It’s hard to get a good snapshot of a moving target, and the PEO industry moves pretty fast. PEO Insider® was able to find out exactly how fast, and in what directions, when it sat down with five PEO professionals during NAPEO’s 2015 Annual Conference and Marketplace in Phoenix, Arizona, in September.
When you get PEO people together, you just know the conversation is going to be good. Members of the group, representing companies of different sizes, models, and geographies, talked about their experiences in different markets, their clients’ and their own challenges, the state of the industry, emerging issues, and their thoughts about what’s coming up in 2016.
The federal government has created forms 1094-C and 1095-C to help determine if applicable companies are offering the required health coverage to their employees, whether the coverage provided meets the minimum value and minimum essential coverage requirements, and if the coverage is affordable under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With the compliance deadlines quickly approaching, this article highlights important areas for consideration.
As business owners, we constantly strive to grow our businesses. When market share growth slows, it is time to develop alternative means to increase revenue. During the past several years, we have seen that exact scenario play out within the PEO marketplace. Many in our industry have come to realize that we provide valuable services to companies that don’t need, want, or value the PEO business model. Technology has dramatically impacted the options available, with a panoply of alternative service offerings and a wide variety of service fee options.
As we embark upon a new year—and indeed for the next three years—we will be guided by a new strategic plan. You may recall that our last strategic plan guided us from 2012 through 2015. In preparing for the current plan, we followed the same process: a membership-wide survey (in which many of you participated); and a retreat with our leadership (Board of Directors members, senior staff, and Leadership Council chairs) early in 2015. A well-known and highly recommended facilitator who has done this for dozens of other associations facilitated our retreat.
In the coming days, NAPEO’s new website will launch, putting the wide array of NAPEO resources at your fingertips in a fresh, modern, and easy-to-navigate package. The new-look website aims to more effectively serve member needs while also providing timely, useful, and compelling information to broader audiences looking for insight into the industry. For those folks, our website represents the PEO industry as a whole, making the look and feel of the site—as well as navigability and usability—particularly critical for our efforts to build awareness and support for the industry.
The NAPEO Board of Directors approved the 2016 State Government Affairs Action Plan at its recent meeting in Naples, Florida. The plan provides for engaging in a proactive and aggressive strategy that would continue NAPEO’s focus on creating operational certainty for PEOs in the states. It calls for NAPEO to undertake active lobbying efforts for PEO statutory enactment or modernization in three states (California, Massachusetts, and Missouri) where enactment or improvement of existing statutes will significantly benefit PEOs operating in those jurisdictions, as well as offer opportunities to PEOs seeking to expand into new markets.
Q. I heard that the new budget has something to do with increased OSHA fines. Is this true? If so, what does that mean to me? A. Yes. The House of Representatives and the Senate passed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which was subsequently approved by President Obama on November 2, 2015. Among many things, the budget contained provisions for increasing Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) administrative fines, which have not increased in 25 years. The increase in fines provides for a “catch-up adjustment,” which allows for the percentage difference between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for October 1990 and October 2015...
At its November meeting, the NAPEO Board of Directors approved a federal legislative and regulatory agenda for 2016. This agenda represents a slight change from past NAPEO federal lobbying activity. In the past, NAPEO was focused solely on the passage of the Small Business Efficiency Act (SBEA). The newly approved agenda expands NAPEO’s federal lobbying efforts to issues beyond the SBEA and has NAPEO engaging with outside groups and coalitions on the PEO industry’s legislative and regulatory priorities.
Despite many economic indicators turning negative in Q4, the PEO Employment Index continues to demonstrate good statistical strength, particularly compared to previous time periods in recent years.
Teamwork HR is headquartered in a small community in Northern California. The town rarely makes the news, but when it has, it’s been for such things as record high unemployment, the growing homeless population, being one of the most unsafe cities for women to live in, and a recent battle to bring big business to the area. These kinds of stories may not portray it as a desirable location, but for those who live and work here, there is a love for community stronger than the norm. As a large corporation in a small community, Teamwork HR has remained focused on where its passion lies: People.
Hindsight is 20/20. We asked three small business owners to share what they would do differently if they could start their companies from scratch again.
At its annual membership meeting in September, NAPEO elected and installed members of its 2016 Board of Directors, six of whom were elected to their first terms. Nominees were assessed based on membership status, areas of expertise, special skills, PEO industry experience, NAPEO and outside leadership experience, NAPEO volunteer and outside experience, desire to serve, and goals for NAPEO.
While, unfortunately, Obamacare appears here to stay for now, some of its counterproductive mandates undermining the employer-sponsored healthcare system—which provides benefits for more than 160 million Americans—have to go. Thanks to rare moments of bipartisanship, two of the offending provisions have been struck down. If we keep up the fight, more could follow.