News : French law no. 2026-403 of 26 May 2026 on simplifying economic life, published in the official journal of 27 May 2026, carries 84 articles across twelve headings. Since 28 May 2026 it has removed, among other things, the obligation to file the internal rules with the registry of the labour tribunal (Legifrance, Journal officiel de la Republique francaise, 27 May 2026). One formality less, and above all a reminder: French employment law keeps moving. A company with no HR watch applies obligations that have lapsed, or misses relief it has been entitled to for months without anyone noticing.

This is exactly the subject that belongs to nobody in a small or mid-sized company. The question, then, is not “should HR be outsourced”, but which building blocks to delegate, in what order, and which to keep.

The tasks to outsource first are the ones that are simultaneously time-consuming, rule-bound and expensive when they go wrong: personnel administration, legal watch and compliance, then recruitment. Next come skills and appraisals, psychosocial risk prevention and support on employee relations. What always stays in-house: the decision, pay policy, culture and day-to-day management. Outsourcing the HR function is not giving it up: it is handing over execution while keeping the trade-offs.

Map the HR function before delegating anything

Before choosing a provider, you have to know what you are handing over. I lay out the building blocks of the HR function, then tick three columns: done, half done, not done. The exercise takes an hour and changes the conversation: the felt pain (“I spend my evenings on contracts”) is rarely the real weak point (“nobody has updated the single risk assessment document”).

This map does not yet say who to work with: that is the subject of the article comparing the three solutions.

The three blocks to delegate first

1. Personnel administration

This is the most rule-bound block, therefore the most delegable, and the one that consumes the most time for the least added value. The Editions Tissot and PayFit barometer, published on 10 April 2026 among more than 600 French HR professionals, finds that 60 % of them spend at least half their day, four hours or more, on administrative tasks and that 54 % name lack of time and resources as the leading obstacle (Editions Tissot and PayFit, 10 April 2026, in French). If professionals in post spend half their days on it, a company director doing it in the evening will not hold out.

Watch out for a frequent confusion: producing payslips and holding personnel administration are not the same thing. The payroll provider produces the payslip from what you send them; nobody checks that the contract complies, that the amendment was signed, that the absence is correctly categorised. That missing link is the first thing I put in place.

2. Legal watch and compliance

This is the invisible block, and the one whose absence costs the most. In France, obligations are triggered by headcount thresholds and by the collective agreement, and they change. Two markers: a staff committee is set up in companies with at least eleven employees, once that threshold has been reached for twelve consecutive months (article L. 2311-2 of the Labour Code, in French); drawing up internal rules is compulsory in companies with at least fifty employees, the obligation applying at the end of a twelve-month period from the date the threshold is reached (article L. 1311-2 of the Labour Code, in French).

Delegating this block is not subscribing to a legal newsletter: it is giving someone responsibility for looking at your headcount, your collective agreement and your calendar, then telling you what applies to you. I do that at the level of principle; as soon as a particular case calls for interpretation, I refer to an employment lawyer. I am an HR professional, not a lawyer, and that limit is part of the service. If your headquarters is abroad, the blind spot is almost always the collective agreement, often more favourable than the Labour Code itself: I come back to it in my article for foreign employers.

3. Recruitment

Recruitment can be delegated because it is time-consuming and calls for know-how that cannot be improvised: formulating the real need, writing an advertisement that attracts the right profiles, running an interview that checks something other than a gut feeling, securing the arrival. In smaller companies, a recruitment rarely fails at sourcing: it fails on a badly defined need and onboarding left to chance.

What cannot be delegated here is the final choice: I present, I challenge, I document, and you decide. That is why I prefer long assignments to one-off recruitments: a recruitment is judged at six months, not at signature.

The blocks to delegate next, once the base is sound

Appraisals and skills development

Once the administration is secure, this is the block that produces the most visible effect. The third Apec-ANDRH barometer, run among 2,000 private-sector managers and published on 2 June 2026, shows the imbalance: 86 % of managers rate their HR function effective on administrative tasks, against 54 % on career management, and only half would turn to HR to discuss their professional development (Apec and ANDRH, 2 June 2026, in French). Where HR is reduced to administration, it is judged effective but it retains nobody.

Outsourcing this block means putting in place the framework, the calendar and the training of managers, not running the conversations in their place: a manager who has never held a career conversation will not improve if someone does it for them.

Psychosocial risk prevention

This block delegates well because it calls for a specific skill and an outside eye: an employee in difficulty rarely speaks to the director who signs their pay. It delegates badly if a provider is expected to “fix” a working climate. What I can do: make the situation objective, equip managers, run awareness sessions on mental health at work. What I do not do: make a diagnosis about a person, which is a matter for the occupational physician.

Employee relations

Here the right word is support, not delegation: employee representatives deal with the employer, not with the employer’s provider. An HR consultant prepares the meetings and equips the director to hold their place. But the employer stays in the room: sending a provider in their place to employee relations sends a signal that takes a long time to undo.

