KSU: Georgia manufacturing roars back in February

Manufacturing activity in Georgia in February rose to heights not seen since April 2008, mirroring a positive national trend.

The Peach State notched its highest reading since April 2008, according to the Econometric Center at Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business.

More…

What will power next-generation businesses? | Enterprise Web 2.0 | ZDNet.com

What will power next-generation businesses?

This is a new Internet-powered business landscape. Self-organizing peer production is the motive force and network effects are the new market share.

more…

Power Line – California vs. Texas: The Verdict Is In

California vs. Texas: The Verdict Is In
November 1, 2009 Posted by John at 8:32 PM

Texas, increasingly, is the economic and intellectual leader of the U.S. During the last 18 months before the current recession took hold, while the country as a whole was still creating jobs, more than half of those jobs were created in a single state: Texas.

Texas has usurped the leadership position that, decades ago, belonged to California. Today California is in decline, likely irreversibly so. William Voegeli draws the sad but instructive comparison in the Los Angeles Times:

In America’s federal system, some states, such as California, offer residents a “package deal” that bundles numerous and ambitious public benefits with the high taxes needed to pay for them. Other states, such as Texas, offer packages combining modest benefits and low taxes. These alternatives, of course, define the basic argument between liberals and conservatives over what it means to get the size and scope of government right. …

California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau’s latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher in California than in Texas: $10,070 per person compared with $6,858. …

Confronted with a stark choice between government dominance and freedom, Americans are voting with their feet:
Read the whole article here.

This should be a big business opportunity for many in the delivery niche; think about it. All the associated companies that will need your help will be up and running quick, unless our benevolent national government gets in the way!

Read the whole article here:
Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world – Telegraph

Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world
Engineers have performed their magic once again. The world is not going to run short of energy as soon as feared.

Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Muslims inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died.

We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot.

We’ve learned nothing.

via Betraying our dead.

The next 60 days are critical to our success.  There are very few times during the year that are as important as September, October, and early November.

This is the Time to Start Thinking About It – Companies who think about adding a new initiative or making a change in service providers, vendors, etc., often begin that process during these next three months.  There are plenty of companies who will buy your products and services regardless of the time of year, but there also exists a large number of organizations who take the stance of, “we only make these types of changes in January”.  The best thing you can do in the next 60 days is to get in front of as many prospects as your schedule can possibly handle!

via Why the Next 60 Days Are Critical | SalesBlogcast.

Social media has pulled advertisers and marketers into the eco-system of conversations. However, the audience has rejected their presence.

Now through an integrated innovative offering advertisers and marketers can both reach and add value to the conversations.

You Ask How?

via A Relationship Economy….The intersection of technology and Human Relations.

PanAM’s PEO clients are already up to speed on these regulations, but other small businesses will need to immediately review their compliance practices in view of this new information.

Of particular note is this quote:

As part of this shift, the Obama administration is planning a major revival of high-impact civil rights enforcement against policies, in areas ranging from housing to hiring, where statistics show that minorities fare disproportionately poorly.

Note, please, the emphasis on “hiring.” You can believe that there will be compliance and other record keeping regulations on the way, so be prepared.

Please contact us today, should you need help in any of our areas of expertise.

At PanAM we represent one of the largest providers of Rewards Programs in the Country and have special programs for Banks. We’re particularly proud of our work with Community Banks and Community Bank State Associations. We do have programs to fit your needs that pay for themselves.

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• Collecting Visitor Info: Reward vs. Reciprocity (futurelab.net)
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PEOs One Response to Market Demands For Change

American business is undergoing fundamental changes in human resource management, and the PEO industry is a response to market demands. There are several factors driving the growth of the industry. First, over the last two decades, this nation has seen a significant increase in employment-related federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Second, the expertise required to manage a small to mid-sized business has outgrown the experience and training of many entrepreneurs who started these businesses. Third, working Americans demand comprehensive, affordable health care, retirement savings plans, and other employee benefits for themselves and their families. In response to these demands, the PEO industry has divided business into several manageable parts.

Helping Entrepreneurs With the “Business Of Employment”

PEOs offer to their clients and worksite employees the services and expertise of a personnel department within a large corporation. Few, if any, small businesses can afford a full-time staff consisting of an accountant, a human resource professional, a lawyer, a risk manager, a benefits manager, and a manager of information services. PEOs offer this expertise to their clients.

