Transcript for "jeff kuzmich - jeff kuzmich - Migrate_PEO_Transform_Benefit_Strategy_02172026_5161280":
Hello everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, Transform Your Benefit Strategy into a Competitive Advantage. Today we'll explore how partnering with a professional employer organization, or PEO, can help your business thrive and grow by offering your employees world class benefits more affordably. Before we jump in, I just want to cover off a few housekeeping items. Primary audio is going be coming through your computer, so make sure you have your sound set correctly and your volume set correctly there. Also, sometimes the webinar console needs to be refreshed in your browser. You can see the key commands here on screen to do that, to make sure everything's working properly. So let's look at a couple other important features here. To download and print a copy of today's deck for future reference and to access additional resources, you can refer to the files and resources window at the top right of your console. That's available at any time during the event. Also, if you have any questions during today's webinar, you can ask them with the ask us a question window. Just type in your question and click submit. And of course, as always, this presentation does not constitute legal advice. This is for informational purposes only. And now I'd like to introduce today's speaker. Eric Enser is our Director of Product and Go To Market Strategy. As the Head of Strategy for the Paychex PEO, Eric brings expertise in strategic planning and market analysis to his current role. His earlier roles at Paychex, he involved with product management and strategic direction as the head of product for PEO and human resources outsourcing. He led product strategy for the Paychex Insurance Agency, and he also led acquisitions and organizational improvement initiatives as a senior manager of PEO Business Transformation. Eric, I want to welcome you to today's webinar and why don't you take over and go over what we're going be talking about today. Yeah, hey, thanks Rob. I'm thrilled to be here. I appreciate the time. We've got a lot to cover. We're going to start by taking a look at the transformative power of employee benefits to help your business grow. Then we'll get into the specifics of a PEO benefits plan and the strategic advantages that it provides. You're gonna see why 200,000 businesses use a PEO, and then we'll finish up, with next steps to help you make a decision about whether a PEO is right for your business. So let's get started. Honestly, gone are the days when offering a medical plan, maybe dental, even chipping in on a four zero one k made you an employer of choice. Employee benefits are way more than just a perk now. They are a strategic imperative for businesses looking to find and retain quality talent. According to some paychecks research, 78% of employees say that they are more likely to stay with an employer because of its benefits program. Quality benefits can help improve productivity with wellness programs that are not only related to physical health, but financial and mental support as well. This allows your employees to focus on work when on the job. That helps foster trust, it boosts morale, and it builds a care focused workplace culture, and that's hard to beat. Now, unfortunately, many small and mid sized businesses, they face limited expensive benefit options with minimal coverage. This can easily create a competitive disadvantage, especially in today's job market. So how can a professional employer organization or a PEO provide benefits to these small and mid sized businesses? Well, to start, a PEO goes way beyond typical benefits offerings to provide a comprehensive, cost effective benefits solution through economies of scale. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But what a PEO really is, it's a strategic partnership that empowers businesses to offer fortune 500 level benefits without the complexity and administrative costs. Quick warning, I'm gonna repeat that statement quite a few times here, but it is important to understand because it allows a small business to act and look and treat their employees like a big business. Now, the PEO curates benefits offerings and negotiates competitive rates on behalf of their small business clients, which helps them deliver better coverage, greater choices and meaningful cost savings. That can include medical, dental, vision, life, disability, EAP, retirement programs, and more. And they're all designed to support holistic employee well-being. Coverage can even be extended to part time employees and their family members, which ensures inclusivity and flexibility. In addition to all that, the PEO provides expert administrative support for benefits plan management, enrollment in addressing employee questions and concerns. That's right, the PEO will work with your employees directly to help alleviate the burden of answering their questions, helping them understand the plans and making good decisions. So with that, let's talk a little bit more about how the PEO does it. Well, PEOs leverage their large pool of employees to negotiate competitive rates and plan options with the insurance carriers. I told you I was going to talk more about this. But what that does is it results in better coverage and cost savings compared to what a small business