Engaging a professional employer organization (PEO) — sometimes known as an employee leasing service — has become an important strategy for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) across the United States over the past three decades. With 907 PEOs in the U.S. employing 3.7 million people, PEOs have become a reliable staple in the business world, helping more than 175,000 SMBs enjoy impressive rates of growth in brief time frames.  

The typical family in the US looks quite different today than it did 30 years ago. School, sports, church, clubs and activities, and longer work hours have changed the way we allocate our time as well as how we eat.  With families getting busier and busier, how do you make healthy eating a priority? It’s actually pretty easy!

Volunteering Time Off, or VTO, has become a buzz topic for many companies as of late. It involves encouraging employees to take time off from their job to plug in to their community and the nonprofits that support it. Let’s delve in deeper to understand what VTO looks like.

Let’s say you are getting ready to make your favorite breakfast—avocado toast. You’ve toasted the bread, cut the avocado in half, and are ready to remove the dreaded pit. Of course, your knife slips and you end up slicing your hand—making you the latest victim of “avocado hand.” It seems you cannot stop the bleeding with a simple bandage so now you need to make the decision on where to go to seek help. Do you choose an urgent care facility or the emergency room? What’s the difference?

How much job training equates to time wasted:  About 20%, according to one LinkedIn study.  That’s the percentage of learners who never apply their training to their job.  That same study says 67% of learners apply the lessons learned, but in the end, revert to previous habits.  Another study found 45% of training content is never applied.

Growing up can be tough. The challenges of school, relationships with friends, sports and other activities can be stressful for children. Peer pressure, along with what they see and hear daily via social media, TV, movies and video games, can cause them to stress out about how they look. Comparing themselves with their friends—or, worse, with supermodels, movie stars, or pro athletes—can then lead to a negative body image.

In an employee-driven market like we find ourselves in, employee benefit packages matter more than ever in recruiting and retaining top talent. COVID-19 has also prompted a shift in the importance of certain benefits over base pay alone. Many employees would choose a lower salary over a more robust benefits package.

An employee benefits package includes all the perks and benefits provided when working for a company outside of an employee's wages and salary. Some organizations offer a handful of benefits, with the basics including medical insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, a 401k, holidays, and paid time off. Other organizations offer an extensive benefits package that encompasses the basics and more, from personal holidays and childcare to flexible schedules and student loan debt payments.

Life insurance 101, blah, blah, blah. Is that what you hear when someone mentions it as part of your new job’s employee benefits round-up or when you see something about it on TV or social media? Not to worry: we’ve got the low-down on what you need to know. And it’s really not as overwhelming (or underwhelming) as you might think.

Companies constantly strategize and implement the arduous task of submitting budgets, finding ways to cut costs for the upcoming quarter or new year. One of the most effective ways to combat increasing health care costs for companies is to move to a Self-Funded insurance plan. By paying for claims out-of-pocket instead of paying a premium to an insurance carrier, companies can save around 20% in administration costs and state taxes. That's quite a cost savings!

When each year ends, many people look at the year’s medical expenses to plan for how much they should set back for next year. In investigating these expenditures, you may notice that you still have money in your Flexible Spending Account (FSA) for the remaining year.

FSAs are unique in that any unused money from this plan year is forfeited once the new year begins. As a result, you do not want to leave money in your FSA once the new year rolls around. Want to know how to use FSA money before it’s gone for good? We compiled a list of some ways to use up your hard-earned FSA money that you may not have thought possible!