Transcription

• Speaker #0

  We've all heard about businesses out there, these things called PEOs, but what are they? What do they do and how can they help your business? We're going to learn about that today. Welcome to episode 49 of the Key Hired Small Business Podcast, where we cover the issues that help owners scale their small business. I'm Tory Harlock, creator of Key Hired Solutions, and I will be your host. Our guest today is Susanna Martinez, and she's the president of PEO for the CEO, where they create long-term relationships to outsource your HR and benefit solutions. A couple of interesting things we've learned about Susanna. She's been in the PEO world for over two decades, so she knows what she's talking about. But way more interesting is when she was young, she backpacked through South America. She got into salsa dancing. Salsa dancing led to meeting her now husband. So dancing has been a big part of her life. Matt, let's bring Susanna on. Hey, how are you?

• Speaker #1

  Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

• Speaker #0

  May, my pleasure. So you're sitting up in Atlanta.

• Speaker #1

  I am. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  It's the weather.

• Speaker #1

  It's a little chilly. It's rainy, but I'm from Denver and I was trying to get away from the snow. So I am always happy to be in Atlanta versus the Denver cold.

• Speaker #0

  Well, we're sitting down here in Houston and it's pouring rain today.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, it's pouring rain here too.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. So you said you met your husband Salsa dancing? How long ago?

• Speaker #1

  Seven years ago. And yeah, typically, you know, I would go salsa dancing and all the ugly guys were the good dancers. So it was really hard for me to meet anybody because they were they were I was there to dance. And it was hard to date anybody because the ones that were good dancers were so ugly.

• Speaker #0

  And they're there to pick up. They're there to score.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Very cool.

• Speaker #1

  So when my husband walked in, he was so good looking. I was like, wow. And then when he asked me to dance, I was like, this is the one. He really knows how to dance and he's good looking.

• Speaker #0

  Super cool. Well, we are talking about P.E.O.'s today. I don't know if I get the feeling there's a lot of mystery around P.E.O.'s and what they do. And there's a lot of pro and P.E.O. people. There's con P.E.O. people. Right. So, you know, with the show, we always like to kind of start with. defining the topic. So maybe you could walk us through what a PEO is and then maybe what you do as a PEO broker.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Oftentimes people don't really realize what a PEO is unless you've been in a relationship with the PEO and the marketplace has very small penetration of PEO clients. But what a PEO stands for is professional employer organization. And what it does essentially is a... It pulls several thousands of co-employees into a large group to get buying power and economies of scale on health insurance, workers' comp insurance. It helps businesses grow and scale by helping them with their back-end HR infrastructure and payroll. And what I do as the broker, believe it or not, there's over 700 plus PEO companies. So it's very hard to determine what's going to be the best fit for you. And as the independent PEO broker, I am PEO agnostic. I totally just take a look at what's in the marketplace. What are your needs? What's going to be the best solution? I try to narrow it down to like the top three to four PEO companies that are going to be great for you to partner with. And sometimes PEO just isn't a fit for everybody. So I'm here to just really educate people on what a PEO is, how it can benefit you. And sometimes if it's not a... bid and you're ready to leave the PEO market, I can certainly help in that as well.

• Speaker #0

  So do they have to be kind of within the state or are they able to cross state lines? And the reason I ask is each state has different laws and requirements and regulations. And I'm curious to know how effective that pooling of the talent to get these better rates are. Do they need to be in the same state or how does that work?

• Speaker #1

  No, not necessarily. So believe it or not, Texas and Florida are the two top headquarters of PEO companies. And I'm not sure why there's so many PEO companies out there. But there are some very small local PEO companies that'll just focus on the state that they're in and don't really expand their exposure. Most of the PEO companies I'm working with are national. And what ends up happening is the company is where the company is headquartered is where we would find whatever policy for the workers comp or the health insurance but then oftentimes employee employers have employees spread out through the united states so to me it's really important that i'm partnering with companies peo companies that have a national presence in every single state because compliance in one state to another can vary drastically and Employers don't know what they don't know. All of a sudden they find an employee that's a really good talent in New York, New Jersey, California, which are heavy regulated states. And those are even Colorado. Those are states like you really want to have a true partner by your side to help you make sure that you're dotting your I's and crossing your T's when it comes to HR.

