What is a Professional Employer Organization?

Professional Employer Organizations (PEO) enable clients to cost-effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll and workers’ compensation. PEO clients focus on their core competencies to maintain and grow their bottom line.

Businesses today need help managing increasingly complex employee related matters such as health benefits, workers’ compensation claims, payroll, payroll tax compliance, and unemployment insurance claims. They contract with a PEO to assume these responsibilities and provide expertise in human resources management. This allows the PEO client to concentrate on the operational and revenue-producing side of its operations.

A PEO provides integrated services to effectively manage critical human resource responsibilities and employer risks for clients. A PEO delivers these services by establishing and maintaining an employer relationship with the employees at the client’s worksite and by contractually assuming certain employer rights, responsibilities, and risk.

Businesses across America have discovered the incredible value of PEOs because they provide:

• Relief from the burden of employment administration.
• A wide range of personnel management solutions through a team of professionals.
• Improved employment practices, compliance and risk management to reduce liabilities.
• Access to a comprehensive employee benefits package, allowing clients to be competitive in the labor market.
• Assistance to improve productivity and profitability.

What is an Administrative Service Organization?

Administrative Service Organizations (ASO) enable clients to cost-effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll and workers’ compensation. ASO clients focus on their core competencies to maintain and grow their bottom line.

Businesses today need help managing increasingly complex employee related matters such as health benefits, workers’ compensation claims, payroll, payroll tax compliance, and unemployment insurance claims. They contract with a ASO to assume these responsibilities and provide expertise in human resources management. This allows the ASO client to concentrate on the operational and revenue-producing side of its operations. 

ASOs provide integrated services to effectively manage critical human resource responsibilities and employer risks for clients. ASOs deliver these services by establishing and maintaining an employer relationship with the employees at the client’s worksite and by contractually assuming certain employer rights, responsibilities, and risk.

Businesses across America have discovered the incredible value of ASOs because they provide:

• Relief from the burden of employment administration.
• A wide range of personnel management solutions through a team of professionals.
• Improved employment practices, compliance and risk management to reduce liabilities.
• Comprehensive employee benefits planning and education, allowing clients to be competitive in the labor market.
• Assistance to improve productivity and profitability.

Many business people realize the importance for operational planning but don’t  but don’t ever take action.  Strategic thinking or planning isn’t just for business plans and fiscal investors.  It should be a standard part of your business day and a regular part of operations.  Strategic thinking is the vision of where you are going with your organization, department, or career.  If you never imagine what the ultimate destination will look like, you will have no idea when you successfully arrive at it. 

The best part about strategic thinking as part of operations is that you can determine the time frame.  Sure there are reasons for having 3-5 year plans, but this operations voyage can be a weekend trip or a month long operational plan.  I’ve actually had colleagues that would have anxiety attacks when they began their planning process.  You may be the type of person that doesn’t plan anything or on the other hand you may plan every single second of the day.  The important part is not the time established for the plan, rather it is the action that accompanies the movement towards the desired destination. 

We all know people that assume the role of the victim in almost every situation.  They wait for things to happen to them or they live in a constant state of confusion over what might happen next.  These are the business professionals that never seem to accomplish their goals and are forever blinded from seeing whether or not they reached their destination. 

The purpose for the destination will be identified and the mode of transportation chosen.  The path will be marked with landmarks and milestones.  You can decide who passengers are and those who will take a more active role.  You will see signs to help guide you and you may encounter detours along the way.  The journey may have obstacles that must be overcome or bypassed and future actions identified.

Strategic thinking is a process that can keep your career engaging and moving forward.  Or you can be like the vast majority of others and let things happen to you.  Some might consider the risk of not having a plan somewhat exciting, but studies show it is those professionals that envision the journey that have more successful results in their careers, organizations, and businesses. 

In a 2007 study conducted by Career Builders, 84% of Americans did not like their jobs.  Many of those same people have allowed others to determine the end result of their journey.  Come along with me as we plan our trip.   Control your destiny and create your own journey.~Operational Strategies~

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Customers access Web sites 24 hours a day, managers review and revise reports from home after hours, workers check e-mail before heading into the office, sales reps use their laptops at customer dinners to get pricing and inventory information, and staff located at international sites need access to e-mail, data, and applications while their U.S. counterparts sleep.

Providing IT support for such a diverse group of uses is challenging in and of itself. Compounding matters is the fact that today’s workforce is increasingly geographically dispersed. In fact, some industry analysts claim that about 80 percent of all employees now work away from their company’s headquarters. And in many cases, workers are located in small regional offices that do not have onsite IT staffs.

