20 Awesome Employee Engagement Ideas and Activities

A lot has changed in today’s workplace. Many teams of employees are working in a hybrid workspace, part remote and part on-site. Employers are offering more flexible schedules. While supervisors are less able to pop over and offer encouragement in a traditional way, there are many ways to engage your employees whether they work remotely or are in the office next door. Engaged employees are a company’s greatest asset. Improving employee engagement doesn’t have to be hard work – it can be fun. In fact, fun may just be the secret ingredient: employee happiness and engagement are inextricably linked. Here are twenty tips to engage your employees.

1. Be yourself. One thing we learned from COVID-19 is that the boundaries between our professional self and our home self have blurred. Make sure to show off a bit of your quirkiness to your team. They’ll appreciate your humanity!
2. Use filters and backgrounds to make video conferencing a bit more interesting. Try the My favorite Vacation Spot background challenge and give employees time to share a quick story.
3. Leave time for employees to connect with each other before or after meetings. This builds a cohesive, engaged team and prevents back-to-back meeting burnout.
4. Be outcomes-focused, not clock-focused. Let your employees have the flexibility to work when they are the most productive.
5. Supercharge your communications and workflows. The next generation of business apps increases knowledge management and improves efficiency. Slack is a rising star, but Webex and Microsoft Teams are well-known platforms.
6. You just can’t bump into your team members by the water cooler – or can you? Virtual workspaces help remote employees feel less isolated. We love Gathertown, one of the most creative and fun virtual workspaces out there.
7. We’re all playing games! Incorporate games into your meetings. Try social gaming classics like “Two Truths and a Lie” or ‘Would You Rather?” which are fun icebreakers that help your employees get to know each other better. Look for multiplayer games that are quick and foster collaboration. Consider going deeper with special gaming times: your investment in gaming could have a big employee engagement payoff. This research study revealed that employees had a 20% boost in productivity after playing games together.
8. Share company goals, targets, and outcomes. When everyone is aware of the goals, engagement deepens, and productivity increases.
9. Brainstorm! Make sure everyone on the team knows there is no such thing as a bad idea. In fact, some of our craziest ideas will be innovation gold. Regular brainstorming supports a culture of learning. Brainstorm about everything: competitors, new products or services, processes, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Not only will you harness the eyes, ears, and minds of your team members but you will also increase employee engagement.
10. Take care of yourself too. Happy, engaged managers positively influence their team.
11. Be organized. Send out materials and agendas in advance to provide your employees with an opportunity to process. This will increase participation of all employees – even those who are often reluctant to speak up.
12. Pay attention to who is contributing and who is not. Provide welcoming opportunities for those who are hanging back but avoid putting people on this spot.
13. Provide opportunities for employees to support each other for work challenges. You will harness the power of your team and increase connection.
14. Mix things up! Match up employees who don’t usually work together for projects. Connections between employees increase employee happiness.
15. Make a difference together! Let employees choose the charity of their choice for an employee philanthropic effort. Shared impact deepens team engagement.
16. Debrief projects. Making the time to reflect and learn from both successes and challenges creates a company culture that is committed to learning and developing. The payoff will be a team poised for even greater success on the next project.
17. Recognize milestones and achievements in both people’s professional and personal lives. Consider personally signed cards by mail.
18. Don’t wing it. Read team updates and reports. Your team knows if you are faking it. Be engaged and lead through example.
19. Get to know your employees better. Personalized feedback and recognition increase employee engagement.
20. Share a meal, with a twist: email your team a list of ingredients that don’t seem to go well together. Each employee presents their dish, describes it, and tastes it in front of the whole team. Everyone votes on the most likely to be delicious, the scariest, and the most creative dish.

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Partner with TANDIUM Corporation to engage your employees and increase employee happiness. TANDIUM’s knowledgeable staff will collaborate with you to develop an engagement strategy tailored to your business and your team. TANDIUM Corporation is a complete human resources service organization. Contact us today.

How Does Employee Engagement Increase Motivation?