• Speaker #0

  And so, you know, we talked about maybe. the buying power and the benefit program would you then need to get a national nationally nationally uh national coverage go with a large provider or does that give you flexibility within the different providers for health insurance as well yeah

• Speaker #1

  well most of the peos that i partner with that do have the national presence if they have the national presence or going with the large carrier that's national a lot of the peo companies use the aetna United, Cigna, and some will use Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, but Aetna is the biggest carrier. So every PEO company will have different plans with the carrier. They actually own the plans and they might have state-specific plans. So maybe the network might be a little bit more narrower or different plans based upon each state, but typically they're going to go with the same network. A lot of the PEO companies will give you a dual option with Aetna and Kaiser as a dual option. So your employees can pick between those two carriers and then the PEOs will have their different plan designs per state or they can just be national plans.

• Speaker #0

  OK, so the way you explained a PEO to me, my understanding is it gives you buying power in terms of things like benefit plans and other. But they also provide kind of a. a central hub to do some of your administrative work too. So they have an administrative office where you can get them to do, you know, sign people up for those benefits or some of your administration work. Is that correct?

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So when you're a company that's not using a PEO company, oftentimes you have a broker and an insurance carrier, your health and dental vision, all the ancillary benefits, and you have these different companies you're working with here. You might have a payroll company that you're partnered with here. Then you have your workers' comp policy, you know, with somebody else separate with a different insurance carrier. You have to go through that audit every year. You know, sometimes you have to pay deposits depending on that. And then they might have somebody internally do HR. They might just outsource the HR every so often. What a PEO does is it brings it all together, all these different providers in a single source solution when it comes to tech. technology. So oftentimes the clients get access to a very sophisticated HRS system, human resource information system that ties all the vendors into one single source solution. So they typically get the technology and then they get people. So they would actually get, most of the time, depending on the PEO company, will get partnered with the certified HR professional at your beck and call as things come up. help you with proactive HR and reactive HR, especially if you expand to a new state, they're going to say, hey, these are the things that you need to be aware of in this particular state.

• Speaker #0

  Okay. And the big question I know people have out there, and I think I know the answer to this, but how do you pay these organizations? Attention business owners, are you tired of wasting valuable time hiring for associate level positions? only to have them not work out or show up? Let me introduce you to CareerSpring. CareerSpring connects first-generation and low-income college students with employers like you for those crucial early career roles. Many of these graduates had to balance a full-time job and a full-time course load to achieve their college dreams. They understand the value of hard work and overcoming obstacles. And here's the best part. CareerSpring is free for employers. Yes, you heard that right. As a non-profit organization, CareerSpring offers their services at no cost to you, making it easy to find and hire these incredible future leaders. They work with students all across the United States, from trade programs to Ivy League schools and everything in between. If you're ready to make a real difference and connect first generation potential with future opportunities, click the link in the show notes below and learn how you can transform your business and support these exceptional students. What's their service fee or their fee based on?

• Speaker #1

  So their fee based on is administrative fee. Typically it's a per employee per month charge or per employee per payroll charge. Some will charge a percentage of payroll. It's kind of a little bit all over the place and it really depends on the size of your business. So as your company grows and scales, they can reduce the administrative fees. Oftentimes what I see though is companies, if you're currently offering benefits and you're paying... a good employer contribution and maybe you're paying some high premiums and workers comp oftentimes there's savings on the health insurance and the workers comp insurance where it offsets any administrative fees sometimes it could be uh you know a savings sometimes it could be a net even and sometimes it can be a small investment it just really depends on the offset of savings that we're able to provide also a lot of the the people don't realize is there's a lot of soft dollar costs as well that i take into an account if you're the owner and you're trying to do hr how much of time are you spending and are you getting the right you know advice or are you outsourcing to a

• Speaker #0

  law firm and you're having to pay them hourly right or how much time are you spending processing payroll exactly so it sounds like you really need to do I guess like anything, there can be a little sticker shock when you hear that price. But when you actually break it down and say, well, I can reduce my burden per employee by X and I and save money here, save money there. Process my payroll in an hour versus having to pay someone what a full day to go through and verify and do everything. You got to weigh that out. And I think what I heard is sometimes it'll clearly be a better deal. Yes. Sometimes you might break even, but if you break even and are investing less time, that feels like a win.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly.

