What Is a PEO and How Can It Help Your Business Grow?

Businesses worldwide are always in search of the best tool to make their life easy and ensure a smooth transition when they decide to scale at pace. One of the most challenging things to scale is human resources, as it is always influenced heavily by a lot of external factors. Therefore, when you finally decide to go that extra mile to understand the depth of Human Resources, Payroll, and Compliance, you will most certainly come across a term branded as “PEO,” also known as Professional Employer Organization. 

So why wait, let me help you dive deep into learning the purpose of PEO – Professional Employer Organization better, through this article, I will help you browse through what it means. Is it a game changer for your business, and if so, how can it help you stand out and stand apart?

What is a PEO – Understanding Professional Employer Organization

A Professional Employer Organization, also known as PEO, is more like a business partner that takes care of all your HR needs, roughly, it is they who provide exclusive and comprehensive HR solutions to your organization.

This arrangement in the business world is typically known as co-employment. When you use this medium, it enables you to be the king of your business while your partner, who specializes in HR, payroll, and compliance, takes care of your workforce and legal obligations.  

However, this is not the case everywhere throughout the globe, there are a few countries that are against co-employment or do not have particular regulations against it. Therefore, in countries like India, PEO is not a viable option, and it is Employer of Record (EOR) or International PEO that businesses go for, you can read all the details about Employer of Record by clicking here in this article we will exclusively focus of PEO as that is what has brought you here. 

Let us start by understanding how exactly does co-employment work?

How Does Co-Employment Work?

When I first read about the co-employment phenomenon, I was really intrigued, while the concept in its nature is quite simple to understand, it is a business masterclass as to how the companies expert in their domain share the responsibility of the underlying employee. I’ll try to simplify it further by giving a bit more context:  

Let’s suppose you hire an employee through a PEO, you will be the key decision-maker and be in direct control of the employee’s daily operations, ranging from their work activities to strategic business decision-making. While, your PEO partner will take care of everything HR, starting with benefits administration and risk management and ranging till payroll processing and all the related tax compliance. 

Not to brag, but we at Remunance do all this plus a lot more. Just to strike a reminder in your mind, we provide do the best employee benefits monitoring in India and, as an additional function, also help with recruitment services and IT support.

Getting back to the topic at hand, the co-employment model helps you be in control, your PEO partner handles the wheel while you go through the choppiest of the roads (complaince), and you take the steering back once you are in your territory (operations) 

A detailed view of the advantages of PEO

As discussed above, PEO has its advantages, especially when you try to dig deep into how brilliant dual employment actually is, but there are a few other benefits that can boost your business growth trajectory significantly:

1. Direct Access to the Best in Class Employee Benefits

When you wish to hire top talent across the globe, it is vital that you reciprocate the efforts by offering them the best available employee benefits. PEOs help you cherry-pick the top benefits that match your company culture. 

 

Despite you being the smallest organization, because of the PEOs, you will be able to offer high-quality benefits at the most optimized price for your organization. The benefits you will be able to offer would range be a few of the following –   

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• Retirement plans
• Life and disability insurance
• Employee assistance programs

With these competitive benefits flexed on your hiring posts, trust me, you would be as attractive as a prospect for the employees looking for an excellent opportunity in today’s competitive job space.

1. A well set Payroll Process and Tax System

We all understand that a timely salary is one of the most critical factors for the longevity of a happy employee; however, bad planning or mismanagement can lead to maximum hurdles and also disappointment and doubts in employers’ minds. 

With PEO partners, that won’t be a worry anymore, trust me when I say this, they completely take over all the payroll and tax planning for the employee, which in turn guarantees accurate and timely payroll and pinpoint tax filing.

 

This does not just help the employees but also heavily helps you reduce the burden on your administrative team while also ensuring your efforts and possible penalties are reduced to the minimum.

1. Enhanced Compliance and Risk Management

Learning new laws and understanding the intricacy of local labor law can be challenging, and that is precisely where PEOs swoop in, as they are the experts of HR, compliance and everything payroll, they help you stay at the top by being super compliant and keeping your organization as far away from legal trouble as possible.