can go and get, if they go it alone and by themselves. The PEO handles day to day management of employee benefits. This includes eligibility tracking, enrollment changes, and compliance with complex regulations, which allows the businesses to focus on their core operations and just running their day to day business. The PEO also coordinates open enrollment periods, which can be extremely, cumbersome and complex. A PEO supplies educational resources, answers, to employee questions, processes all paperwork, All of these things drastically reduce the HR workload for your business. The other thing is employers and employees have access to online digital tools for benefits enrollment, plan comparisons, updates, documents, all of these things simplify the communication, the organization and the record keeping of what is otherwise a very complicated process. And let's not forget about the people. With a PEO, you have access to live benefits experts. These folks stay up to date with ever changing regulations like the ACA, COBRA, HIPAA, ERISA, lots of other acronyms, right? And that helps companies avoid costs and mistakes while remaining and maintaining compliant at the state and federal level. With a PEO, you never have to be DIY. So that's how it works. Now I want to review a little bit about how PEOs can help businesses grow and think more strategically. Partnering with a PEO like Paychex delivers significant financial and operational advantages for a business frankly of any size. PEO, here it is again, we negotiate rates on behalf of hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of employees, often delivering lower premiums and reduced administrative fees compared to what the small business that's negotiating plans on their own can secure. That part's very important. Also outsourcing benefits administration and open enrollment to a PEO not only alleviates the complexity and the time you're spending there, but it frees up valuable time for in house HR and leadership, which allows those folks to focus on growth, employee engagement, and strategic priorities for your business. Now beyond that, the PEO provides experts to help manage complex regulations around employee benefits. As I mentioned earlier, laws like the ACA, COBRA, HIPAA, ERISA, any issues related to these, can result in costly errors, potential fines, and even long term legal exposure for a small business. Then it's really about the scale. Partnering with a PEO provides your business access to a very wide range of high quality health plans that are typically reserved for larger employees. Now that can help your small business retain and attract top talent with customized benefit plans that meet both the individual and your organizational needs. Bottom line, I'll say it again, with a PEO you can offer fortune 500 level company benefits without the associated complexity or expense. In addition to that, businesses can really boost employee satisfaction, reduce turnover, and improve organizational stability. Now, what do I mean by that? And how can the benefits plan actually result in an outcome like that? Well, according to paychecks.com, replacing an employee can cost anywhere between 50200% of their annual salary. That's a lot. So that may be why 41% of business leaders actually plan to improve benefit packages this year. I said it earlier, benefits are no longer just a perk. The program chosen for your business is a critical financial decision. That's why a PEO not only transforms the benefits strategy the business we work with, it provides quantifiable results across their business operations. From saving money to recruiting and retaining top talent, a PEO ultimately enables business growth. So we covered a lot of ground. Let me recap why a PEO master benefits plan is a game changer for your business. First, improving benefits is the number one strategy for employee retention. With a PEO, you can offer fortune 500 level company benefits. Say it with me. Health, dental, vision, retirement plans, other financial support, all of this without the associated complexity or costs of managing them alone. Second, the impact on business growth and success is undeniable. NAPO research shows that businesses using a PEO experience 12% less turnover. They grow seven to 9% faster and are 50% less likely to go out of business. Folks, if you hear nothing else, let me repeat that one. Working with a PEO means you are 50% less likely to fail in your business. That is because PEOs free leaders from administrative tasks so that they can focus on strategy, success, and growth. Third, compliance confidence. It's critical. Regulations like the ACA and COBRA, ERISA, they're complex. They're constantly changing. A PEO stays on top of this. A PEO simplifies this for you, reducing risk and avoiding costly penalties while giving you a peace of mind. Finally, benefits are not just about access. They're about the experience. Digital enrollment solutions available on any device, incision support tools, all these kinds of features help employees choose the right benefits confidently, creating a personalized tech driven experience that boosts engagement and satisfaction. Together, these advantages deliver measurable ROI and position your business for long term success. Now, businesses ready to elevate their employee benefits strategy can take the next step by exploring Paychex