• Speaker #0

  Or sometimes it might be a little more, but you might make that assessment and say it's worth it because we're going to save some time and some headaches and some mistakes. Like you said, those kind of immeasurable costs that, you know, maybe someone misses a zero on the payroll and someone gets paid too much or someone doesn't get paid enough or

• Speaker #1

  uh you're not calculating things correctly no one's ever going to come to you if you've given them too many overtime hours right they're not going to yeah by the way you overpaid me so you get more accuracy i guess and you also it's a protection because the peo is going to be a real partner with you as a co-employee so they really want to make sure you're compliant with hr laws so new business is a good example they've grown and scaled quickly they don't know what they don't know Sometimes they're over, I've talked to a company, they're over 50 employees and didn't realize it was a national IRS law that they have to offer affordable benefits to their employees. And, you know, they are going to be subsequent to an audit, an IRS audit. And who wants an IRS audit or a Department of Labor audit? And if they come in and audit you for one thing and find that you're out of. compliance, then they're going to start auditing. It's going to open up the doors for everybody to come in and give you an audit and how much exposure and how much you're going to actually pay in fines and penalties.

• Speaker #0

  Right. All right. Well, I think we've defined it well enough. Let's move into kind of the mistakes that you've seen employers make. And I guess there's a couple different categories by not engaging with a PEO or not. engaging correctly with the PEO, meaning not utilizing them to maximize the return you get from them.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah. So if you've never been with the PEO and you've never done the whole due diligence process, it's always a good eye opener to do it. Even if you don't go down that path, at least you're very educated on what it is, because at some point you might need to turn that button on and go in that direction. In any event, it'll really help you figure out where you're spending your money and your soft dollar costs as well. If you're currently looking at going with the PEO company and you're just not quite sure how to make your selection, it's really important that you take a look at lots of different things. Make sure that the PEO company is certified. Make sure that if you transition mid-year, that they're going to give you a credit for any FICA, Social Security and Medicare taxes, which is really important, especially if you have highway journeyers, your state. make sure that they're going to give you some type of credit for your state unemployment rates. Because most of the time by March, April, many of your employees you've paid into the state unemployment. So you want to make sure you're going to get a credit if you're going to change mid-year. January is a good time to transition, but not everybody can transition at that time because their renewals are different times of the year. And sometimes they'll position it to whenever their health insurance renewal is. Another thing to consider is the health insurance renewal. So right now I'm talking to a lot of companies that are renewing in June, and each PEO company has a different renewal for their benefit plans. So if you transition to a new PEO company in June, you want to make sure you know when they're the new PEO company renewal, because it might be October, November, January. And so we really want to, that's where I come in. I help my clients negotiate, lock in a rate, or hopefully not, you know, lock it into the following year if we can. So those are, you know, really important things to consider because if you make a change come June and then November, you get hit with 20% renewal. You need to make it, you know, make an account for that.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah. And that wouldn't be ideal. I wouldn't imagine. And so. Those are things we want to look at when we're working with them. What other things can you, would you recommend a business owner when they're going through that process that they consider or questions to ask if they've not used the PEO before and they're, they're exploring that route?

• Speaker #1

  Well, those are the questions. Find out when the renewal on the medical plans, find out if they give you credits for tax taxes. Those are really important. If you're currently with the PEO, And that's typically oftentimes who I'm talking to, clients that have already been with the PEO for a very long time. If you haven't done due diligence in three years, it's always a good time to do that. And so sometimes I'll get somebody reach out to me and say, I really don't want to go through this process because it's a lot of work. I'm willing to just let you do it. So that way my executive team knows that we went through the due diligence process. And oftentimes what we find is there's significant savings on the administrative fees because those fees can just creep up over time. And there's a lot of PEO companies where they're not very transparent in their billing. They basically bundle it in in their invoices and they charge you and it's all payroll, taxes, workers comp, and then their fees are hidden in that invoice. So sometimes they don't even know what they're paying, especially if you've been with them for several years.

