4 PEO Services That May Surprise You

Quick look: While professional employer organizations (PEOs) are known for services like benefits and payroll, they provide so much more. From recruiting to employee surveying, here are four lesser-known PEO offerings that can help businesses attract and retain talent and develop data-driven processes.

Many small- and medium-sized business (SMB) leaders know that PEOs exist but may not be fully aware of the depth of PEO services available. However, PEOs provide many more human resources (HR) services than just employee benefits and payroll—some of which may surprise you.

There is no better time to review the breadth of solutions a PEO can offer than during National PEO Week, which occurs annually during the third week of May. In 2024, National PEO Week falls from May 19 through May 25 and “celebrates the important contributions of the PEO industry, which provides payroll, employee benefits, compliance assistance, and HR services to hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized businesses that employ more than 4.5 million people.”

In honor of the holiday, here are four PEO services you may not know exist and how they can benefit your business.

1. Recruiting services

With a rapidly changing job market, intense competition among employers, and the need for specialized skills, recruiting the right candidates has become more challenging than ever.

While some PEOs can assist with certain aspects of recruiting, ExtensisHR offers its full-cycle recruiting services at no additional cost within its PEO solution. These include recruiting for most staff-level positions, dedicated recruiting specialists, job advertisement creation, candidate sourcing, offer letter consultations, and more.

PEOs can also perform salary benchmarking and compensation analysis. This process involves the PEO’s recruiting experts reviewing third-party salary data to ensure that each position within your organization offers fair pay. These services can be used for both internal and external job postings and confirm that current staff are being paid fairly, which can aid in attracting and retaining top talent.

Another recruiting service that PEOs can offer is skills assessments. Receiving dozens of applications for an open role can be overwhelming. How should you decide which candidate should get the job? Skills assessments can simplify the decision by administering sample work assignments, job simulations, cognitive ability tests, and more to candidates to gauge their skill levels. Better yet, the recruiting experts at a PEO can conduct the assessments, so all you need to do is review the results and decide who to hire.

2. Professional training

In addition to assisting business leaders with hiring top talent, PEOs can also help develop existing staff through a variety of professional training programs, including:

Employee training and development

PEOs can provide a wide range of employee training and development programs for both general learning and role-specific needs. Enabling employees to learn new or improve existing skills can empower and help retain them, and companies can benefit from increased organizational knowledge.

Leadership coaching

The right leadership is crucial for business success. A PEO can help strengthen organizations’ leadership teams by providing coaching focusing on communication, emotional intelligence, time management, and more. Some PEOs also offer access to a learning management system with integrated learning schedules and on-demand immersive content.

Compliance training

Another perk of working with a PEO is that its compliance experts stay updated on employer regulations, so you don’t have to. From cybersecurity threats to non-compete bans, PEOs provide training on various compliance topics so you can focus on the projects that will grow your business.

On top of training your company to stay compliant, PEOs can help you establish and maintain a safe work environment and closely examine your claims history to identify accident trends and workers with repeat claims. They can also provide:

• Personalized claims management and state unemployment claim management
• Safety and loss control and prevention
• Return-to-work programs
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and leave of absence (LOA) management

3. Actionable data

Data drives the best businesses, and a PEO can provide plenty of it to help organizational leaders make informed decisions. Companies can leverage data to improve:

Recruiting

PEOs can help you survey your employees to discover where they heard about their jobs and the company, where they went to school, their opinions on the interviewing and onboarding process, and more. This data can be used to improve recruiting operations. For example, if many employees studied at a particular school, it may be effective for your business to attend job fairs there.

Employee retention and performance management

A PEO can source and administer a performance management system to help employers identify top players and employees needing assistance. Applauding staff who are doing well (and aiding those who are struggling) can improve employee retention. Performance data can also help spot departments that may have problematic trends and address underlying issues.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives

The proper data can contribute to an equitable workplace. For example, ExtensisHR provides its clients access to a DEI Dashboard that features valuable, real-time DEI data on pay equity, salary trends across gender and race demographics, employee turnover, promotions, and more.

Business forecasting

PEOs can help small businesses grow sustainably by providing data that can be used to forecast growth and predict future budgets, required office space, and more.

4. Employee surveys

Employee pulse surveys offer SMBs a myriad of benefits, including higher retention rates, lower absenteeism, increased productivity, higher employee morale, and better customer service.

PEOs can simplify every aspect of employee surveying by helping business leaders design and implement an effective survey, analyze the results, and develop an action plan based on the data. There are three primary types of employee surveys that PEOs can assist with, including:

• Employee opinion and satisfaction surveys: Measure workers’ views, attitudes, and perceptions
• Employee culture surveys: Measure staff’s point of view and assess whether it aligns with that of the organization and its departments
• Employee engagement surveys: Measure employees’ commitment, motivation, sense of purpose, and passion for their work and the business

A partnership that keeps on giving

Employee benefits and payroll services are important, but PEOs do so much more than that. The recruiting, professional training, risk management, data, and employee survey services provided by PEOs can help SMBs develop well-rounded, numbers-driven business operations.

However, not all PEOs are the same, and business leaders should do their due diligence to find one that matches their organization’s specific requirements. For example, some PEOs have dedicated customer service teams that answer phone calls in seconds, while others lean on automated phone queues. Additionally, there are hundreds of PEOs in the U.S., so it’s wise for employers to review any potential PEO’s certifications, like checking to see if they are an IRS Certified PEO (CPEO) and accredited by the Certification Institute and Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC).

To learn more about how PEO services can positively impact your business, download the free eBook, “How Well Do You Know PEO?,” or contact the experts at ExtensisHR today.