Both research and common sense tell us that engaged employees will be motivated to achieve better outcomes for their place of employment. We know that fostering employee engagement is a highly effective strategy to increase motivation.

The terms “motivation” and “engagement” are often used interchangeably however they do not have the same meaning. Motivation is the drive to achieve outcomes and take action. Motivating employees is key to achieving business success but not all methods to increase motivation are created equal. Fear and insecurity can drive an employee to perform but at a cost to their well-being and the morale of a company. The long-term effects of fear include burnout, reduced creativity, increased turnover, and a culture that hides mistakes and challenges.

In contrast to fear, engagement increases motivation in a way that enhances employee well-being. Employees who are engaged are passionate about the work that they do and are personally invested in business outcomes. High employee engagement correlates with high intrinsic, or internal, motivation. Turnover is reduced and there is a two-way investment between employee and employer. Engaged employees perform their very best and are rewarded by knowing they are truly valued.

Identifying employees who have high levels of engagement is essential in recruiting, developing, and retaining employees but employee engagement is not fixed. Engagement can increase or decrease over time. Supervisors and managers have a significant impact on the engagement, motivation, and achievements of their teams. One of the key factors to a high-performing team is the ability of leaders to increase engagement and motivation for their team members. This ability can be strengthened and developed.

Empathetic leaders increase the emotional connection within their teams and deepen their commitment. The benefits of implementing an effective engagement strategy can be transformative: employees are motivated and connected, they have strong personal alignment with the business outcomes, they experience professional and personal growth and organizations achieve business success.

Engagement is contagious. Individual employees have the power to motivate other team members and create a vibrant, high-performing culture.

Those employers who cultivate engagement will attract, retain, and develop a workforce motivated to succeed.

14 Tips for Cultivating a Team of Driven Employees

Chances are you have seen many engagement initiatives focused on the extrinsic, or external, motivators for engagement. Extrinsic motivators include compensation, bonus systems, perks, and operationalized systems of reward and recognition. They have their place in creating an engaged workforce but the effectiveness fades over time.

Intrinsic, or internal, motivators for engagement and performance stand the test of time. Although they are the most lasting, they are also the most elusive. Intrinsic motivation flourishes in working environments where there is trust, employees feel valued, and their personal values are in good alignment with the company’s working environment. Managers and supervisors play a key role in creating a working environment with a culture of engagement. Here are a few tips for cultivating a team of driven employees.

• Manage your team with integrity. Trust is essential for employee engagement.
• Recognize and reward highly engaged and productive team members.
• Get to know individual employees and understand their motivators then ensure that your engagement initiatives are flexible so that they meet the needs of each member of your team.
• Get out of the way! Don’t interfere with the motivation of highly engaged employees with time-consuming extrinsic programs to reward engagement and performance could reduce their motivation.
• People are motivated by relationships. Emulate the leaders in your career that made you buzz with excitement and helped you see your own possibilities.
• Commit to the long-term. True engagement strategies are long-term investments. Switching tactics and reward systems make engagement initiatives appear superficial.
• Know your change agents and set them in motion.
• Share the limelight in times of success and take responsibility during challenging times.
• Adopt a culture of transparency. Shielding employees from business targets and the financial realities is an obstacle to aching a fully engaged team. When everyone understands the long-term goals and their role in achieving business success, engagement is increased.
• Don’t micromanage. Provide employees the autonomy to achieve the desired business outcomes in their own way.
• Debrief mistakes and successes alike to discover the learning opportunities.
• Be direct and empathetic when delivering feedback.
• Never criticize employees or their performance in front of others.
• Give your team the gift of your focus. Focus shows people that they are valued.

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You have the power to create a working environment where employees feel valued and engaged.  Contact us to find out you can partner with TANDIUM Corporation to you deepen employee engagement and motivation. TANDIUM’s knowledgeable staff will work with you to develop an engagement strategy tailored to your business and your team. TANDIUM Corporation is a complete human resources service organization.

Team Building Activities for Virtual Employees

With many working from home at least part time, more new hires are meeting people through Zoom meetings instead of in-person meetings around the conference room. To have a productive workplace, teams need to work together seamlessly to get tasks and projects done on time.