• Speaker #0

  We did a show a while back on insurance and it was a similar thing about it's just you have that relationship and you've worked with them a long time. So you make the assumption that, well, they must be giving us a good deal and it's a complete pain in the ass to shop this.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely.

• Speaker #0

  And so but if you like you said, every two or three years, you just make it a point of going through the exercise and you end up thinking, oh, well, I thought this person, you know. was giving me the best deal, but maybe they're not. I mean, that's just money. And that goes back into the business, into the, you know, the owner's jeans or back to your employees or whatever you want to do. So it sounds like, you know, sometimes in that instance, the juice is worth the squeeze. Even if it comes out, you're getting a good deal. You know, you are.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's really where I come in. I can help you do that heavy lifting and do the whole due diligence on your behalf versus. you know, you having to deal with all the different sales reps and getting documents here and documents there and getting proposals from all kinds of different companies. I take that proposal, all the different proposals and put it all into a spreadsheet that you'll be able to read very easily.

• Speaker #0

  And you know what to ask for up front from these people. So then you can deal with the P.O.s and no one. You know, we always talk about the biggest asset to a business owner's time.

• Speaker #1

  Time. Absolutely.

• Speaker #0

  If you can. ask them one time for all this information and then do all that work in the background. And they don't even know you're doing it. All they do is get a report that says.

• Speaker #1

  here's a recommendation or you're in a really good spot or whatever uh that's invaluable absolutely it is so if they're dealing with a bunch of different sales rep each company is going to ask for everything under the sun and they get very burdened down i've given you everything you've requested and now you want something else for me and i give them pushback because i know exactly what they need and if they give me any pushback like hey we need xyz report i'm like no you got this report and it's giving you this information Right. So,

• Speaker #0

  and I would imagine even is if they make it that hard and they keep asking for more, more, more, and I'd be interested to know what their motivation is to ask for extra info from a business owner. But that's that point where if, if they've been doing it and it's been okay, and you keep adding, lifting that barrier higher and higher, eventually they're going to say, you know what?

• Speaker #1

  Like I'm done. I'm done.

• Speaker #0

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. where you come in and you're like, here's exactly what I need. Now, forget about me for a couple of weeks here and just let me go do my thing and I'll report back when I have the information.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. And sometimes what I find is you might be dealing with the newer rep or something and they just didn't, or they just didn't see the report and I just have to point it out. No, you have the information.

• Speaker #0

  That drives me nuts.

• Speaker #1

  Yes.

• Speaker #0

  When you send all, you, you send a very thoughtful message with all the information and they come back. I'll give you an example. I sent a message to a candidate that said, Hey, schedule your schedule, a meeting with me. Here's a link.

• Speaker #1

  They didn't read the whole email.

• Speaker #0

  They sent me an email back saying, Hey, I didn't schedule a meeting yet. Does the link still work? I don't know. Click the link and find out. Like all you had to do is like left click. Right. And you would have answered that question, but it drives me nuts that, and I different people have different. varying opinions, but you know, when you're looking for people who have initiative and problem solving, that could be a red flag. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  Maybe it's not a good hire after all.

• Speaker #0

  It's just, it's, it's something then when you're talking to them, you're thinking about this. Okay, well let's go down that road and see, right. All you had to do is click a link, right? All you have, all you had to do is go through the information I sent you, but it's just kind of lazy, right? People don't value time. And that's where you and I are very aligned. It's like, no, no, no, no. I don't want you to spend a second that you don't need to be spending on any of this. Let me do all the hard work for you. And I'll just include you when you need to be included.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. And sometimes that'll eliminate the PEO altogether. Because I'm like, all the other PEOs have given me a proposal based on everything I've provided, and you're still asking for more information. I'm sorry, at this time, we're going to just have to decline to quote.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, cool. So if I'm working with a PEO, what mistakes could I be making? But and or questions should I be asking? Or are there things that they're capable of doing for my business that, you know, maybe hidden away and they don't really publicize that I can ask them to do for me?

