NAPEO
August 2021
THIS MONTH'S FOCUS: Budgeting & Finance
LESSONS LEARNED: INFORMING A MORE ROBUST BUDGETING PROCESS
One of the things we have learned from this pandemic is how fast things can change. While many people want to return to normal overnight, we can’t be sure that society knows what post-COVID normal will look like. Many trends in our economy and society were accelerated during the pandemic; while COVID didn’t start e-commerce, it made everyone (including your great aunt) a lot more comfortable getting everything delivered to their doors, video chatting with the doctor, and partaking in virtual birthday parties.
BY FRANK FONTNEAU
August 2021CONTENTS
FEATURED
HOW THE TIGHT LABOR MARKET AFFECTS PROFITABILITY: WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
We know that the key to creating a successful company is to hire and develop a skilled and highly-engaged workforce. As the labor market continues to tighten up, it has become even more challenging to hire top talent across all industries. Is the best solution simply to increase wages, which can cut into your operating margins? What are the best practices to retain talent in a tight labor market?
BY MARK SINATRA
August 2021INSIGHT INTO PEO VULNERABILITY VIA STRESS TESTING
Stress testing is intense and thorough testing to determine the stability of an organization, its systems, and its critical infrastructure. Stress testing can be done deliberately by organizational leadership, or it can occur via external influences. COVID forced the PEO industry into unanticipated stresses in many facets of business. These areas include, but are not limited to, financial management, organizational protocols and infrastructure, operations, sales, insurance programs, technology, mergers and acquisition (M&A), and workforce management.
BY ROB COMEAU AND FRANK HUANG, FCAS, MAAA
August 2021NEW BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS IN A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD
The COVID pandemic impacted all aspects of business. While the pandemic almost universally impacted PEOs negatively, we fared quite well relative to other industries, which is counter-intuitive given our almost complete reliance on the number of employees of our clients. Those of us responsible for budgeting and financial analysis have been grappling with special challenges over the last year.
BY DEAN ANDERSEN
August 2021POST-PANDEMIC BUDGET PLANNING & FORECASTING: COVID IMPACTS ON CLIENTS BY INDUSTRY, GEOGRAPHY
Successful business executives anticipate economic disruptions, learn from them, and seize upon the next growth trend. Though the length of time between the peaks and troughs is tricky to predict, history tells us that PEOs and their clients know how to ride the waves of economic change successfully. But what about the tsunami of disruption that is the COVID pandemic?
BY STEVE SCOTT
August 2021UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CLIENT PROFITABILITY
Most PEOs prepare and analyze their financial statements monthly. As in any industry, profitability is a key component of decision making. While overall profitability is identifiable, individual client profitability can be elusive and is often one of the most difficult and cumbersome numbers for a PEO’s accounting and finance professionals to calculate.
BY JEAN GOLDSTEIN
August 2021TRACKS
You cannot turn on the news today without hearing about the labor shortage. Everywhere you turn, people are discussing job vacancies and the difficulty of finding workers. Locally, we are seeing companies raise starting pay rates, offer greater benefits, and think outside of the box when it comes to recruitment. This is just the latest hurdle for businesses since the start of the pandemic and it only strengthens the value proposition of the PEO partnership.
BY LEE C. YARBOROUGH
August 2021ANY BUSINESS CAN PLAN FOR A CRISIS: HERE’S HOW
A crisis situation is something no business wants to navigate. The unfortunate reality is that almost every business will, at some point, find itself amidst an environment that either vaguely resembles a crisis scenario, or is a full-fledged crisis. The good news? Any business, regardless of size, industry, or your current level of preparedness, can establish the structure of an effective crisis communications plan.
BY JACK MALLORY
August 2021DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order announcing an ambitious “whole-of-government equity agenda.”1 Business and worker advocates fully expect that under this agenda the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will reinstate wage data collection obligations for certain private sector employer and government contractors, referred to as “Component 2 data.” However, there is little understanding or consensus about what will be required or when. With states jumping into the mix, increasing numbers of employers are facing or will face pay data reporting obligations. What does this mean for PEOs?
