NAPEO
November 2022
THIS MONTH'S FOCUS: NAPEO’s New 2022-2023 Board Members
MEET NAPEO’S NEW 2022-2023 BOARD MEMBERS
At our Annual Member Meeting in September, nine new individuals joined our Board of Directors. These individuals are active in our industry and association, and they have generously volunteered their time to serve. Each of our new board members recently spoke with PEO Insider ® to share more about themselves and why they wanted to serve.
BY Chris Chaney
November 2022CONTENTS
FEATURED
8 TIPS FOR REEVALUATING SERVICES AND SETTING CLEAR EXPECTATIONS
Fully understanding and properly managing client expectations is vital to the success of any PEO. All clients come with expectations; some have preconceived notions of PEOs that are hard to change. It is our responsibility to be direct and clear about what services and products we intend to deliver, and how we will deliver them. Doing so can make the difference between a great client experience and a disappointing one. The key is to keep the client's expectations manageable and realistic.
BY FELICIA G. HARRIS, CFP SHRM-SCP
November 2022FILLING IN THE DATA GAP
PEOs that serve clients across all industries face the same conundrum when it comes to prospective clients – how do you estimate and manage costs for prospective clients when there is little to no claims history? This occurs when a prospect has been active for years, but has been fortunate from a claims’ perspective, but more commonly this problem presents itself for new and start-up firms. Costing models are generally the solution, but how those models are developed can vary around two main characteristics: whose data is being used, and who is doing the modeling.
BY FRANK HUANG
November 2022HOW TO SPOT CLIENT RISK AND WEIGH VALUE
Risk. On one side, it contains success stories that share leaps of faith that paid off; on the other, it holds shattered dreams of big gambles that eventually sunk a business. In the PEO world, risk is on every executive’s mind each time a new client is signed, and it’s not something taken lightly. For Stratus HR, that assessment is less about a balance sheet and more about the company’s history and values.
BY SHER SHIELDS
November 2022THE ABCs OF ESG
As PEO industry professionals serving our companies and our customers, it is prudent to have an introductory knowledge about ESG, consider reasons why our industry should pay attention to ESG, identify ways you can help further ESG initiatives within your own organizations, and aid your customers in doing the same. While the aspects of ESG covered here easily merit separate articles or hour-long webinars, this article will serve as a primer and cover ESG ideas at a high level.
BY MATHEW TED THOMAS
November 2022THE BALANCING ACT
PEOs help clients focus on their core competencies while offloading non-revenue HR administration and operations. The PEO concept combines the popular outsourced payroll model with HR support, risk management, and employee-related insurance under the co-employment model. Several factors are driving the growth of the PEO industry. Businesses are changing fundamentally and daily from HR and employee risk perspectives, and PEOs are the evolution of those market demands. Companies have seen increased employment-related federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Additionally, the talent available to manage a small to mid-sized business has been dwarfed and outpaced by the need of small-to-midsize business clients.
BY ANTHONY LAPORTE
November 2022TRACKS
November, a month that many feel is a month of gratefulness. We recognize our Veterans and their service to our country. Families come together and share a meal in Thanksgiving, recognition of the survival of our early Pilgrims in the United States. It a month that I take a moment of reflection on the year; what has happened – the highs and lows, what I have learned and what will ground me for what will soon be a new year ahead in a blink of an eye.
BY KRISTEN J. APPLEMAN
November 2022401(K) FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES FOR PEO PLAN SPONSORS: IS YOUR COMPANY SUFFICIENTLY PROTECTED?
When a PEO offers a 401(k) plan to clients, the company becomes a fiduciary on the plan and assumes numerous ongoing responsibilities. This is not an employee benefit that can be set up and delegated in its entirety to the 401(k) service providers; as the fiduciary, you always have ultimate responsibility for the plan and for participant assets. The number of 401(k) lawsuits has grown in recent years, and as a result, you should select a combination of service providers that helps optimally protect the company from claims surrounding mismanagement of the retirement plan.
BY ANN MARGARET DONNELLY
November 2022CALIFORNIA’S NEW CANNABIS PROTECTIONS FOR EMPLOYEES: WHAT PEOS NEED TO KNOW
As more and more states legalize the use of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, worker advocates have increasingly pushed for corresponding employment legislation that protect employees’ right to use cannabis without the fear of adverse employment action. This is a growing area of the law that can create real compliance challenges for PEO clients on issues ranging from hiring decisions to workplace drug testing.
BY JOHN POLSON, ESQ. AND BEN EBBINK, ESQ.
November 2022As I write this, we are preparing for our upcoming board meeting in Atlanta. According to tradition, the November meeting is held in the chair’s city, so Kristen Appleman will host us. The November meeting is also our budget meeting where we present the upcoming year’s budget to the board for approval. Like all of you, we are seeing increased costs across the board, but we are in strong financial shape thanks to the continued good work of Melissa Viscovich, our COO. At the direction of our leadership, the 2023 budget will reflect increased spending in the areas that are our members’ priorities: government affairs, marketing and communications, and meetings and events.
BY PAT CLEARY
November 2022COMING SOON? A NEW JOINT EMPLOYER STANDARD
On September 7, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would update the requirements for whether a company is a joint employer under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NPRM proposes to rescind and replace the current final rule, entitled “Joint Employer Status Under the National Labor Relations Act,” that took effect on April 27, 2020.
BY GORDON M. BERGER, ESQ.
November 2022HOW TO MAKE YOUR TECHNOLOGY OFFERINGS FAB: FUNCTIONAL, ALL-INCLUSIVE, AND BENEFIT ALL
One area where we serve our clients is by providing technology, but are our technology offerings up to par? Has our technology kept up with our workforce? Where are we stuck? Where are we falling short? How do we create the change we need to walk the electronic walk? And how inclusive, really, is our technology? For those of us who’ve participated in annual goal setting meetings, we’re familiar with the intentionally weird moniker big hairy audacious goal or BHAG. I prefer a slightly smoother approach: functional, all-inclusive, and benefits all or FAB. Are your PEO’s technological offerings FAB?
BY STACY JENSEN, SPHR
November 2022