Team morale and connection is still important if not more so today. But how do you bond through team building activities for virtual employees?

What are the Best Team Building Activities for Virtual Employees?

The best group activities for remote employees are short, interactive, and engaging. When planning for virtual team building activities whether you are a human resources manager or a team leader, focus on:

• Adding fun to the work. The break rooms and water cooler conversations of physical offices aren’t as accessible virtually. Social activities like short video chats with no work talk allowed to unwind or virtual cocktail hours can ease the “all work, no play” atmosphere that can cloud work-from-home life.
• Keeping professional development and learning at the forefront. It feels harder to network and create career opportunities in a virtual office. Offering optional learning and educational events that encourage interaction can help employees branch out through education.
• Staying connected. The whole point of team building activities is exactly that — building a team. Keeping employees connected through professional projects and personal interests. Don’t spend the whole time talking about deadlines and upcoming projects. Dedicate time to work-free conversations to develop interpersonal relationships.
• Recognizing stellar work. A recent survey asked employees, “What is the most important thing that your manager or company currently does that would cause you to produce great work?” A whopping 37% responded that more personal recognition of their achievements would encourage them to produce top-quality work more often. Recognizing great employees at work leads to better results.
• Encouraging real feedback. When employees feel heard, they know their thoughts are valued and that they will have a place to go if needed to discuss problems at work. Asking for feedback helps meet that goal while improving the business, too.

Why Is Virtual Team Building Important?

Remote workplaces are some of the most popular jobs on the market today. It allows businesses to recruit the top talent regardless of geographical location while reducing expenses and increasing productivity.

Virtual team building can be as powerful for remote teams as on-site teamwork exercises. Recent studies show that almost all — about 90% — of virtual employees say they don’t have enough time to build relationships in video meetings. Similarly, about 85% said there is “an absence of collegiality” across virtual-only teams.

When workers spend most or all of their time working remotely, they can feel unsupported, lonely, or even isolated from the team. Team building activities for virtual employees can help them rekindle their passions and purpose through online group activities and curated work-from-home employee care packages.

Five Virtual Team Building Ideas

Here are some of the best team building activities for virtual employees to connect and learn more about each other professionally and personally.

1. Create a virtual break room. Salaried employees are expected to be around during regular work hours. However, breaks are proven to increase productivity and are encouraged in physical work settings. Creating a Teams or Slack channel that is just for downtime chat can help connect employees with similar interests across the screen.
2. Play the 50 States Challenge. This sounds simple, but it really is a unique brainteaser that comes with great bragging rights. The game is simple: Name all 50 U.S. states in 30 minutes. No cheating!
3. Encourage friendly competitions. From fantasy football leagues to online gaming groups, having challenges among coworkers can lead to tighter bonds. Fitness challenges are also popular tools to rally an entire team and improve mental health at the same time!
4. Add Friday activities. By the end of the week, people are tired and counting the hours to the weekend. Host monthly end-of-the-week virtual gatherings like cocktail hours or trivia nights to build relationships on company time without wrecking the work week schedule.
5. Host remote classes and workshops. Have experts on the team? Set up time to have them show off and teach a basic skill to the group.

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With innovative technology, a knowledgeable staff, and personalized attention, TANDIUM Corporation is the cost-effective answer for total business support. Today’s business owners have found the solution with TANDIUM, a complete human resources service organization, offering PEO, ASO, HR consulting, and payroll services. Contact us today to learn how we can personalize our services for your business.

How to Show Professionalism in the Modern Workplace

Skills and experience are important to employers — but equally as important are employees who are reliable, tactful, and professional. Appearance, behavior, and reputation, especially in client-facing positions, can make or break a job interview or promotion.

With the increase of virtual and remote working, professionalism is still important in the modern workplace, online and in person. As our culture evolves, how do you maintain individuality and demonstrate professionalism in the workplace?

Professionalism in the Modern Workplace

Studies have shown that employees who can demonstrate professionalism in the modern workplace are often seen as more competent and valuable than their counterparts.

