487 PEOs represent 15.3% of all employers with 10 to 99 employees in the United States. That’s impressive, but with 84.7% of small and medium businesses (SMB) unaccounted for, there’s an enormous growth opportunity, and 90% of PEOs surveyed by NAPEO anticipated positive growth heading into 2023.
As a PEO, it’s essential to stay competitive to attract and retain clients in an increasingly crowded market.
As the world of work becomes more people-centric, companies are looking for solutions that support the entire HR cycle, not just payroll here and benefits there. PEOs can stay competitive by offering a wide range of services, including human resources management, payroll, employee benefits, and recruiting and retention solutions.
Recruiting and retention are evergreen challenges your clients will seek your help with, but HiringThing has heard directly from many PEO professionals who said that customers are requesting more recruiting help than ever.
While most PEOs will already have a robust software solution in place to cover the full breadth of the employee lifecycle, having a customized, branded recruiting solution is increasingly important.
Private labeling an applicant tracking system (ATS)—recruiting software built to streamline and automate the hiring process—is a quick and efficient way for your PEO to offer a seamlessly integrated tech stack covering the full breadth of the HR cycle. Private-label software is purchased by a company from a SaaS provider and customized with branding and bespoke workflows. Private label purchasers work with private label providers as a mutually beneficial partnership versus the traditional buyer/client relationship.
You may have also heard private labeling called “white labeling.” Though often used interchangeably, there’s an essential difference between the two. White-labeled platforms are produced by a SaaS developer and rebranded by other companies. Private labeling takes this further by customizing the platform to fit an organization's specific needs and working closely with them throughout their partnership’s tenure.
Here at HiringThing, we’re the creators of a private label applicant tracking system that allows PEOs to add proprietary hiring software to their suite of solutions. Check out our blog to learn more about how a private label applicant tracking system benefits PEOs.
PEOs should stay up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies to provide the best possible service to clients. This can help PEOs identify new opportunities and stay ahead of the competition—having clients rely on your expertise to help guide their HR decisions and strategize for the next steps automatically ups your value compared to competitors.
HR trends to know include:
For a more in-depth look, check out How HR Technology Is Shaping the Future of Human Resources
There’s no magic solution for keeping up with HR trends. As the HR departments for your customers, it’s up to PEOs to ensure they’re up to speed on pertinent HR trends. The best advice we could give organizations is to be proactive and not reactive regarding what HR will look like.
No one could have predicted how fast we had to pivot to remote work during the pandemic, but remote work had been trending upward—the number of remote workers in the U.S. rose 173% between 2005 and 2018. While we commend how quickly PEOs pivoted to learning and adapting to the “new normal,” those who had already started investing resources into remote work were at an advantage.
84% of customers say their customer-service experience is as essential as product functionalities and results. Therefore, PEOs should focus on providing high-quality customer service to retain clients and attract new ones. High-quality customer service can involve:
High-quality customer service prevents customer churn (which also keeps your PEO competitive). Check out Five Ways to Prevent Customer Churn for more customer-retention strategies.
PEOs should offer competitive pricing for their services in a competitive market. This may involve conducting market research to determine the going rates for PEO services, offering competitive pricing packages to clients, and ensuring your customers always feel they’re getting a high value for their money.
PEOs should invest in employee training and development to provide clients with the highest level of service. This may involve providing ongoing training and support for employees and opportunities for professional growth and advancement.
Despite their prominence, many individuals aren’t aware of what a PEO does. Strong training and development also ensure your staff can quickly and efficiently communicate your PEO’s value to current and potential customers.
Businesses partner with PEOs to solve their HR needs, and if PEO staff don’t come across as HR experts, that can be a problem. Organic, sustainable growth happens when all your team members deeply understand your services, value proposition and position themselves as invaluable resources, which involves keeping up with HR trends, challenges, and general workplace news. The key is always to prioritize the needs of your clients and their employees. If you’re investing in educating your team, they’ll know exactly how to help clients in a way that benefits their business and employees and your bottom line.
It’s in your best interest to continually educate and train your employees so that they don’t just appear to be experts but are. Create and execute a professional development strategy for every one of your employees, regularly mandate learning opportunities for current trends or best practices, and ensure you hire PEO professionals with a growth mindset.
Meaningfully educating your clients also fosters deep client relationships and strengthens client retention and referrals. It’s also worth noting that it’s much easier to upsell existing clients you have a strong relationship with than to acquire new customers.
PEOs can stay competitive by leveraging technology to streamline operations and provide better client service. This may involve using software to automate HR processes, using data analytics to gain insights into workforce trends, or implementing other technologies that help PEOs better serve their clients.
HR tech trends PEOs should be familiar with include:
Check out 2023 HR Tech Trends You Need to Know to explore more.
PEOs should work to foster strong, long-term relationships with their clients. This may involve regular communication, providing tailored solutions to meet clients' unique needs, and being responsive to their concerns and requests.
Communicating often with customers helps establish trust and proactively reminds them of the value you bring.
Strong relationships with clients are a PEO's best marketing and sales strategy. If your clients love your service, they’ll share their experiences with their partners, peers, and networks. It’s up to you to capitalize on your clients' great word of mouth.
Your job is to ensure that impressed clients can quickly become brand advocates. A referral program that incentivizes clients to pass your sales team’s information to interested parties is crucial. You can also create some sort of ambassador guidelines so that your clients know how to communicate your value proposition and benefits.
Celebrating your clients' HR successes on social media is a great way to highlight what they’re doing right and provide them with a way to highlight your organization on their channels (by retweeting, reposting, sharing, etc.) if they choose.
In today's digital age, PEOs need to have a robust online presence. This may involve maintaining a professional website, using social media to engage with clients and potential clients, and being active in online forums and industry groups.
Some more specific recommendations, straight from the marketing teams of several of our PEO clients, include:
66% of customers expect service providers to understand their needs. Customers will spend more for a good experience (10% more in almost every industry), and customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that aren’t.
PEOs should take the time to understand the particular needs of their clients to provide tailored solutions that meet those needs. This may involve conducting regular surveys and assessments to gather feedback from clients and using that feedback to improve their services.
Stay compliant with laws and regulations: PEOs must stay compliant with employment laws and regulations to avoid any legal problems for their clients. This may involve staying up-to-date with laws and regulations changes and implementing policies and procedures to ensure compliance.
NAPEO is the go-to source for everything PEO-related and the best place to stay abreast of changing laws and regulations.
Every business wants to grow, but would you be equipped to handle your business doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling in the next month? You must have plans to scale your business in place. Scaling means you can cost-effectively tackle an increased workload while meeting the demands of your business without compromising quality.
Create strategies to scale your vital processes: sales, marketing, customer service, retention, customer success, client communications, etc. How, for example, will your account management teams deal with providing personalized services to each client if their workload doubles? How will customer support answer triple the number of inquiries? Is marketing ready to create a customer newsletter that speaks to the needs of a completely new client base? These are all questions that should be discussed, strategized, and put in place before you need to implement. Be like a scout here: always be prepared.
Overall, there are many ways that PEOs can stay competitive. By offering a wide range of services, keeping up-to-date with industry trends, providing high-quality customer service, leveraging technology, and planning ahead to scale, PEOs can stay ahead of the competition and continue to provide value to their clients.
HiringThing is a modern recruiting and employee onboarding platform as a service that creates seamless talent experiences. Our white label solutions and open API enable technology and service providers to offer hiring and onboarding to their clients. Approachable and adaptable, the platform empowers anyone, anywhere to build their dream team.