinator or office manager handling day-to-day admin, and use DaisyHR for the senior advisory layer, complex casework, and strategic input. We work alongside whoever you have in place.
For most businesses under 100 staff, yes: HR outsourcing costs a fraction of a full-time hire and gives you a broader skill set than any single person can offer. The value shows up when something goes wrong — a grievance, a long-term absence, a redundancy — and it’s handled properly first time. It also shows up in what never happens: the tribunal claim you avoid because the process and the paperwork were right.
The main risks are lock-in to a long contract, remote advice from someone who doesn’t know your business, and advice shaped by an insurance policy rather than your commercial reality. All three are avoidable: choose rolling terms, a named consultant, and ask the ten questions above before you sign. There’s a cultural risk too — if your people feel HR has become a distant compliance function, trust drops. Good outsourced HR should make your employees feel processes are fairer, not more remote.
HR consultancy is usually project-based: a consultant comes in for a defined piece of work, such as a restructure, a TUPE transfer or a handbook rewrite. HR outsourcing is ongoing: a provider runs your HR function month to month. DaisyHR offers both — see our HR consultancy for Manchester and the North West for project work.
There’s no legal threshold — employment law applies from your first employee. In practice, problems start surfacing at around 10 to 15 staff, when informal management stops scaling. And from 1 January 2027, unfair dismissal protection kicks in at six months’ service, so even the smallest employer carries more risk on every hire than they did a year ago.
Talk to Us About Outsourced HR in Manchester Today
You do not need to have everything figured out before you call. Most of our clients come to us because they know HR is a gap in their business and they want it sorted properly, without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Book a free 30-minute consultation. No obligation, no sales script. We'll tell you honestly what your HR function needs and what it will cost — the same straight answer we give every employer who calls.
Outsourced HR services across Bolton, Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Warrington, Wigan, Bury, Rochdale, Preston, Lancaster, Chester, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire.
Written by Samantha Boyle MCIPD, Founder & HR Director, DaisyHR.
Last reviewed: 5 July 2026