In today’s age, rules cannot be broadly applied to all workplaces like the generic suit and ties of the 1950s office life. From casual dress codes to flexible work hours, offices of the 21st century are changing rapidly — and with them, the definition of professionalism in the modern workplace.

Whether it is a minimum wage job or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, there is no excuse for unprofessional behavior. Regardless of career path, age, or experience, professionalism can always take you far in your career development.

Defining Professionalism

Professionalism is more than just one trait or skill you can quickly teach in a workshop. It can also vary by industry, country, or even from office to office. This vague term is difficult to define but is easy to demonstrate and learn.

Merriam Webster defines professionalism as “the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person.” This includes some subjective qualities, such as the way you carry yourself, your attitude with your coworkers, and the way you communicate your needs to others.

From client meetings to email correspondence, professionalism is simply how you conduct yourself at work and, ultimately, how you represent the company. It can be any combination of traits, skills, behaviors, and good judgment expected.

Sometimes professionalism is directly stated in an employee handbook, while other times it is seen across office culture.

Professionalism also extends to the online world and social media. Many companies encourage their employees to be active and open on social media, but those same opinions can also be an unprofessional representation of a company and cause issues at work.

“Professionalism is someone’s inherent ability to do what is expected of them and deliver quality work because they are driven to do so,” Eric Mochnacz, Red Clover HR consultant, said.

Some qualities of professionalism in the modern workplace across most industries include:

• Organization
• Dedication
• Respect
• Ethical
• Reliability
• Communication
• Expertise
• Competence
• Integrity
• Composed
• Humility
• Accountability
• Consideration

Why Does Professionalism Matter?

When you are hired by a company, you are a representation of that company throughout your meetings and communications. Employers are looking for professional, dependable employees, especially when it comes to new hires, promotions, and important project leads.

In fact, professionalism is one of the biggest factors in career success over time. And, unfortunately, a lack of professionalism can leave you overlooked for promotions, or worse, on the chopping block for layoffs.

When professionalism is valued across an organization, the majority of employees will follow by example and behave similarly. Also, a company with a reputation for professionalism across its staff will lead to an increase in brand reputation, too.

Being professional is in everyone’s best interest. Those with professional behavior are often rewarded with better opportunities, such as increased salaries and more trust from management.

Contact Us Today

With innovative technology, a knowledgeable staff, and personalized attention, TANDIUM Corporation is the cost-effective answer for total business support. Today’s business owners have found the solution with TANDIUM, a complete human resources service organization, offering PEO, ASO, HR consulting, and payroll services. Contact us today to learn how we can personalize our services for your business.

Great Ways to Give Remote Employees Recognition

We don’t work for recognition, but it feels amazing to have your contributions openly appreciated. In fact, recognizing employees leads to higher morale, increased productivity, and positive relationships company-wide.

With more and more companies moving to remote or hybrid work environments, employees are getting far less interaction with leadership. Businesses are struggling to find ways to connect with and acknowledge hard-working employees at home.

In August 2021, a record 4.3 million workers nationwide left their jobs, from small businesses and chain restaurants to corporate offices and large companies. In September, that record was shattered again, and the Great Resignation shows no sign of stopping soon.

Employees who have been recognized by their employers are 63% more likely to stay with a company. Plus, happy employees are about 30% more productive than their unhappy or stressed counterparts.

The Importance of Building a Culture of Appreciation

A recent survey asked employees, “What is the most important thing that your manager or company currently does that would cause you to produce great work?” A whopping 37% responded that more personal recognition of their achievements would encourage them to produce top-quality work more often.

Focusing on a culture of appreciation for all levels of employees is an effective way to incentivize employees and get the best results from them.

For remote employees, a lack of personal human interaction can cause a feeling of isolation and distance from coworkers. Plus, in addition to the host of mental health problems caused during the Covid-19 pandemic, remote employees are struggling to feel like they are proving to their managers and peers alike that they are producing great work.