• Speaker #1

  Well, the invoicing is big. If you're not knowing, if you don't know exactly what you're paying every single payroll and administrative fees, that's a big thing. And you need to give them pushback and get some detailed reports so that way you know clearly what you're paying. There's all kinds of other additional benefits, cloud products that a lot of the PEOs sell. So it's something if you know the relationship is going good and you want to add some additional services like recruiting. performance management tools, things like that, time and attendance. Those are additional products that you can include and it'll all be tied into your payroll system. Especially if you're going out looking for new candidates and if you hire somebody that information will integrate to your payroll system.

• Speaker #0

  So I imagine those are kind of like a la carte.

• Speaker #1

  Those are a la carte pricing.

• Speaker #0

  They can poke and then they price it as a so much.

• Speaker #1

  per month or it would be an additional cost per employee to utilize that resource or whatever it is yes and they're typically very reasonable because the peo is getting bulk pricing on the software so sure yeah and then they're reselling it to lots as many people as they can right background checks is another example so if you have a great relationship with your background uh provider that's doing the background checks for you It's always good just to double check what the PEO can give you. They partner with third party vendors. And if you're going to get the same background information that you need at a cheaper price, why not, you know, use their service?

• Speaker #0

  Right. Okay. One other question that I thought of is, and I've heard this comment a few times, that if you use a PEO. They own your employees and the business does not. Is that true?

• Speaker #1

  That is not true. And that's a big misconception that I really like to make clear up here. So in the past, there used to be companies that which called employee leasing and any type of employee leasing, they do own the employees. Under the PEO model, it's a co-employment relationship. So the PEO becomes the employer of payroll and making sure that. your dot in your I's and crossing your T's when it comes to HR. However, they are your employees. You own the employees. You manage who you hire, who you fire, who you want to give raises to. At the end of the day, though, if there is a lawsuit, any type of discrimination lawsuit, any type of lawsuit against an employee to the employer, there's going to be two people named on the lawsuit, the employer and the PEO company. So that's why they're they're joined together and it's a co-employment relationship and the peo actually has skin in the game because if they're going to be named on a lawsuit they want to make sure you're doing the right thing but they don't inhibit the employer's ability to hire promote

• Speaker #0

  uh demote uh fire discipline that still that control still remains within the business absolutely that it remains in the business right that's clearing that up i know that is a common um misconception it's a very big misconception hopefully hopefully a few people will listen to this and they'll go oh okay that was that was my concern and we cleared that up for them well there are companies that do what you call employee leasing yeah

• Speaker #1

  which sounds like a crazy concept well it's they just don't want to deal with having employees at all. They just want somebody else to do it. A lot of the staffing companies will do employee leasing.

• Speaker #0

  That's not where you pay someone, you have a 15-hour job, but you pay them 18 and the staffing company takes their fee off the top of that. And then they provide benefits and pay the employee over their payroll system. It has their logo on the paycheck. So I work for ABC Staffing. but I'm placed at company XYZ.

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, but then the leasing company is actually doing the payroll and doing the benefits. And they are actually, they own basically your employees.

• Speaker #0

  And you just have that person on your site working.

• Speaker #1

  Exactly.

• Speaker #0

  But they're doing the timekeeping and everything.

• Speaker #1

  Yes, everything.

• Speaker #0

  And sometimes people feel that's worth the premium as well.

• Speaker #1

  It's worth the premium, absolutely.

• Speaker #0

  absolutely someone's not working out you can just say yeah this this individual's not cutting it for us send someone else tomorrow right and some people enjoy that i mean i know a lot of companies that do a mix of that um and then you can convert those people right after three six nine twelve months whatever the terms of your agreement are you can pay a conversion fee and then bring that person into your business but you've got a try before you buy scenario essentially yeah cool All right. So let's move into the advice section of this, Susanna. If I am a business owner out there and I'm thinking, man, this PEO stuff sounds like something worth pursuing,

• Speaker #1

  or

• Speaker #0

  I don't know if I'm getting the best out of my PEO. What are the, other than calling you and we'll give you a chance to kind of tell everyone how to contact you in a second, but other than contacting you, what are the top three to five pieces of advice you would give a small business owner? when it comes to either engaging with or assessing your current PEO?

