Choosing the Right Kind of Help
Bear with me for a minute. Let’s say my right foot hurts. Like many of us, I procrastinate and continue to limp along in pain. “Maybe I’m just getting old?,” I tell myself. Until my left knee begins to ache from the imbalance. So I call my dentist.
Why? Because I’ve known her a long time and trust her. More than one medical degree from a great school hangs on her office wall, after all. At our appointment, she says, “Open wide.” An oral exam finds no problems. She tells me I’m okay.
But that right foot still screams as I limp out to my car. What went wrong?
At the risk of torturing the metaphor further, you can see the connection. As a business owner, you stay busy running your business. Maybe revenue streams are strong and everything seems perfect… until a new pain-point pops up.
It could be that new government regulations go into effect, or an employee gets hurt on the job, or a discrimination lawsuit notice arrives, or a payroll deadline is missed…
Their forms vary, but the inevitability of challenges arriving outside the core of your business remains. And there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what you really want to anyway: run your company and bring a passion to life alongside business growth.
Now let’s say you need help addressing this new pain-point from a professional with a specific skill-set. Choosing wisely is key to finding a solution. So you get advice from someone you trust. This person is an accomplished professional. They try to help out of genuine interest in your success, but they either don’t admit or don’t know that they lack the required skills to diagnose your problem.
This is not about weakness or inadequacy, but recognizing when to ask for help and, most important, finding the right source of it.
↠ Learn more about PEOs in our comprehensive guide "What is a PEO?"
Is HR Your Strength?
Sometimes your ability to find that trusted person or group requires that you first change perspective and be honest in self-reflection.
Are you asking the right people to help you guide your organization forward?
And are you stuck in the “We’ve always done it this way, and it seems to work” mode?
If so, these terms might sound familiar as unmet goals:
• Increase Profitability
• Enhance Efficiency
• Reduce Time Doing Transactional HR
• Reduce Liability
• Increase Buying Power
Professional Employer Organization
If any of the above rings true, you should consider exploring a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). Finding a trusted partner to manage the HR side of your business is a cost-effective way to take the employee stuff off your task list so that you can focus on your business passion and get more done.
Partnering with a PEO really means seeking out a relationship with a company that offers the required education, experience, and expertise to diagnose HR problems and manage the process that leads to their solutions.
What Can a PEO Do?
A PEO can craft a solution using a multidisciplinary approach to manage the complexities of being an employer. Yes, an "employer": that unwilling participant in the new American lottery for employees driven by our legal system.
A PEO provider creates a solution specific to you that considers your business needs in the areas of Human Resources, Employee Benefits, Payroll, Risk Management, and Compliance. An effective PEO provider collaborates with you to allow your leaders more time to focus on the business. Using all of their areas of expertise, an PEO also builds the infrastructure required to manage any business from a human resource context while ensuring legal compliance.
And that sounds pretty good to me.
Okay, so back to that sore foot…..
After finally finding a podiatrist who got to the cause of my symptoms, I lost 40 pounds on her directive. My foot stopped hurting, and my knee felt better.
But this cure required that I approach new problems with a new perspective.
So, the question is, do you have the right expertise for your HR issues or are you ready to have us help you find your solution?
If so, click here to set up some time to chat.
Editors Note: This post was originally published November 5th, 2018 and has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.