12 Effective Ways to Recognize Remote Employees

Employee recognition is any and all ways an organization shows appreciation for their hard work and contributions. Many companies celebrate workers for major milestones, like 5, 10, or 20 years with a company, but that is just the beginning of how to recognize employees today.

1. Use social media. When you post about your employees on social media platforms, the recognition goes beyond the company. Loved ones can share the news, and fellow coworkers and friends can pile on the recognition in the comments. These are a great low-cost recognition idea for your weekly feed.
2. Create a gratitude channel. Almost every business with remote employees has a company-wide messaging system. Add a gratitude channel to the mix for people to publicly thank their peers for going above and beyond.
3. Offer referral bonuses. Happy employees want to bring their loved ones into the business. Offering incentives gives them even more reason to ask friends.
4. Give anniversary gifts. Even if it is just a t-shirt or branded water bottle, people love swag.
5. Write LinkedIn recommendations. If employees have exemplary skills, write about them on LinkedIn. This totally free idea takes just minutes and can be done by coworkers, managers, or even CEOs!
6. Schedule group professional development. Workshops and learning events took a sharp hit during the pandemic, but many can be done virtually. Bring in experts every month or two. This will educate employees and provide a group activity, too!
7. Provide work-from-home equipment. Most employers offer laptops and keyboards, but you can go a step further. Offer quality lumbar pillows, ergonomic mouse-pads, and other small things that make desk life easier.
8. Plan a long weekend. There is no better benefit than paid time off. Memorial Day and Labor Day are standard. Next year, give workers a long weekend off for employee appreciation week or mental health awareness week.
9. Send flowers for birthdays. Everyone has a birthday, and flowers are a great way to acknowledge them from home.
10. Engage with happy hours and game nights. To bring the connection back to a remote team, virtual get-togethers can be great for morale. Send employees home cocktail kits, or sign everyone up for the same virtual game, and let the good times roll.
11. Focus on wellness. Mental, physical, and emotional wellness are more important now than ever. Wellness programs can encourage employees to be active and interact with each other from afar. Even a 5-minute desk yoga class can help workers feel supported and seen.
12. Shower the pets, too. Pets are our new coworkers, and they are often a good source of happiness and calm for remote employees. Send treats or toys to employees’ pets — they’re family, after all.

Contact Us Today

With innovative technology, a knowledgeable staff, and personalized attention, TANDIUM is the cost-effective answer for total business support. Today’s business owners have found the solution with TANDIUM, a complete human resources service organization, offering PEO, ASO, HR consulting, and payroll services. Contact us today to learn how we can personalize our services for your business.

What is the Purpose of a PEO?

When human resources and staffing needs are falling through the cracks, a PEO can step in and get business back on track — all while saving money, too.

A professional employer organization — or PEO for short — is an organization that offers staffing and HR management services to small and medium-sized businesses. Contracting with a PEO can help businesses focus on growth and development instead of HR administrative tasks and payroll deadlines.

Though PEOs sound new, the concept was introduced as early as the 1960s with “employee leasing.” By the ‘80s, modern-day PEOs were taking over tons of standard business tasks like employee handbooks, compliance investigations, business protection, and employee training.

How PEOs Help

PEOs can help reduce overall business costs when they take over multiple HR responsibilities like hiring, benefits, and documentation. Some will maintain business software, oversee payroll distribution, and handle vacation time or sick leave paperwork. When a business can’t afford an HR department but needs HR resources, a PEO is an easy fit.

PEO solutions like TANDIUM can take so many recurring responsibilities off small business owner’s plates, including:

• Payroll administration: From W-2 preparation to complete payroll processing, PEOs handle all your payroll needs.
• Total human resources: Onboarding new employees and maintaining employee relations can be time-consuming tasks. Let a quality PEO handle all human resources needs from job postings to exit interviews.
• Business protection: Compliance is one of the most important yet mundane tasks to stay on top of constantly. Be sure any company you partner with is aware of all the rules in your area from federal regulations to local laws.
• Employee training and development: Proper training can be the difference between a good and a great employee. PEOs can handle online employee training for management, sexual harassment, and industry-specific programs.
• Customized benefits administration programs: Small businesses often can’t provide the high-level benefits like medical coverage and retirement matching as large corporations. The best professional employer organizations, however, can help smaller organizations offer competitive benefits like 401(K) plans to increase quality candidates for job openings.
• Recruiting support: Whether you are looking for new recruiting strategies or need simple reference verification and background checking, a PEO can make a great addition to the team.

