2025 IS OFF TO A FAST START

If you’re reading my column this month that means you’ve either renewed your NAPEO membership or joined the association for the first time. Thank you for your support.

The entire NAPEO team is focused on ensuring you receive a high rate of return on your membership investment. We’ve just returned from our Q1 board meeting and leadership retreat, where we spent a couple of days framing NAPEO’s next strategic plan. Without question, our industry’s and association’s best days are ahead of us and we’ve got a lot of momentum heading into the consequential next few years.

I wanted to take a moment to report on the fast pace we’ve set out on already this year.

On the government affairs side, our first big win of the year came in Indiana where we successfully headed off a legislative attempt to repeal the ability to report unemployment taxes under the PEO’s account.

We continue to protect against bad policy in Oregon while going on offense in several other states. Our PEO model act was recently introduced in Georgia, and we’re optimistic about the bill passing the legislature this session. And that’s just scratching the surface on all the work underway across the country.

Our federal government affairs committee met in Washington to chart our priorities for the year. The tax legislation in Congress this year has real potential to deliver on longstanding industry priorities (liability, IRS modernization, etc.), but to quote The Eurythmics, “everybody’s looking for something,” so our continued work to build lasting relationships with legislators will really matter.

I encourage you to learn more about NAPEO PAC and its impact here.

Speaking of which, NAPEO PAC hosted our most successful fundraiser ever in January. We raised more than $56,000 for industry champion Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) who single-handedly preserved PEO clients’ access to PPP loans in the early days of COVID. Thank you again to everyone who participated.

The NAPEO events calendar continues to heat up, so please make plans to join us! In addition to our “Big 3” (Operations Workshop, PEO Capitol Summit and Annual Conference), we have many leadership council forums, webinars and other events planned for the year.

I’m especially looking forward to our inaugural Operations Workshop which combines our previous Risk Management Workshop and CFO Seminar and features our first-ever NextGen Leadership Workshop.

Location, registration and other information for all of our events can be found here.

Our ongoing industry promotion and marketing campaigns continue to tout the benefits of partnering with a PEO. And it’s working. Our latest PEO awareness tracking survey shows a 48% increase from when we first started measuring PEO awareness in 2018.

Hard to believe, but National PEO Week (May 18-24) will be here before we know it. Stay on the lookout for new resources you can use to join in the recognition and celebration of all things PEO.

All of this has kept us busy here at NAPEO HQ, and we’re not slowing down. I’m grateful for your continued investment in NAPEO, and I’m looking forward to our continued work together to advance our great industry!