More Insights on the Benefits of PEO's vs. HRO's

A PEO, or professional employment organization, is a company that specializes in taking care of all the responsibilities that come with employing qualified people, but also adhering to all the numerous employer/employee laws and requirements. By hiring a PEO, you are "getting out of the business of being an employer," says Bill Maness, president of Syndio Outsourcing, a PEO in Wichita, Kansas.

PEO's started in the 1980s and have grown quickly in the past few years as the number of state and federal regulations has increased, resulting in a pronounced increase in paperwork and different compliance requirements. There are about 700 PEO's in the United States serving more than 100,000 businesses with approximately 2.5 million employees, according to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, the trade association for the PEO industry.

The primary distinction from other HR service providers is that the PEO actually becomes the legal employer of your workers and thus takes on the accompanying legal liabilities. There are other distinctions as well that make PEO's a very attractive alternative to a standard HR service.