Is a PEO Right for My Business?

According to a recent study, small businesses that use PEOs grow 9% faster, have 14% percent lower employee turnover and are 50% percent less likely to go out of business than those who do not.

Small businesses that cannot afford to employ a full human resources department can benefit most from hiring a PEO. For a fraction of the cost, PEOs can help small and medium-sized businesses handle HR and staffing tasks.

Employee retention is one of the biggest workforce management challenges — one empty position can cost hours of resources to interview candidates and find a replacement while also slowing down the regular workflow during downtime. PEOs can improve employee satisfaction and help retain high-quality employees for years.

PEOs allow small businesses to shift their HR needs outside the office walls. When considering which PEO to partner with for your medium-sized business, it’s important to consider a handful of good characteristics like benefit funding, cooperative technology, and professional organization memberships. The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) is a great place to start when looking for reputable PEO service providers like TANDIUM in your area of business.

Contact Us Today

With innovative technology, a knowledgeable staff, and personalized attention, TANDIUM is the cost-effective answer for total business support. Today’s business owners have found the solution with TANDIUM, a complete human resources service organization, offering PEO, ASO, HR consulting, and payroll services. Contact us today to learn how we can personalize our services for your business.

12 Interview Questions to Ensure Candidate Quality

Asking unique interview questions in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic is crucial to hiring the best candidates for a remote workforce. With the modern hiring process, technology already accumulates so much info about candidates — from school records and past job history to basic background checks and social media screenings. Asking questions beyond the standard set helps see if a person is a true fit for your company, not just if they can adequately handle the tasks.

Beyond the typical interview questions, pandemic-related interview questions can be used to show adaptability, willingness to learn, and self-motivation.

Top Interview Questions to Ensure Candidate Quality

Candidate backgrounds, position descriptions, and salary guidelines should always be the first point on the agenda during an interview so everyone is on the same page. From that background, more personalized questions can be crafted for each interviewee. However, there are some out-of-the-box questions to always have on the list of potential asks.

What are the best questions to get all the information you need about potential quality candidates that’s not on their résumés?

Best Interview Questions to Attract Candidates

1. What are the conditions that bring your best work to the table? This question gives a clear insight into the candidate’s fit within the company. The level of necessary oversight, collaboration, and motivation vary for each position, and this question is great to differentiate a small business leader from a corporate VP.
2. How did the pandemic affect your career goals? This twist on the traditional “What are you looking for in your next role?” question shows both if the candidate is a good fit for the position and how a life-changing pandemic shifted their career and life goals. Many Americans are now focusing their professional energy on careers that pursue their passions, like environmental values or company culture.
3. How do you deliver bad news to a client? For client-facing roles like sales or customer service positions, this question helps understand how they handle tough conversations. The bad news is bound to happen, and this can show a candidate’s values like honesty and compassion.
4. How do you manage a good work-life balance? Workaholics are prone to burnout and don’t make good long-term employees. This also is a good question for those who have come from overbearing employers and are looking to grow at a well-managed company. Any answers about hobbies, family commitments, or favorite weekend activities are likely capable of managing their time efficiently.
5. How did you adapt to working remotely? Adapting to changes quickly is important for a host of jobs. Showing how potential candidates adapted in March 2020 to work-from-home arrangements could tell you how they will adapt in other curveball situations later.
6. How long do you work on a problem before asking for help? Everyone needs help at work — but asking for help can be hard. Quality job candidates know when to ask for help and when to problem solve on their own. The only wrong answer to this question is “never”.
7. What’s one good thing that came out of the pandemic? Tons of trauma and sadness came with the pandemic, but also a life-changing shift for American workers and families. Look for candidates who answer this with positivity, like more time to spend with family or a realization of new life goals.
8. How would you handle a situation where you nearly missed a deadline? Sometimes deadlines get lost in the shuffle and weeks turn into days. This is a great chance for candidates to demonstrate their strategy to prioritize and organize the project on a tight turnaround.
9. What do you think you’ll learn working for this company? Even the best-performing employees have room for improvement — and they know it, too. No one likes talking about their weaknesses, but this question gets the same information with a different wording approach.
10. How did you cope with stress during the pandemic? Stress comes and goes, no matter the situation. An employee who can manage stress and be productive is critical, and many of us have faced no less stressful situations than Covid-19.
11. Is it better to have a job done perfectly but late, or merely good but on time? Everyone has different opinions on perfection. A detail-oriented employee is crucial for a lot of roles, but missing a deadline is almost always unacceptable. This is an easy question in theory, but still open-ended enough to continue a solid conversation flow.
12. What’s something you’d be ecstatic about doing every day for the rest of your career? Being happy at work is key to being a long-term employee. If you’re looking for someone who will be around for the long haul, the answer to this question should closely align with your company’s mission and the job specifications. This is also a great way to show if growth within the company is possibly in their future, too.