By providing these services, PEOs enable their clients to concentrate on their core business without the challenges and distractions associated with the “business of employment.” As a result, PEOs enhance the profitability of their client companies. The PEO’s economy of scale enables each client company to lower employment costs and increase the business’s bottom line. The client can maintain a simple in-house HR infrastructure or none at all by relying on the PEO. The client also can reduce hiring overhead. Costs related to monitoring of, and compliance with, employment laws are reduced, as are the often significant costs of failure to comply with such laws. In addition, the PEO provides time savings by handling routine and redundant tasks for its clients. This enables the business owner to focus on the company’s core competency and grow its bottom line.

Helping American Workers and Their Families

In addition to providing important services to their business clients, PEOs offer substantial advantages to worksite employees. In many cases, these employees would not be provided the number, or quality, of benefits that a PEO can offer. These benefits may include health insurance, retirement savings plans, disability insurance, life insurance, dependent care reimbursement accounts, vision care, dental insurance, employee assistance plans, job counseling and educational benefits. Each individual small business’s cost of establishing and administering this range of plans would be prohibitive. However, due to economies of scale, PEOs can sponsor and offer these plans at an affordable cost.
In many cases, employees of small businesses would not be protected by employment laws in the absence of the PEO relationship. Because worksite employees are included in the larger workforce of a PEO for purposes of determining statutory coverage, they are in many cases covered by employment laws that would not have otherwise applied. Further, there is generally a higher rate of compliance with these laws by a PEO than by its clients because PEOs provide full-time staff who are responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with such laws.

What is a Professional Employer Organization (P E O)?

Professional employer organizations (PEOs) enable clients to cost-effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll and workers’ compensation. PEO clients focus on their core competencies to maintain and grow their bottom line.

Businesses today need help managing increasingly complex employee related matters such as health benefits, workers’ compensation claims, payroll, payroll tax compliance, and unemployment insurance claims. They contract with a PEO to assume these responsibilities and provide expertise in human resources management. This allows the PEO client to concentrate on the operational and revenue-producing side of its operations.

A PEO provides integrated services to effectively manage critical human resource responsibilities and employer risks for clients. A PEO delivers these services by establishing and maintaining an employer relationship with the employees at the client’s worksite and by contractually assuming certain employer rights, responsibilities, and risk.
Businesses across America have discovered the incredible value of PEOs because they provide:

Relief from the burden of employment administration.
A wide range of personnel management solutions through a team of professionals.
Improved employment practices, compliance and risk management to reduce liabilities.
Access to a comprehensive employee benefits package, allowing clients to be competitive in the labor market.
Assistance to improve productivity and profitability.

Who uses a PEO?

Any business can find value in a PEO relationship. An average client of a NAPEO member company is a business with 19 worksite employees. Increasingly, larger businesses also are finding value in a PEO arrangement, because PEOs offer robust Web-based HR technologies and expertise in HR management. PEOs can partner with companies that have 500 or more employees and work in conjunction with their existing human resources department.

PEO clients include many different types of businesses ranging from accounting firms to high-tech companies and small manufacturers. Many different types of professionals, including doctors, retailers, mechanics, engineers and plumbers, also benefit from PEO services.

How does a PEO arrangement work?

Once a client company contracts with a PEO, the PEO will then co-employ the client’s worksite employees. In the arrangement among a PEO, a worksite employee and a client company, there exists a co-employment relationship in which both the PEO and client company have an employment relationship with the worker. The PEO and client company share and allocate responsibilities and liabilities. The PEO assumes much of the responsibility and liability for the business of employment, such as risk management, human resource management, and payroll and employee tax compliance. The client company retains responsibility for and manages product development and production, business operations, marketing, sales, and service. The PEO and the client will share certain responsibilities for employment law compliance. As a co-employer, the PEO will often provide a complete human resource and benefit package for worksite employees.

What is NAPEO?

