Your company is small, but growing and adding employees. That’s the good news. The challenge? You’ve never been in this position before, and you’re not sure you’ve dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s when it comes to making new hires. Also — how does one go about creating an employee handbook...?

A PEO, or Professional Employer Organization, provides HR solutions like payroll services and benefits administration/management to small and midsize businesses by creating a co-employment relationship. Essentially, a PEO relationship allows a business owner to cost-effectively outsource any and all HR-related responsibilities to the PEO partner experienced in HR management, so that the business owner can focus on growing his/her company. TEG has been a registered PEO for over 20 years and is certified in 28 states. For more information on PEOs, visit www.napeo.org

After a company contracts with a PEO, the PEO becomes a “co-employer” to the company’s employees, and the company and the PEO share employer responsibilities. Typically, a PEO will become responsible for things like remitting wages/withholdings and managing employment taxes, while the company (the onsite employer) will remain responsible for the daily operations of the business. Bringing on a PEO as a co-employer has many benefits for the company: for example, since all of its employees will also be the PEO’s employees, the PEO will be able to negotiate workers’ comp and other benefits with a larger pool of employees, resulting in cost savings.