4 PEO Services That May Surprise You

Quick look: While professional employer organizations (PEOs) are known for services like benefits and payroll, they can provide so much more. Here are four lesser-known PEO offerings, from recruiting to employee surveying, 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 likely aren’t fully aware of the depth of PEO services available. However, PEOs provide so many more services than just employee benefits and payroll – some of which may surprise you.

Here are four PEO services you may not know exist and how they can benefit your business.

1. Recruiting services

Recruiting today is an incredibly challenging task. With a rapidly changing job market, intense competition among employers, and the need for specialized skills, finding the right candidates has become more difficult 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. This includes things like 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 can 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. When you receive dozens of applications for an open role, it 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 SMB 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 SMBs can benefit from increased organizational knowledge.

Leadership coaching

The right leadership is crucial for business success. A PEO can help strengthen SMB leadership by providing coaching that focuses on topics like communication, emotional intelligence, time management, and more. Some PEOs also offer access to a learning management system that features integrated learning schedules and on-demand immersive content.

Compliance training

Another perk of working with a PEO? Their compliance experts keep a pulse on employer regulations, so you don’t have to. From cybersecurity to Form I-9, PEOs provide training on a variety of compliance topics so you can focus on the projects that will grow your business.

On top of training SMBs on how 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

The best businesses are driven by data – and a PEO can provide a breadth of it to help SMB leaders make informed decisions. Businesses can lean on data to improve:

Recruiting

PEOs can survey your employees to discover where they heard about their job and the company, where they went to school, and their opinions on the interviewing and onboarding process. 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 administer and manage a performance management system, which can help SMB leaders identify top performers and employees who may need help. Applauding staff who are doing well – and aiding those who are struggling – can improve employee retention. Performance data can also help spot any departments that may have problematic trends and address any underlying issues.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives

A PEO, like ExtensisHR, provides access to a DEI Dashboard that features valuable, real-time DEI data on pay equity, salary trends across both gender and race demographics, employee turnover, promotions, and more.

Business forecasting

PEOs can help SMBs grow in a sustainable manner 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 a myriad of benefits to SMBs, 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, as well as 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 employee views, attitudes, and perceptions
• Employee culture surveys: Measure the point of view of employees 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

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

If you’re looking to simplify your human resources (HR) even more, ExtensisHR’s PEO Premier® offering may be just what you need. An industry-first solution, PEO Premier® provides:

• A fully managed, concierge approach with your very own dedicated Account Manager, HR Manager, and Payroll Associate
• Turnkey, all-inclusive, completely outsourced HR that eliminates self-service and responsibilities normally residing with customers in a PEO arrangement
• A smart, comprehensive solution that all but eliminates your HR workload
• Premium recruiting services and executive-level talent pool creation
• Access to luxury HR experiences and services like healthcare advocacy, concierge medicine, international employee benefits and payroll management, and more

Want to learn more about how PEO services can positively impact your business? Contact the HR pros at ExtensisHR today.