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The bottom line is only you can determine if PEO is right for you.  It’s a mindset more than a hard and fast yes/no question.

 

Certain elements are easy to determine: Is my risk profile right for PEO, do PEOs want my business, are composite rates better than open market rates for benefits for my group, do I have to carve out too many things to get the value of an all in one solution?

 

At the end of the day the mindset from leadership that works with PEO is one of Trust (but verify).  Are you the kind of person who can let their kid go off to college and not call to check on them every day?  Are you the kind of person that can set a work project in motion and then truly let go as another team executes?  Are you the kind of person who likes the idea of HR Curling?!

 

HR Curling??  We love our analogies over here at PEO Distillery and Curling (yes that silly Olympic sport with the giant stones and brooms) is the perfect analogy for PEO.  If your mindset is one of the thrower in Curling, the person that fires of an initial push to the stone then lets go and just watches as the team furiously sweeps the stone into position…. Then you might be a fit for PEO.  If you’d rather be the sweeper and control every inch of the path a big old HR stone takes… maybe get a traditional payroll vendor.

 

What does this look like in practice?  HR Curling examples abound… but my favorite is from one of my TriNet reps.  A CEO came to him and exasperatedly explained that one of his employees had stolen a company laptop and he wanted to press charges!!  The HR Consultant from TriNet chatted with the CEO for a while about possible next steps, and concluded the meeting with “lets not do anything on your end just yet… let me see what I can do.”

 

The HRBP then wrote a strongly worded email to the thieving former employee.  A few days passed.  The HRBP called the employee and left a message.  No response.  The HRBP then contacted Fisher Phillips (their HR Attorney partners at the time) and had them draft a quick response letter to the employee on official letterhead.  All for free.  When the employee received that letter immediately the HRBP got a call and the employee shipped the laptop back express shipping.

 

Had the CEO not been able to let go of that HR Project, I firmly believe the end result would have been much more contentious, litigious, expensive.  This is what PEOs do.  (at least good ones) They remove friction and add unbiased perspectives to complex HR matters.  If this sounds like the kind of HR relationship you could operate well in, we should talk.