• Speaker #1

  Once again, if you haven't done due diligence in a couple of years, it's time to do it. And you really want to gather as much detailed reports. And I'm happy to provide you a list of reports to gather from your PEO company. You want to make sure you're getting transparent billing so you know exactly what you're paying for. And oftentimes the The owners don't necessarily deal with the PEO companies direct. They're more high level. Sometimes it's somebody internally that's dealing with HR and payroll. So you really want to find out, are there some hiccups? Are there some problems? Are there some relationship problems? Are they just not providing the level of service that they promised? Is it time to not only be based upon cost, but based upon service as well?

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  Those are really important.

• Speaker #0

  Awesome. And what are the questions someone new to it should be or the pieces of advice you give someone who's thinking about it? What are the first? One, two, three steps they should take to start. at least exploring the opportunity?

• Speaker #1

  Well, if you are currently offering benefits and you're paying a high employer contribution, I would at least just look at the health insurance piece, first of all. Also, if you're expanding and you're going to be hiring in different states, you should definitely be talking to a PEO company because there's so many different state laws and in certain states, you have to pay somebody. If you let them go, you have to pay them that day. I mean, there's certain, Colorado, just, they're constantly just passing new laws. Like you have to offer 401k to all your employees. You have to provide an additional insurance for family medical leave. So a lot of different states have different nuances and it's great to be able to partner with the PEO because then you don't have to worry about that. You have peace of mind. You can sleep at night and just. Focus on scaling your business and hiring wherever you find the talent.

• Speaker #0

  So when you're talking, and that's a great point, but if I'm hiring someone, say I'm sitting here in Texas and I hire someone in Colorado, it's one person they're going to work remote. This episode is brought to you by Key Hire Solutions, where we work exclusively with small business owners who need the right team to scale and grow their business. Are you struggling to find the right talent for your business? As a small business owner, your time is precious, and sifting through unqualified candidates can be frustrating and costly. At KeyHire, we can eliminate time-consuming and disruptive DIY hiring by leveraging our market expertise and our proven process to ensure you get a custom hiring solution that fits your culture, your needs, and your budget. We take the hassle out of hiring by delivering the perfect candidate for your business, guaranteed. Let us handle the heavy lifting so you can stay focused on what matters most, growing your business. With KeyHire Solutions, you'll secure the right talent without the stress or guesswork. Stop settling for the best of the worst candidates. It's time to build the team your business deserves. Click the link in the liner notes below to schedule a call and start your journey. to success today. They fall under Colorado state law.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely they do.

• Speaker #0

  And if I don't, if I'm not brushed up on that, I can get myself in a bit of trouble.

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. You can. Yeah.

• Speaker #0

  Good. Great points. Anything else to add to all that Susanna?

• Speaker #1

  Workers comp is another big piece. So if you're paying a high premium and workers comp, oftentimes there's companies that require upfront deposits or you, you know, you have to do. audit at the end of the year. The PEO joining the workers comp PEO, you eliminate a deposit, you eliminate any type of audits. It's going to be pay as you go. If you've had any major, major claims and your rate has gone up quite a bit, it's always a great opportunity to look at a PEO to see if you can get some savings there and be more competitive as you're bidding on jobs. So that way your employer burden isn't, you know, sky high.

• Speaker #0

  Sure. I know. some of the companies I've worked with in the past are small, they offer benefits and they've had a lot of long, some long-term employees that have got, you know, terminally ill, unfortunately, right. They've gone out and they've really, the benefits are there for that exact reason, but they've had two or three people over the course of three or four years who have really used, I don't want to say taken advantage of because they're not, they're utilizing the benefits that are available, right. But those.

• Speaker #1

  come rolling back on that on that uh premium and the rates get cranked right now so would a peo be able to help kind of neutralize that or drop it a bit situation possibly can depending on if the claims are are done so a lot of the carriers look is it one and done and it's or is it going to be chronic isn't it and is it still ongoing so sometimes you know A PEO is not going to be a fit for everybody. There's going to be a lot of PEOs that if it's something ongoing, they might just, the rates will be non-competitive. So there'll have to be some other options that the employers would have to look at.