Formed in 1984, the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations is the national trade association for the PEO industry. NAPEO is known both as NAPEO The Voice of the PEO Industry for government affairs and as The Source for PEO Education due to the association’s education and training programs. NAPEO promotes a Code of Ethics and a number of best practices to its member companies. NAPEO has nearly 400 PEO members operating in all 50 states, representing approximately 91 percent of the revenues of the $68 billion industry.

Are PEOS recognized as employers at the state and federal levels?

Yes. PEOs operate in all 50 states. Many states provide some form of specific licensing, registration, or regulation for PEOs. These states statutorily recognize PEOs as the employer or co-employer of worksite employees for many purposes, including workers’ compensation and state unemployment insurance taxes. The IRS has accepted the right of a PEO to withhold and remit federal income and unemployment taxes for worksite employees. The IRS has promulgated specific guidance confirming the authority of PEOs to provide retirement benefits to workers.

Why would a business use a PEO?

Business owners want to focus their time and energy on the “business of their business” and not on the “business of employment.” As businesses grow, most owners do not have the necessary human resource training; payroll and accounting skills, the knowledge of regulatory compliance, or the backgrounds in risk management, insurance and employee benefit programs to meet the demands of being an employer. PEOs give small-group markets access to many benefits and employment amenities they would not have otherwise.

Do the business owners lose control of their businesses?

No. The client retains ownership of the company and control over its operations. As co-employers, the PEO and client will contractually share or allocate employer responsibilities and liabilities. The PEO will generally only assume responsibilities and liabilities associated with a “general” employer for purposes of administration, payroll, taxes and benefits. The client will continue to have responsibility for worksite safety and compliance. The PEO will be responsible for payroll and employment taxes, will maintain employee records and reserves a right to hire and fire. Because the PEO also may be responsible for workers’ compensation, many PEOs also focus on and improve safety and compliance. In general terms, the PEO will focus on employment-related issues and the client will be responsible for the actual business operations.

What is the difference between employee leasing and a PEO arrangement?

A PEO or co-employment arrangement involves all or a significant number of the client’s existing worksite employees in a long-term, non-project related, employment relationship. The PEO brings services to the client, including the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll and worker’s compensation. The PEO assumes employer responsibility for employment tax, benefit plans and other human resource purposes. Through the use of a PEO relationship, client companies make a long-term investment in their workers, because in most cases, the PEO provides access to health insurance, retirement savings plans, and other critical employee benefits for their worksite employees. If a PEO relationship is terminated, the co-employees will cease to work for the PEO but will continue as employees of the client.

By comparison, a leasing or staffing service supplies new workers on a temporary or project-specific basis. These leased employees return to the staffing service for reassignment after completion of their work with the client company. Some would define employee leasing as a supplemental, temporary employment arrangement where one or more workers are assigned to a customer for a fixed period of time, often for a specific project. This concept creates little long-term equity or investment between the worker and customer.
Some older statutes governing PEOs still use the leasing terminology.

What is the difference between temporary staffing services and a PEO?

Like a leasing situation, a temporary staffing service recruits employees and assigns them to clients to support or supplement the client’s workforce in special work situations, such as employee absences, temporary skill shortages or seasonal workloads. These workers are traditionally only a small portion of the client’s workforce. A PEO contractually assumes and manages employer responsibilities for all or a majority of a client’s workforce. Industry ratios identify the PEO arrangement as a long-term relationship with nearly 86 percent of the clients and worksite employees remaining with the PEO for a year or longer. Worksite employees participate in the PEO’s full range of employee benefits including, health, dental, and life insurance, vision care, and retirement savings plans.

How many Americans are employed in a co-employment PEO arrangement?

It is estimated that 2-3 million Americans are currently co-employed in a PEO arrangement. The average PEO has grown more than 20 percent per year for each of the last six years, according to a survey of NAPEO members. About 700 PEOs that offer a wide array of employment services and benefits are operating today in 50 states. The PEO industry generates approximately $68 billion in gross revenues annually. PEOs have an 88 percent client retention rate due to strong client satisfaction. NAPEO member companies are estimated to account for more than 91 percent of the industry’s gross revenues.

How do PEOs help their clients control costs and grow their bottom line?

