This blog was written by Dave Ashby, Senior Business Consultant at Helpside. With over 20 years of experience, Dave has positively impacted hundreds of small businesses in our community by finding unique solutions to the benefits, payroll, human resources, and risk management challenges that companies in Utah and Wyoming face.

As a business leader, you may have heard the term “PEO” before, but you may not know what they are or how they can help. PEO stands for Professional Employer Organization. While the services PEOs offer can vary, most will process your payroll, take care of employee benefits, provide human resources and safety training, and help with compliance issues. PEOs can be extremely helpful for small and medium sized businesses who are looking for ways to streamline the administrative functions of their business, maintain compliance, and offer attractive but affordable benefits solutions. And businesses who partner with a PEO 7-9 percent faster, have 10-14 percent lower employee turnover, and are 50 percent less likely to go out of business.

Here are a few things you should know about PEOs:

Benefits

Using a PEO allows small and medium-sized benefits the opportunity to offer cost-effective benefits solutions to employees. Some of the available benefits include medical, dental, vision, benefit savings accounts, hospital indemnity, life, disability, critical illness, accident insurance, travel assistance, and retirement plans. Because PEOs help businesses get the most for their money in the area of benefits, many business leaders find that they can afford to offer better benefits programs for employees even as a small business. In fact, PEO clients are 42% more likely to say employees are satisfied with their benefits. Of course, PEO services have a cost, but many companies find it is substantially cheaper than other available options.

Options

PEO services are ridiculously flexible allowing them to meet the changing needs of small businesses as they grow. Often, PEOs offer a selection of different services in payroll, employee benefits, human resources, employer compliance, workers’ compensation, and employee safety best fit the unique needs of your organization.

Relief

Managing the HR needs for an entire company alone, in addition to all of the other things required as business leader is exhausting. And if you have employees in multiple states, things get even more complicated. Outsourcing your HR needs to a PEO brings a great sense of relief for business leaders. Not needing to worry about running payroll or getting a new hire’s benefits plan set up will give leaders more time to work on their own professional development and their company’s success.

Understanding the tools available to you as a business owner will help you run your business more efficiently. If you have questions about PEOs or the services Helpside offers, reach out.