Further complicating these support issues is the increased mobility of the workforce. This trend is being aided by the wider availability of broadband wireless data services and more powerful (and less expensive) laptops, and netbooks. Thanks to these enabling technologies, and the desire of workers to better balance work and home life, a 2008 IDC study on mobile workers estimated that 75 percent of the U.S. workforce will be mobile by the end of 2011. This means there is and will be a frequent need to support users in hotel rooms, on the road, and in their homes.

Add to this the constant need to update and patch applications and operating systems, as well as the growing mix of application types and devices that need to be supported, and it is easy to see why companies need to re-examine their traditional IT service model for supporting users. IT organizations have long relied on premises based solutions to deliver end-user support within their company. Many of these solutions require frequent maintenance and updates themselves. This eats up valuable IT staff time and resources.

Additionally, many premises-based solutions require a client agent to be installed on every device that is to be supported. The distribution of a client agent can be time-consuming in a single office. With today’s geographically dispersed and mobile workforce, the challenge of installing the client agent becomes even more complicated. Even if IT decides to go the client agent route, corporate decentralization and IT’s lack of control over desktops in many companies makes it harder to ensure that every desktop has an agent
installed. This often limits IT’s ability to support users, particularly those outside the firewall.

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          Managers are those groups of employees who are at the first level of line management.   As the rank and file employees answer directly to them, the managers have the greatest influence on how the employees behave and how positive their attitudes are toward the company they are working for.    The employees’ perception of the company and how important they perceive their own roles in the company are vital to the success of the business.

          This is the exact reason why managers should have the right “ people skills ” to be able to effectively motivate the staff and deal with difficult problems.    The managers must serve as the guide of the staff  so every employee would have a someone to look up to and turn to  for coaching and support and for questions that they might have for their career development and work efficiency.    Thus, a manager must be a good leader and also a follower of company rules to serve as a model for his subordinates.

          The culture in the business and good staff management  are powerful forces that affect staff retention.    It is to be remembered that employees who feel good about themselves and are satisfied of their roles  and their contribution to the business are going to reflect this in the way they help push the company forward.    In much the same way that improper people management  can also force the workers to resign.    Thus, it is of utmost importance that managers have the knowledge on how to motivate, guide and oversee his staff.

          Since managers are in the frontlines dealing directly with the staff and faced with various issues,  for example, poor work ethics, various customer complaints, bad performance, low work productivity, etc., they must know exactly how to handle these problems, take appropriate action, and cope with stress at the end of the day.

          Statistics show that almost two out of three employees who do not show up for work is not physically ill.   Unscheduled absences are one of the major causes of low productivity.   This is most often due to lack of firm staff policies and want of  good staff discipline.  

          For most companies,  dealing with staff absenteeism is upon the frontline managers.   This is because it is the immediate supervisors or frontline managers who are most aware of the circumstances surrounding the absence of their subordinates.    Also, the managers are in the best position to be aware of the problem as soon as it starts and also in the position to very well identify its causes.   Therefore, their active involvement in the company’s absence policy and disciplinary procedures  is vital to the effectiveness and success of these policies.

           It is, however, unfortunate that most managers are not very well trained in managing absenteeism in the workplace.   They have been left on their own and without any means to carry out the often unpopular task of identifying, confronting and resolving frequent absence abuse.

          To ensure that supervisors and frontline managers are comfortable and competent in their role of managing absenteeism, they need to have the full support of senior management.    Everybody must be aware of the different objectives of the absence policy.    If there are misunderstandings between departments, the policy is bound to lose its effectiveness.

          To provide more consistency, supervisors should be trained in their responsibilities about managing absenteeism, advised how to conduct effective return-to-work interviews,  and educated in the imposition of disciplinary sanctions if the need arises.

          Managing absenteeism requires a firm company policy.    But, above everything else, it must have a “Plan B” is ever the problem persists.   It must ensure that the work is appropriately covered during the term of the employee’s absence.    A reliever should be assigned in order to cover the work so as not to hinder productivity.

          Importantly, critical actions must be taken to instill to the employees that absence abuse will not be tolerated and there are appropriate sanctions for these unjustified absences.  Some of the usual policies and absenteeism deterrents can be:

•  Having an absence policy in written form which provisions are made known to all the employees;
•  Confirming from the employee’s household when  the employee phones in sick for the day.  This will require a visit to the employee’s domicile.
•  Having a detailed record of absences which specifies the cause of the absence, medical record form the physician, days of absence, date of return and the like;
•  Identifying the diverse patterns of absences and the possible causes of these;
•  Conducting a thorough interview when the employee gets back; and
•  Imposing disciplinary sanctions if there is a need to do so.