The Competitive Advantages of PEOs for Remote Teams

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the idea of leading an expanding remote team? Distributed teams are not a trend or a passing fad. The world of business has changed; those organizations that adopt new ways of doing business designed with the needs of a remote workforce in mind are the ones that will thrive. That’s exactly the advantage a professional employer organization (PEO) can provide to small business and startups.

Growing Pains Made Painless

As a remote team grows and expands geographically, the talent pool deepens and innovation can grow exponentially. This can lead to powerful competitive advantage — that is, if the organization can prevent the administrative and compliance demands associated with this type of growth from detracting from the core work of the business. That’s where a PEO comes in.

Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

Talent is a necessary ingredient for growth and innovation. It can be challenging for a small business or startup to compete with larger, more established businesses in the war for talent, especially in light of the growing reliance on remote teams across many industries. Working with a PEO, though, can be your secret weapon to hire for startups at every level.

When you work with a PEO, your growing organization can provide employees with access to big company benefits at competitive prices. The employees you want to hire won’t have to sacrifice their drive to be part of an innovative, growing business in order to get access to health insurance coverage and other benefits. This means you’ll enjoy a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent.

Compliance Support

As a company’s distributed workforce grows, so do employment-related compliance obligations. From managing multi-state payroll to keeping up with state and local regulations, trying to keep up with everything in-house could divert resources away from core business functions. A PEO like Justworks provides compliance support for many of your employment-related compliance needs, no matter how many states a company’s remote employees may be located. When it comes to payroll taxes, federal withholding, workers’ comp, and more, you can think of us as a trusted teammate helping you navigate government complexity for employers.

Virtual Onboarding

Distributed teams need a seamless solution for onboarding remote team members via a virtual environment, complete with dedicated onboarding managers. Setting up new hires and completing all of the required documentation can be handled quickly and easily via a user-friendly, cloud-based small business software platform. Rather than having in-house personnel scrambling to figure out exactly what forms are required or locating benefits enrollment documents, you’ll be able to focus on virtual orientation best practices that will help set new hires up for success while building a strong culture and cohesive team.

Information Accessibility for Remote Teams

Applying traditional, in-office ways of doing business to a remote team can be inefficient at best and ineffective at worst. While building out a fully staffed internal HR department complete with benefits experts may not be feasible for a small business, employees do need ongoing access to information related to payroll, benefits, and other HR-related topics. By working with a PEO, your remote team members will have easy access to information they need, via online resources and — with Justworks — 24/7 access to knowledgeable support professionals via telephone, email, chat, or Slack.

Tools for Managing a Remote Team

The benefits of a PEO aren’t limited to individual performers. PEOs can also provide helpful resources and HR tools for supervisors who manage remote employees. Even beyond 24/7 access to support via multiple channels, company leaders also have access to certified HR consultants who can provide guidance and best practices for managing distributed teams. The Justworks human resources information system (HRIS) includes tools designed to help managers effectively run a remote team, from keeping track of employee leave and managing overtime to tracking key business results and building a strong culture.

Boosting Key Performance Indicators

PEOs do more for small businesses and startups than helping to support the needs of an expanding remote team. Organizations that leverage the power of a PEO often experience extremely positive business results, from both financial and human perspectives. Data provided by the National Association of PEOs (NAPEO) indicate that companies that rely on PEOs experience greater revenue growth (by 40%) and significantly lower employee turnover (by 14-16%) than those that don’t.

Your Resource for Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage is all about identifying ways to outperform your competitors. For a small business or startup, that begins with building a strong workforce and continues by leveraging the power of people to innovate without losing focus on the primary business objectives. From helping small businesses and startups scale throughout various stages of growth to keeping up with rapidly changing regulations, a PEO can be a source of competitive advantage. Whether your organization is scaling up or focused on holding steady, Justworks can help provide a solid foundation while you grow your business.