Included PDF file(s): [When clicked, a new window will open with the PDF file] NRN_1-10-05_p1,14 (PDF)

"If there was a complaint, or someone did not get a paid vacation or things like that, they were looking to me," Rangel said. "It was taking too much of my time and not allowing me to focus on operations."

For smaller restaurant companies and independents with no human-resources executives or departments, hiring outsiders to help manage people is becoming as common a practice as outsourcing payroll and information technology services. Owners and managers of small companies say their use of outside firms as "HR departments" also helps in competing against larger regional and national chains whose deep pockets allow them to run their own personnel divisions.

"The most important reason to chose to outsource is it allows us to focus on what we're good at," said Judson Holt, chief operations officer and a partner in Lupe Tortillas, a Mexican restaurant that his parents founded in 1983 and now has four locations in the Houston area.

"We're not HR people," Holt said. "That's an area that requires experience and expertise. We're restaurant operators. We need to stay focused on running good restaurants."

Holt said the goal is to have 25 Lupe Tortillas open within the next six years. To prepare for that growth, the company needed help in building a compensation and bonus structure for its senior management team. The small chain also needed assistance in screening management candidates and conducting management training on harassment and discrimination issues and rules of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

To manage all that, Lupe Tortillas hired the Achilles Group, a Houston-based human-resources firm that acts as the HR department for small and midsized companies in a variety of industries, including foodservice, and works for Cordua Restaurants and Willie's Restaurants, also based in Houston.

The 3-year-old Achilles Group is one of dozens of specialized HR firms that have been springing up across the country to serve such businesses. The Society of Human Resource Management has reported that anywhere from 50 percent to more than 70 percent of companies outsource some aspect of their HR business.

"A lot of HR people in the restaurant business, unless they work for a major company like a Landry's or Pappas, are isolated professionals," said JP Magill, founding partner and vice president of operations for Achilles. "Their experience is not as deep as it needs to be, and they can't sit down with the business owner and executive staff and participate on a business level on how to grow their business. They are more reactive to what's going on."

Cordua Restaurants plans to open two more restaurants this year and more in the coming years, Rangel said. There would be no way to speed up its growth without some help in human resources, he added.

Founded by chef Michael Cordua, the company has more than 400 employees working in its four concepts two Amazon Grills, two casual Churrascos and its fine-dining restaurants, Americas and Artista.

"We needed to have more resources at hand," said Rangel, who started as a waiter 15 years ago at Churrascos. "It was going to be too much for one person. I would have to pay a very high salary to bring in someone who would bring all the expertise a whole department could bring. I didn't know who to hire."

Achilles charges roughly $1,000 to $3,000 per month for a year of services.

"It depends on size of location, number of employees," Magill said. "But it's half of what it cost an operation to hire its own HR department. The trade-off you get is we're not at your site as much, but you get more expertise and skill."

Besides establishing compensation and bonus programs, doing background checks on candidates and management training, most of what Achilles does for restaurants is help operators make sure that their procedures and policies line up with fair-employment standards, Magill said.

If restaurant operators are debating whether it is worth it to outsource some of their personnel functions, they should consider how much time they spend handling HR problems, according to Scott Miller, director of operations for Willie's Restaurants. That chain operates 11 Willie's Grill & Ice House restaurants in Houston and San Antonio.

"Consider your time," Miller said. "Sit down and put a pencil to it. Figure out how much your time is worth and how much you spend dealing with employee issues. The labor market is probably the largest stumbling block for the restaurant business. It's where most problems arise. It's quite a task all the laws and regulations."