CVS cited the need to help patch together the 55,000 new employees it added over a two-year span of acquisitions as the primary motivation behind its outsourcing strategy.

American, a subsidiary of AMR, said it is hoping the outsourcing pact can help it drive down costs and improve services for employees as well as find new ways to offer access to HR tools to workers.

Representatives with AMR said that the company expects to save a total of $60 million over the course of the outsourcing arrangement with hopes to cut an additional $2 million per year in related administrative expenses.

American will transfer the work currently being handled by roughly 200 of its employees via the agreement, said AMR spokeswoman Susan Gordon. A small number of those workers will be transferred over to IBM and the remaining people moved into other HR roles at the airline.

A major element of the decision making process -- carried out by American over the last year-and-a-half -- was the consideration of IBM's ability to further modernize and streamline American's HR-related IT operations, she said.