Co-Founder of ScalePEO, John Henry appeared on Portland's KOIN-TV to discuss how PEOs like Scale are helping businesses in the post-pandemic world. Following is a condensed recap of his discussion with anchors Emily Burris and Jenny Hansson. For the full conversation please watch the video below.
So I guess, first we’ve got to explain what is a PEO? What does "PEO" stand for?
That's a great question. It's probably the number one question I get. A PEO is a professional employer organization, and it's a way small employers can band together and outsource the non-core business activities, so they can focus on running their business. Things like payroll, HR, compliance-- all of those types of things.
So the benefits specifically, do they pay in to be part of this, and what benefits do they start to see?
Sure, well, they pay an administrative fee. The PEO takes over all the repetitive administrative tasks that they encounter. So the small employers that are watching you this morning, all of the things that they don't like to do-- the taxes, the compliance-- we help with that. And then they also get the benefits of group buying power for access to big company benefits, things like we are announcing today with our partnership with Aetna and Kaiser for small employers.
Okay, so they are able to get an insurance plan that maybe has some more benefits than what they'd be able to get on their own if it's just them and a dozen or so employees. So, how has this become even more relevant in today's COVID world?
Yes, so PEOs have helped small employers for many years pre-COVID. But with COVID it's really amplified all the challenges that small employers face, things like hiring and attracting and retaining employees. And then, especially with COVID now, how to deal with closing down your business because of the pandemic, reopening, moving your employees to remote status, how do you bring them back in. And then how do you deal with things like getting eligible reports for the PPP and really helping them as a partner so they can focus on running their business and do more with less.
We understand businesses in Oregon now have a strong new incentive to consider Scale PEO, so why is that?
Prior to our launching in Oregon, many small employers were really limited to what they had to choose from for health insurance. Now with our partnership with Aetna and Kaiser we allow employers with as few as five employees access to really good employee benefits and group buying power so, they can save across the board on all the types of benefits they purchase.
So put this into a little bit of context here for us John, would this basically be the equivalent of having an HR person on staff, so instead of a small business having to hire and staff that role they're just able to pay for a service to help them with that?
Right, so instead of having to incur the cost of a full time HR person or a full time legal person or compliance person, they get access to all of those 24/7 using the PEO.
If your heart is like what you wanted to do with your business maybe you don’t want to be doing all that paperwork. I would certainly feel that way. Some very useful information for local businesses, John, thanks for joining us this morning.
Thank you very much for having me!
Are you a small business owner looking for help with your redundant administrative work, and compliance and risk management? Contact ScalePEO today to learn more on how we can help you simplify, focus, and grow.