Small Project Design

Hello all - I have done a bit of research into Professional Employment Organizations (ADP, Inspitity, etc.) that offer outsourced HR functions.  From their marketing materials, they have some appeal for lowering health care costs, taking over some aspects of personnel management, etc.  Are there architecture firms out there using these PEO companies for HR and could offer some insight?  How has the experience been?

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Garrett Pressick AIA
Architect
Wnuk Spurlock Architecture
Washington DC
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Garrett,
We are a small firm, and have found it very helpful to use placement agencies / contract personnel to fill CAD and clerical positions without getting into the full employment burden and paperwork.  It's been a simple hourly rate paid to the agency, and we 1099 it at the end of the year.  We have hired from these situations on ocassion.  The interview of the candidate ahead of time has been critical.
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Adam Trott AIA
Adam J. Trott Architect
Erie PA
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I should clarify that, while these firms may provide temporary workers, the services that I'm interested include group health insurance, payroll, worker's comp., taxes, etc.  Their arrangement is such that employees would become co-employees to the architecture firm and the PEO which gives a larger combined pool of participants for insurance related products.  All of the PEO participants would be in the same group.  In theory, a firm could get a better health insurance for less cost because of the size of the plan group.  I'm just curious if that theory is true in practice.

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Garrett Pressick AIA
Architect
Wnuk Spurlock Architecture
Washington DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-13-2012 09:23
From: Adam Trott
Subject: Professional Employment Organizations


Garrett,
We are a small firm, and have found it very helpful to use placement agencies / contract personnel to fill CAD and clerical positions without getting into the full employment burden and paperwork.  It's been a simple hourly rate paid to the agency, and we 1099 it at the end of the year.  We have hired from these situations on ocassion.  The interview of the candidate ahead of time has been critical.
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Adam Trott AIA
Adam J. Trott Architect
Erie PA
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We used a POE last year to save money on health insurance for our 14 person firm.  The POE required that we run payroll through them which was a nightmare at first...lots of miscalculated checks and lots of time required by our office manager to get things straightened out.  Then when the renewal time came around the health insurance costs spiked and it was cheaper for us to get health insurance through a broker so we dumped them.

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Douglas Lasch AIA
Principal
Jaeger, Nickola & Associates, Ltd.
Evanston IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2012 08:25
From: Garrett Pressick
Subject: Professional Employment Organizations

I should clarify that, while these firms may provide temporary workers, the services that I'm interested include group health insurance, payroll, worker's comp., taxes, etc.  Their arrangement is such that employees would become co-employees to the architecture firm and the PEO which gives a larger combined pool of participants for insurance related products.  All of the PEO participants would be in the same group.  In theory, a firm could get a better health insurance for less cost because of the size of the plan group.  I'm just curious if that theory is true in practice.

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Garrett Pressick AIA
Architect
Wnuk Spurlock Architecture
Washington DC
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