BY LINDA J. GULLEDGE, ESQ.
August 2021As I write this, NAPEO’s CFO & Payroll Seminar is behind us and our Board of Directors meeting and retreat is upcoming, as is—of course—our Annual Conference & Marketplace. The CFO & Payroll Seminar, held in late June in Tampa, Florida, was our first in-person meeting since the pandemic, and what a meeting it was!
BY PAT CLEARY
August 2021FRANKCRUM: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS
FrankCrum started as The Great American Temporary Service in Largo, Florida, in 1981. In just a few years, the company would establish a PEO, Ameristaff, as one of the pioneers of the industry. CEO Frank Crum, Jr.’s children, Haley D. Crum, J.D. and Matthew C. Crum, grew up with the company. Now based in Clearwater, Florida, the company is a fixture in the community and is active with charities, including Trinity Café/Feeding Tampa Bay, the Homeless Empowerment Program, and the Clearwater Free Clinic, as well as fundraising through the annual FrankCrum Invitational Charity Golf Tournament. Come along as Frank guides us through the company’s history, in his own words.
BY
August 2021INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR OR EMPLOYEE?
The question of whether any given worker is classified as an employee under federal, state, and local wage and hour laws is a complex one, and with regulators, courts, and the plaintiffs’ bar increasingly scrutinizing the so-called “misclassification” of workers as independent contractors, it is becoming more important that employers get it right.
BY JAMES A. PARETTI, JR., ESQ.
August 2021News & Trends
APEO’s 2021 Annual Conference & Marketplace is the PEO industry’s largest event of the year, and it is shaping up to be our most-attended ever. Join us and hundreds of your colleagues as we gather in San Antonio from September 27 through 29 to connect, collaborate, and celebrate.
BY
August 2021PEO VALUE PROP HOLDING STRONG
The PEO Employment Index continues to demonstrate the value proposition of the PEO model. The Index comprises 2,000 worksite employers and 160,000 worksite employees across more than 140 PEOs. For more than 15 years, the index has accurately tracked PEO client company expansion and contraction, based on the census data of 401(k)-adopting companies throughout the U.S.
BY JOHN J. SLAVIC
August 2021SHOULD YOUR PEO USE OUTSIDE SALES BROKERS?
I talk with other PEO owners often and this subject always comes up. Our PEO uses brokers exclusively as our salesforce. In this article, I will go over the pros and cons.
BY TIM RUSSELL
August 2021SUPPORTING THE HUMANS
More than a year after COVID was declared a global pandemic, it feels somewhat trite to say that we all have endured many challenges. Those of us in the PEO industry have dealt with those challenges in our personal lives as well as facing them exponentially on a professional level. The phrase, “many challenges” is insufficient to describe the volume, speed, and magnitude of the concerns we have faced alongside our clients and their employees.
BY CATHERINE ‘REE’ HARPER, ESQ.
August 2021TOGETHER AT LAST: NAPEO 2021
Next month when we gather in San Antonio, Texas, for NAPEO’s 2021 Annual Conference & Marketplace, many of you will reunite with industry peers and friends for the first time in more than a year. It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two years since the last major NAPEO event, the 2019 Annual Conference & Marketplace in Austin, Texas. As a close-knit industry, we lean on relationships and friendships for advice to tackle challenging issues and develop new ideas. 2020 certainly proved this true. NAPEO events are not just about industry updates and education—they’re about connecting, collaborating, and celebrating.
BY CHRIS CHANEY
August 2021VETERANS AIRLIFT COMMAND MISSION
On a warm, sunny day in early June, HERO Flight 5 Alpha Sierra taxis away from the terminal at Manassas Regional Airport, Manassas, Virginia. Air traffic control declares clear for takeoff at 2:11 pm. The pilot pushes forward the thrust lever and the plane races to 80 knots. The nose lifts off the ground, climbing at a steady angle until it reaches smoother air and begins to level off, bound for Orlando Executive Airport, Orlando, Florida.
BY CHRIS CHANEY
August 2021