How A PEO Company Can Improve Your Workforce Engagement & Morale
Employee morale may seem to be an intangible quality, but it can have an effect on profits and productivity, both of which are measurable. In fact, lost productivity from disengaged employees costs the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars a year due to factors like increased absenteeism and more frequent illness.
Keeping employee morale healthy is one of the best ways to increase loyalty and maintain an efficient and productive workplace. Morale is often heavily influenced from the top down, and problems can stem from communication difficulties and iron-fisted management styles. But morale can also suffer due to things like “responsibility sprawl” – something that is all too common with human resources (HR) jobs.
Working With a PEO Can Help You Clarify Roles and Responsibilities
With startups, founders and employees often have to wear several hats. While this may work at first, when there are only two or three employees, responsibilities can increase exponentially when, for example, payroll must suddenly cope with ten rather than five employees, or when new fringe benefits are offered. Someone who was previously only in charge of calculating payroll could find her responsibilities mushrooming and her job description becoming less and less clear.
Professional employer organizations (PEOs) allow companies to outsource one or more HR functions to professionals who specialize in those functions. Rather than having an administrator assume responsibility for functions he doesn’t fully understand or has no background in, partnering with a PEO allows companies to keep job descriptions clear. Employees know their responsibilities and know that dedicated professionals are taking care of HR tasks that are complex, time-consuming, and constantly changing.
It Can Help Everyone Focus on Core Business Functions
Another way working with a PEO can boost morale in the workplace is by letting people concentrate on core business functions: the reasons you started the business in the first place. If you started a business to provide anything from cleaning services to mobile app development, working with a PEO ensures that your employees can concentrate on the tasks you hired them for and not be distracted by extra responsibilities they may not be prepared to take on. Focusing on core business functions helps you build cohesiveness and work better as a team.
It Can Allow Your Company to Offer Better Benefits
When you work with a PEO, you are often able to provide your team with better benefits. This can not only improve employee retention, but can make it easier to hire the “rock star” workers you need. PEOs work with multiple companies, and often have access to better rates on benefits like health insurance, 401(K) plans, life insurance, and health and wellness programs. Small businesses in particular may struggle to offer good fringe benefits, but PEOs can make it possible due to pooling of resources and economies of scale.
It Can Relieve Significant Worry for Business Owners
The cost of even one mistake in calculating tax withholdings can be more than the cost of working with a PEO. One late payroll can cause your best employees to start looking for the exits. Business owners who try to handle all HR functions in-house take on a huge amount of responsibility. Laws, regulations, and administrative HR tasks are immensely complicated, and they change frequently. Furthermore, hiring even one full-time HR specialist is expensive, and one person may not be enough to do the whole job. But working with a PEO ensures that qualified professionals who know HR inside and out take care of these complex tasks, lowering risk and increasing peace of mind significantly.
Let SourceOne Partners Help You Help Your Employees
Dealing with HR functions on top of all the other tasks small business owners and their employees must take care of every day can increase stress and cause morale in the workplace to suffer. That’s not good for employee retention, or for the company bottom line. SourceOne Partners has over 50 years of combined experience in the payroll and PEO sectors and is dedicated to helping small businesses evaluate their HR needs and identify the best PEO to take care of them.
SourceOne Partners offers small businesses cost-benefit analyses and walks business owners through calculation of costs and the many services offered by PEOs. If you would like to learn more about how SourceOne Partners can help you identify your needs and evaluate your PEO options, call us at 561-674-0748 or contact us online.