The PEO’s economy of scale enables each client company to lower employment costs and increase the business’s bottom line. The client can maintain a simple in-house HR infrastructure or none at all by relying on the PEO. The client also can reduce hiring overhead. The professionals at the PEO can provide critical assistance with employer compliance, which helps protect the client against liability. In many cases, the client can pay a small up-front cost for a significant technology and service infrastructure or platform provided by the PEO. In addition, the PEO provides time savings by handling routine and redundant tasks for its clients. This enables the business owner to focus on the company’s core competency and grow its bottom line.

How do employees benefit from a PEO arrangement?

Employees seek financial security, quality health insurance, a safe working environment and opportunities for retirement savings. When a company works with a PEO, job security is improved as the PEO implements efficiencies to lower employment costs. Job satisfaction and productivity increase when employees are provided with professional human resource services, training, employee manuals, safety services and improved communications. And in many cases, a co-employment relationship provides employees with an expanded employee benefits package, to include a 401(k), life insurance, disability insurance, discount plans, a flexible spending plan and more.

Do workers receive comprehensive benefits?

Frequently, a PEO arrangement is the only opportunity for a worker of many small businesses to receive Fortune 500 quality employee benefits like health insurance, dental and vision care, life insurance, retirement saving plans, job counseling, adoption assistance, and educational benefits. Absent the PEO, a small business can neither afford nor manage these benefits.

Who is responsible for the employees’ wages and employment taxes?

PEOs assume responsibility and liability for payment of wages and compliance with the rules and regulations governing the reporting and payment of federal and state taxes on wages paid to its employees. PEOs have long established their role as reporting income and handling withholding, FICA and FUTA. In 2002, the IRS issued guidance confirming the ability of PEOs to offer qualified retirement benefits.

Who is responsible for state unemployment taxes?

As the employer for employment tax and employee benefits, PEOs assume responsibility and liability for payment of state unemployment taxes, and most states recognize the PEO as the responsible entity. In those states that require the PEO to report unemployment tax liability under its clients’ account numbers, the PEO can still manage this responsibility.

Who is responsible for employment laws and regulations?

As employers, both the client and the PEO have compliance obligations. However, PEOs provide worksite employees with coverage under many employment laws and regulations, including federal, state, and local discrimination laws, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, ADA, FMLA, HIPAA, Equal Pay Act, and COBRA. In many cases, these laws would not apply to workers at small businesses without the PEO relationship, since many statutes have exemptions based upon the number of workers in a work force. Once included in the PEO’s workforce, the workers are protected by these laws.

Who is responsible for workers’ compensation?

Many states recognize the PEO as the employer of worksite employees for purposes of providing workers’ compensation coverage.

Does a PEO arrangement impact a collective bargaining agreement?

No. PEOs work equally well in union and non-union worksites. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recognizes that in co-employment relationships, worksite employees are appropriately included in the client employer’s collective bargaining unit. Where a collective bargaining agreement exists, PEOs fully abide by the agreement’s terms. PEOs endorse the rights of employees to organize, or not organize, under state and federal laws.

Do PEOs need to be licensed to provide insurance benefits to their workers?

Like other employers, a PEO may sponsor employee benefit plans for its worksite employees. Such benefits may be mandated by law, such as workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits. Or they may be voluntary benefits that will help attract and retain quality employees, such as health, life, dental and disability insurance. PEOs as employers may sponsor or acquire programs for their employees. As such, PEOs are consumers of insurance and procure these benefits from licensed insurance agents and authorized insurers.

Why is it important a PEO have audited financial statements?

A number of state PEO licensing and registration laws require audited financial statements. In addition, the PEO industry best professional performance practices recommend audited financial statements in order to enhance internal controls and accuracy of financial information. While independent audits cannot prevent fraud or financial failure, they provide management with an independent review of and opinion that the financial statements of the entity are accurate, complete and fairly presented according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

Is a PEOs financial statement publicly available?

Similar to their business clients, most PEOs are private entities that do not have public financial statements. Nonetheless, clients are advised to check a PEOs references, reputation, and financial background. Ask if the PEO has audited financial statements, obtain credit references, and conduct due diligence. In states where required, make certain that the PEO is duly licensed or registered. Many PEOs provide clients an independent CPAs attestation regarding the PEOs audited financial statements and payment of taxes and benefit plans.