PEOs benefits plan. The guides in our file and resources panel provide detailed insights into plan features and advantages. Paychex representatives are always available to offer personalized consultations which helps businesses assess their needs and design tailored benefits solutions. By partnering with Paychex PEO, companies can unlock the full power of employee benefits, delivering better coverage, ensuring compliance, and driving strategic growth. Right now is the time to invest in your workforce and position your business for long term success. We are here to help you grow with confidence. And with that, I'm going to pass it back over to Rob for a poll. Thank you, Eric. A ton of great information there. And as you mentioned at the end, we have experts available to talk to you to really put together a custom plan. We know your business is one size fits all, and your benefits plan shouldn't be one size fits all either. So if you'd like to speak with a Paychex expert about Outsourcing HR, about the Master Benefits Plan, about Paychex PEO, just click yes on this poll here and we'll follow-up with you, schedule a time to talk, get to know your needs, get to know your goals, and really design a plan that works the best for you and for your people. And now I'd like to get to just a couple questions I had, Eric, as we went through. You touched on it briefly, and I had my own small business for a little while, and I always felt I was too small to be working with somebody with HR outsourcing, certainly too small to work with something that feels as big as a PEO. Can you tell me a little bit of it? Am I thinking correctly there? What is the size that I should start thinking about a PEO? Yeah, and it's something every small business should think about. I get this question all the time. Is my business too small for a PEO? The answer is no, not at all. PEOs are especially valuable for small and mid sized businesses that want to offer competitive benefits, stay compliant, scale efficiently, all without building a large internal HR team. As I mentioned several times, you know, throughout the webinar, what the PEO does is it essentially aggregates a lot of small businesses and we're able to treat you as though you're a large business and that's how we take advantages of that. So no, no way you're too small. You're really leaning into those economies of scale. I want to go a little off You menu talked about the technology experience. You talked about helping employees understand. I know PEOs have this dedicated HR professional. We have this technology available. Can you just touch on how that would work? What's that look like in practice when I'm trying to put my benefits plan together, I'm trying to do enrollment? How does Paychex work with me to make that simple? Yeah, great question. So I mentioned a number of different ways that we do that. The first thing, we'll get to know your business. We'll get to know the types of employees you have, types of jobs and roles and everything. And then it's really about coming up with the right plan for your people and for your business. And that involves a lot of information gathering, talking through the options. And then as mentioned a few times, we've got benefits experts. We've got consultants who work with businesses just like yours across the country and can help you figure out exactly what should be offered and who is eligible and how we want to make sure the employees feel comfortable with what's available to them. That's excellent. That's excellent. I love that level of support. You definitely, you mentioned a few times, there's no reason to go it alone. There's a PEO there to help you out. Finally, I want to understand how quickly can I start seeing the value from a PEO partnership? Is this a four to five year runway? What is my return on investment? When can I expect to see that real bang for my buck? That a great question actually. And honestly, I called PEO a partnership earlier because I do believe that the most successful relationships with PEOs do last a while because of the strategic growth in consultation and advisory that a PEO can provide. But your question is about like how quickly and where would we start, right? Well, a lot of businesses, you're going to begin seeing value right away and that is because in areas like compliance support, payroll accuracy, current benefit strategy, those are things that we can assess right away with our professional HR business partners and benefit specialists and figure out, okay, where are their trouble spots? Where are their issues that we need to address? And, know, roll up our sleeves and get started right away. I love that, Eric. And we're coming against time. I want to thank you for taking the time today to give us all this great information. I want to thank you all for joining us today for this event, for transforming your business into transforming your benefit strategy into a competitive advantage. And as a reminder, you can access a printable copy of the presentation deck in the Files and Resources window on your console, along with the other related resources that Eric mentioned. And if you could spare a few moments as we close, we welcome your feedback on a brief survey that will pop up. Your responses help us improve future resources like this to support your business. Thanks again, and I hope you have a great day.