What is never delegated

• The individual decision: hiring, pay rise, promotion, sanction, termination. The advice is external, the decision belongs to the employer.
• Pay policy: it commits your internal fairness. A provider structures and benchmarks it, they do not set it.
• Culture and leading by example: they show in the director’s trade-offs, not in a document.
• Day-to-day management: the link between a manager and their team cannot be subcontracted without emptying it of meaning.

What is not delegated, but is advised on

The list above leaves one area in the shade: what remains your decision, but where you need an outside opinion. Company strategy, the overall pay policy, the structure of remuneration, the culture you intend to hold. None of it is delegated, and nobody from outside should set it in your place.

It is, however, something to be advised on, and that is often where the contribution is strongest. In practice: testing your pay grid against the minimums in your industry-wide agreement and against what is practised around you, checking that a policy inherited from head office or from another market still applies under French law, saying when a stated cultural principle will not survive the first real trade-off.

A global strategy is never applicable as it stands on local ground: it gets translated, legally and culturally, or it stays a document. That is the difference between a provider who carries out tasks and a consultant who helps you decide. Both are useful, but you do not buy them for the same thing.

In what order to delegate, depending on your size

The order of priority changes with headcount, because in France obligations change with it.

• Fewer than eleven employees: secure the contracts, the personnel files and the correct application of your collective agreement. The rest can wait.
• Eleven to forty-nine employees: the real tipping point. The threshold for setting up the staff committee is crossed, appraisals become structuring, recruitment accelerates. This is the zone where a fractional HR function makes most sense: too many subjects for the director alone, not enough for a full-time post.
• Fifty employees and above: the staff committee’s powers become full (article L. 2312-8, in French) and internal rules become compulsory. The question is no longer outsourcing tasks but defining a target HR organisation, often with a first in-house post.

These thresholds are given at the level of principle. Their concrete application, how headcount is calculated, when a threshold is crossed, what follows, deserves a case-by-case check with an employment lawyer.

What this article does not cover

I deal here with the question of what to delegate. Three neighbouring subjects sit deliberately elsewhere.

• Who to work with: selection criteria, warning signs and framing the assignment are set out in my article on the independent HR consultant.
• Which solution to pick between fractional HR, a consultancy and an in-house hire: see the comparison of the three options. You will find no provider comparison here.
• Why outsource when you are a smaller company: that is the subject of outsourced HR for small and mid-sized companies.

There are also cases where outsourcing is not the right answer: faced with open conflict or a procedure already under way, the urgent need is a lawyer, not a map; on an HR function that is already structured and simply short of hands, it is a hire. And if the director frees up no decision time, no outsourcing will hold: I would deliver documents nobody arbitrates.

FAQ

Where do you start when nothing has ever been outsourced?

With personnel administration and compliance: the two most rule-bound blocks, the ones where a mistake shows up latest and costs most. Once the contracts, the files and the obligations tied to your headcount have been reset, the rest becomes simple to hand over.

Can payroll be outsourced without outsourcing the rest?

Yes, and that is the most frequent case: producing payslips is often already handed to an accountancy firm. But producing a payslip does not replace personnel administration: the contract, the amendment, the categorisation of an absence are handled by nobody if you have handed them to nobody.

Does outsourcing the HR function mean losing control?

No, provided it has been written down who decides what. In my assignments, execution is delegated and the trade-offs stay with the director: I prepare, I document, I raise the alert, you decide. Loss of control comes from a blurred scope, never from delegation itself.

What has to stay absolutely in-house?

The individual decision, pay policy, culture and day-to-day management. Everything else can be handed over, to varying degrees. Employee relations occupy a place apart: they are supported, not delegated.

Let us take stock of your HR function

If you do not know which end to pick the subject up by, describe your situation to me: your headcount, your collective agreement, what takes your time. I will tell you which blocks to hand over first, and which are not worth moving now. Write to me to arrange a conversation: an hour on the phone is enough to see clearly.

Sources

• Legifrance, Journal officiel de la Republique francaise, JORF no. 0122, 27 May 2026. Legifrance
• Editions Tissot and PayFit, “Barometre 2026 : les RH au quotidien”, 9th edition, more than 600 HR professionals surveyed. Read the barometer
• Apec and ANDRH, third Apec-ANDRH barometer, 2,000 private-sector managers, 2 June 2026. Read the barometer
• Article L. 2311-2 of the French Labour Code, code.travail.gouv.fr, page accessed 2 September 2026. Code du travail numerique
• Article L. 2312-8 of the French Labour Code, code.travail.gouv.fr, page accessed 2 September 2026. Code du travail numerique
• Article L. 1311-2 of the French Labour Code, version in force on 1 January 2020, Legifrance, page accessed 2 September 2026. Legifrance