By Barbara Pinckney
It is hard enough to run a business in
a tight economy without having to worry
about things like employee health insurance.
For many years now, business owners
have turned to outside firms for help with
such human resource functions as staffing
and payroll. But with the Affordable
Care Act–a.k.a. Obamacare–looming
over them, and workers looking for more
than a paycheck, increasing numbers of
employers are turning to these same firms
for another reason–employee benefits.
“[Employers] are looking for more,”
said Dhianna Yezzi, owner of Integrated
Staffing, which has offices in Glens Falls.
“Expectations have changed a bit.”
Integrated Staffing specializes in placing
workers with companies, primarily
manufacturers, for longer assignments
than a “temp” firm might handle. The
firm’s average assignment is seven-anda-
half months, after which many workers
become permanent employees of the
client company. But during that sevenand-
a-half months, they are employees of
Integrated Staffing.
This means Yezzi employs about 200
people at any given time, giving her the
buying power to provide employee health
insurance, life insurance, dental coverage
and vision coverage.
“We also offer holiday and vacation
pay, which are big selling points for us,”
Yezzi said. “Plus we do fun things, like
pay our associates for six hours a year of
volunteer work.”
Employees are also given full background
checks–including verification
of education and previous work experience–
and drug screenings, at no extra
charge to the client.
“So there are a lot of things we add
that are definitely advantageous,” Yezzi
said. “A lot of the HR people at smaller
companies don’t want to put as much
time into onboarding as we do. It is time
consuming.”
But the health insurance may be the
biggest benefit of working with a staffing
firm. Under Obamacare, all companies
with 50 or more full-time employees must
provide them with coverage. Smaller firms
are exempt, but know they can better attract
workers–who must have coverage
under the law’s individual mandate–if
they provide benefits. Working with a staffing firm allows them to offer health,
dental and vision coverage to an employee
while they are deciding if that person is
the right fit for a permanent position.
Once a person is hired for a permanent
position, employers have another
option–a professional employer organization.
A PEO takes over some or all
employee management tasks, including
payroll, worker’s compensation, taxes and
benefits, and leaves the owner free to concentrate
on running his or her business.
“For most of our clients we enter into a
co-employer relationship, which allows us
to handle all of the administrative aspects
of having employees,” said James Whitten,
owner of CheckMate Management
in Saratoga Springs. “Making sure the Ts
are crossed and the Is are dotted can run
into a lot of time. And time is money. The
small-business owner wants to run his
business and not deal with all this stuff.”
CheckMate–which Whitten, also a
Saratoga Springs attorney, founded in
1996–works with about 100 companies
throughout the Capital Region. They range
in size from two to more than 50 employees,
and include restaurants, auto repair
places and professional firms. In most
cases, CheckMate becomes the “employer
of record” in the eyes of the government.
According to the National Association
of Professional Employee Organizations,
the industry generates more than $90
billion a year in gross revenue. The trade
group said that about 250,000 businesses
nationwide use a PEO, and cited a 2013
study that showed that these businesses
save at least 21 percent a year on HR
administration, and hire 10 percent more
workers than companies that do not use
a PEO.
The study also found that PEOs provide
more than 6 million people with access to
health insurance.
CheckMate provides not only health
insurance but higher education funding,
long term care insurance, retirement
plans and other benefits that employers
themselves often find out of reach.
“Clients just have to write a check and
that’s it,” he said. “It all gets bundled
together.”
He said the firm’s administration fees
are comparable to those of a payroll service,
which most businesses use anyway.
“Everyone is outsourcing payroll one
way or another,” he said.