Another reason why you would love to have a reliable partner by your side is they are the experts in handling delicate matters such as: –

1. Workers Compensation
2. Unemployment Claims
3. Employee Relations Issues

1. Be on the Front Foot

One of the blessings of a good PEO is you will always be on your front foot, attacking and trying to seize every moment as you, the PEO will help you be proactive rather than reactive. From my personal experience, this proactive approach is what can lead the business to new heights by one of the best risk management and compliance management techniques to safeguard your business.

1. Scalability and Flexibility

Growth is the bloodline of any business. No business loves obstacles when it is planning to go into hyper mode, and an important part of scaling a business is to onboard the workforce. With no hesitation, I can happily claim PEOs are your best bet when you decide to scale, they are tailored to operate with your evolving HR needs.

The best way to sum it all up would be that PEOs are your all-weather friend, be it if you planning to exponentially expand your workforce or restructure your organization. PEOs also have an excellent reputation for smooth transitions during mergers and acquisitions.

International PEO and their contribution to international expansion

Now, coming to the next part, you are now satisfied with your domestic success, and you wish to expand your business workforce internationally? What would be the best solution for you? The answer simply has to be an international PEO, they can help you set up a prominent workforce in another country in just a few weeks.

Worries about recruitment, payroll, and registration are all washed off because of your perfect PEO partner, the ideal PEO partner can assist you with the following: – 

• International Hiring: With International PEO, you can hire globally as quickly as you hire locally. Their deep networks help you find the right talent in no time. 
• Payroll and Benefits Administration: You must be very well aware by now that each country has its pre-defined set of rules and regulations that need to be followed during the payroll creation and benefits administration, International PEO partner ensures that you stand tall on all your promised benefits.
• Compliance: The last thing you want to do when operating in the international market or operating with the global workforce is non-compliance with the local governing body, International PEO, through their partner network or by themselves are well versed with all the local and national compliance and they ensure you remain compliant 24X7

Now you can see why I am going all gaga over the power of International PEO, all the offerings mentioned above with personalized support for any difficulty means you can have a wide network of workforce across the globe and do everything absolutely efficiently without having to worry about setting up a legal entity in all those countries.

Choosing the Right PEO for Your Business

I hope through the article, I was able to help you understand what a PEO is and how it can help you elevate your business experience? Now, let us move our attention to what you should look at while selecting a PEO for your business. Of course, we have written a detailed article about how to choose the right peo partner for your business, but to save you some effort, I’ll try to sum them up in a few words: – 

1. 1. Domain Expertise
      I think one of the no-brainers while choosing a PEO is to choose a PEO with a lot of experience since this usually corresponds with better service quality and skill in managing obstacles.
   2. Local Expertise
      Another thing to look at is PEO’s strong local presence and expertise, which will help you be atop the best solutions to match the local market and culture.
   3. Compliance Match
      Once you are satisfied with the first two conditions, you should address the elephant in the room, check for the level of compliance match with regards to the local law and legislation, you can ask them a few questions to get an idea of their local labor legislation awareness.
   4. Speed of Response
      When you decide to form a partnership with someone, one of the most vital step is to ensure that your response levels are matched and you are on the same page with the expectations. Plus you are quite well aware of how it feels when you are in some trouble but fail to get a response from your partner.

• Complete Transparency
  Right from when we were kids, we hated surprises, apart from when it was a surprise party or a surprise gift. So, receiving a surprise bill or a hidden charge would be the last thing to keep us elated; therefore, make sure your PEO partner values and honors transparency.   

Conclusion

To sum everything up in a few words, all I can say is PEO is More than just an HR partner; a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is a strategic ally that supports companies in scaling, compliance management, competitive employee benefits offering, payroll, and risk management. Whether your goal is to expand locally or invest in an international workforce, a PEO offers the knowledge and help required to overcome obstacles and grab opportunities. From managing complicated compliance needs to guaranteeing seamless business transitions, the ideal PEO can transform your company’s expansion experience.

Ready to let a reliable PEO partner help your company to reach its greatest potential? 

We have you covered whether your needs are for flawless HR solutions, top-rated employee benefits, or compliance knowledge.