Many small and mid-size business (SMB) employers and their employees could use a win these days after more than two years of uncertainty that has included the COVID-19 pandemic, the highest inflation in 40 years, and political and social tumult.
Fortunately for these SMBs there is a win-win solution that is growing exponentially: the outsourcing of HR services to professional employer organizations (PEOs).
Professional employer organizations (PEOs) clients, like most companies across the U.S. economy, have faced their share of hurdles during the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new industry white paper argues their alliances have them positioned for long-term success.
“PEO Clients in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Follow-Up Analysis”, a white paper published last month by The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), is a deep dive by Laurie Bassi and Dan McMurrer of McBassi & Company into the effects of the pandemic on PEO clients.
Here at Employer Flexible, our mission is to be an advocate for your business. We are passionate about getting to know our clients so that we can combine our expertise and intuition to get you what you need. So you talked; we listened.
Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic Americans embrace their entrepreneurial spirit with a half million new business applications taken out in May 2021.
The reality is that many of these startup ideas will never get off the drawing board with less than 10 percent of those applications resulting in businesses with paid employees.
“The Census Bureau is projecting that 35,578 new business startups with payroll tax liabilities will form within four quarters of application from all the business applications filed during May 2021,” says the U.S. Census Bureau Business Formation Statistics, May 2021, release.
After a year of navigating the uncertain waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, business owners can be forgiven for wanting some clear sailing, but workplace experts are predicting a turnover tsunami in 2021.
“Employers were experiencing high rates of turnover prior to the economic shutdown triggered by the pandemic last spring, but since then, quit rates reached their lowest level in nine years,” wrote Roy Maurer in March for the Society for Human Resource Management. “Retention and turnover experts now predict voluntary job-leaving will increase significantly in 2021 as employees resume job searches they put off for the past year.”
In a U.S. economy with record job openings and workplace experts predicting a post-pandemic turnover tsunami, partnering with a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) can help your company attract and retain top talent.
PEOs can help businesses, especially SMBs, in hiring and retention thanks to their ability to allow their employees access to benefits such as 401(k) plans; health, dental, life, and other insurance; dependent care; and other benefits typically provided by large companies.
New economic analysis shows that the professional employer organization (PEO) industry has outpaced the U.S. economy since 2013 with employment growth 16 times above average.
"The numbers in this study reinforce the dynamism and growth in the PEO industry. More and more businesses are realizing the true value proposition of using a PEO, particularly during the pandemic, when PEOs proved to be invaluable in helping their clients navigate through the challenges of the PPP loan process, COVID legislation, remote work, and return-to-office protocols," said National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) President & CEO Pat Cleary.
Those smoke signals coming from your HR department in 2020 might have been a cry for help during the COVID-19 pandemic or the staff simply burning the company HR handbook. Rest assured your HR handbook is still needed, maybe more than ever in uncertain times, but since March the coronavirus crisis has made a mockery out of “by the book”.
The best HR policies in 2020 were likely found on digital whiteboards and not in binders, because overnight HR had to embrace a new normal which included remote recruiting and onboarding for almost all nonessential workers.
Employers often assume that they should make the switch to a PEO on January 1st. However, employers can successfully transfer human resources to a PEO any time of the year. It's really more a function of business need versus a specific date on the calendar. It’s more important to focus on hiring a PEO that provides the HR, employee benefits and recruitment services your company needs rather than worry about having to wait until the first of the year to make the move. Here are the times when it makes the most sense to outsource your human resources needs.
With the complexities of the PEO sales business, VP Sales John Orth recently wrote a bylined entry for NAPEO’s PEO Insider Issue on how to manage the growth of a PEO’s business. In the write-up, Orth explains the complexities of appropriate growth for PEOs of various sizes and how to identify issues that business owners and sales team leaders may come across over time.
