HR Practices & Strategies Absenteeism, Leave, and the Recession Michele Jiosne and Claire MacDonald In the PEO industry, we see frustrated clients across the board dealing with attendance problems at a time when they are dealing with so many other pressing issues. A significant number of PEO clients are small business owners who, due to the current recession, have been forced to rethink their financial strategy in order to remain viable. Many have cut costs to the bone, including reducing staff, reducing or freezing salaries, cutting or eliminating their 401(k) matches, and decreasing the employer contribution towards health benefits. Plus, the customers of PEO clients have become increasingly demanding, asking for price reductions, improved service, and shorter deadlines, while taking full advantage of the fact that service providers must do whatever is necessary to retain their business.       In these tough economic times, employers not only expect, but also absolutely need, the very best from each of their employees… For the rest of the article, click here.

Sales Streamlining the Client Renewal Process Roger Gaskamp At Administaff, the client renewal process is just one component of our comprehensive service offering....Several years ago, we took a closer look at the renewal process to determine how we could make it a better experience for our clients and for the sales force. By making a few tweaks, we turned what was becoming a stressful and tedious task into a more streamlined and rewarding experience… For the rest of the article, click here.

Operations What's the Score? Bob Smolinski When was the last time you got excited over numbers? Was it looking at your last quarterly earnings, your 401(k), or even your favorite baseball team? In our companies and in our lives, we use numbers to tell us many things. But, the most important things numbers tell us emerge when we compare our numbers to others. If you ask, "What's the score?" and only get told the score of one team, that really doesn't tell you much. When you're looking at your PEO's numbers, if you don't know where your peer group is, you really only have half the answer.       For PEOs, there is only one place to get the other half of that answer: the annual NAPEO Financial Ratio & Operating Statistics survey… For the rest of the article, click here.

NAPEO Advisor New Clients and I-9s, Child Support Orders, Employment Age William J. Schilling, Esq. Q. When we take on a new client, are we required to complete new I-9s for all the new co-employees?       A. No. Because of efforts by NAPEO with U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), you now have the option of either… For the rest of the article, click here.

Global Insights Corporate Security in the New Economy Angela McBride, CIA, CISA, CGEIT The Washington Post reported data breaches were up 50 percent in 2008, exposing the personal records of at least 35.7 million Americans. According to the 2008 Ponemon Institute benchmark study, the average total cost of a breach per reporting company was more than $6.6 million per breach (up from $6.3 million in 2007). An increasing number of PEOs are looking into SAS 701 audits to demonstrate they have adequate internal controls related to information security and to address an increasing number of regulatory compliance mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Evidence of a SAS 70 Type II review is also becoming a more frequent component of prospective clients' RFP processes… For the rest of the article, click here.

PEO Stories Don't Let These HR Horrors Happen to You Michael Tope There is no doubt we spend a lot of time coaching our clients about managing their human resources in a way that is meant to avoid what I'm about to share with you. Even when we put forth our best efforts, things happen in the workplace that utterly perplex us. I've found over the last 10-plus years that a lot of times the HR executives my PEO spends so much time advising just want to vent. So we decided to give them an out. "Vent to us!" we said. "Give us your best, your worst, your most appalling HR horror stories." We asked them in the most appropriate way-through our company blog. Having acquired a nice following over the years, we had a lot of regulars who were all too happy to share their most jaw-dropping HR moments… For the rest of the article, click here.