• Speaker #0

  And that's the challenge when they get these hits on the rates. So they shop them and they get this information and the quotes they get back are, they're already paying super high premiums. And then the quotes that come back are even higher. So I guess what I hear you say is let everything kind of. conclude until it, you know, all those things, people, you're kind of back to normal where everyone's in good shape and using the benefit plan. I don't even know what the right way to say it is, but they're just kind of through as normal.

• Speaker #1

  Normal, not over-usualizing it and nothing anything chronic or ongoing. That's a really good point.

• Speaker #0

  And that's a good time to kind of look at this and say, OK, we had a bump in the road here for the last two or three years, but it's normalized. Now, is this the right time to maybe have you shop this around for?

• Speaker #1

  Absolutely. That's that's really probably the best time. And there's always there's lots of other things that you can look at as well.

• Speaker #0

  besides just the peo uh master help yeah yeah uh but i man i feel kind of weird talking about people that are ill right these are your employees and they have families now well they're over utilizing the benefit plan like no they're kind of they're kind of utilizing it why the reason why it's there right it's like yeah it's

• Speaker #1

  it's there for those those instances and you're really not supposed to know any of the health details about your employees but oftentimes when you're a small employer you can't help but know who's out sick but what i find oftentimes is the employers really don't know who's over you, what happened, why the plan just closed up. And it's oftentimes it's some dependent on the plan. And the employer has no idea what it is. And so oftentimes the best thing is to do individual health questionnaires to get the employees to complete a HIPAA confidential link to really find out what's going on to get some details because it could be something that was ongoing, but now it's no longer, or now it's, you know, they're, they're in cancer remission and everything is steady, Eddie, going forward.

• Speaker #0

  And you bring up a good point, right? The small businesses. And I always say the way you start a small business is to hire your neighbor, hire your neighbor's cousin and everyone pitches in and does everything. And up into a certain point, and I feel like it's that 40 to 60 employee mark. just the way you grow business it's friends of friends it's referrals it's all that until you kind of that peak where okay now we've definitely we're out over our skis and we're bigger than the experience in the building right so all that to say oftentimes you know exactly what's going on because these are all friends of friends of friends and they've been working together shoulder to shoulder and that it's it's a business but there's also a business family that exists inside there and so they do talk absolutely

• Speaker #1

  absolutely and we always advise the employers don't it's better not to ask your employees anything it's better just not to know anything but sometimes they can help it for sure yeah yeah and yeah i don't i mean i like to think people don't do it other than caring and making wanting everyone to be okay i don't know that there's you

• Speaker #0

  know most of the employers out there are good and and will kind of help you through that right they wouldn't do anything malicious in the background and that's a whole conversation but yes So, Susanna, I'm listening to this. I'm thinking, OK, this is something I think I definitely need to start exploring. And I like the way Susanna has been talking about this. And I think she could be a good resource for me. Someone wants to reach out. How can we get in touch with you?

• Speaker #1

  You can go to my website at PEO for the CEO dot com. Or you can also message me on LinkedIn at Susanna Martinez, PEO for the CEO.

• Speaker #0

  i love the name by the way thank you it's like oh it's going to be like a mind worm now i'm not going to be able to forget it you'll always remember yeah very cool well thank you so much for your time i've enjoyed the conversation it's been valuable and i look forward we'll keep in touch okay sounds good thank you thanks so much there you go susanna martinez um talking about peos which i know has always been a bit of a blind spot for me. So I learned a lot in that conversation myself. I'd like to thank you for tuning into the Key Hire Small Business Podcast. If you got value out of today's show and you want to keep up to date on our new episodes, make sure you hit the subscribe button. We'd love to have you as a subscriber. Also, leave comments if you have topics out there you'd like us to talk about, put it in there. We're here to help you. So if there's something on your mind, we would love to bring an expert on and talk about that. if you prefer to watch your or listen to your podcast you can find us on any of your major platforms spotify youtube whatever you listen on just search up the key higher small business podcast i'd like to thank you for listening i'm tori harlock and until next time stop grinding start ground