Assess Which Questions Yield Successful Interviews

After an interview, take a minute to evaluate yourself and the questions you asked. Did you get the information you wanted? Did the conversation have too many lulls and not enough open-ended questions?

Sometimes, a bad interview can be just a bad candidate fit, but it can also be an opportunity to reevaluate and develop your interview criteria and guidelines with a new eye.

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Looking for a new top-notch recruiting strategy for a post-pandemic remote workforce? We can help. Contact us for assistance with performance improvement plans and an updated new hire orientation process today.

What’s a PEO, and How Can It Support Your Business?

Staffing can make or break a small business. Owners and managers depend on each and every employee to make local businesses and startups run efficiently.

For a business owner, time is money! They focus their energy on revenue-generating activities and need to worry less about basic business functions like payroll, employee benefits, and human resources. But what if HR management and staffing solutions are falling through the cracks?

A professional employer organization — or PEO for short — is an organization that offers staffing and HR management services to small and medium-sized businesses. Contracting with a PEO can help businesses focus on growth and development instead of HR administrative tasks and payroll deadlines.

The modern-day PEO was introduced in the 1980s, but the term “employee leasing” was coined decades earlier in the ‘60s. While the two are different, PEOs were born from employee leasing evolving over time.

While PEOs are hired, they often reduce overall business costs when they take over multiple HR responsibilities like hiring, benefits, and documentation. Some will maintain business software, oversee payroll distribution, and handle vacation time or sick leave paperwork. When a business can’t afford an HR department but needs HR resources, a PEO is an easy fit.

5 Benefits of Using a PEO

A quality PEO can help a business control expenses, increase efficiency, and improve employee satisfaction. Specifically, a PEO can help businesses:

• Save on HR costs: By outsourcing human resources administration to a PEO, there’s less need for a large HR department. An expert PEO company is able to balance multiple clients while putting time back into your schedule.
• Offer more benefits: Small businesses often can’t provide the high-level benefits like medical coverage and retirement matching as large corporations. Professional employer organizations, however, can help smaller organizations offer competitive benefits like 401(K) plans to increase quality candidates for job openings.
• Reduce employee turnover: Employee retention is one of the biggest workforce management challenges — one empty position can cost hours of resources to interview candidates and find a replacement while also slowing down the regular workflow during downtime. PEOs can improve employee satisfaction and help retain high-quality employees for years.
• Support the onboarding process: The best employees are thoroughly onboarded with a structured process. PEOS can help medium and small businesses craft personalized onboarding processes and hiring procedures to fit your needs that will last for years. If your business is struggling to find quality candidates, a PEO can help outline job posting descriptions and improve the interview process.
• Manage payroll efficiently: Employee payroll is one of the most important cogs to keep your business running smoothly. Allow us to take the payroll processing off your hands, issuing all the pay stubs, tax forms, and other documents.

How to Determine if a PEO is Right for Your Business

PEOs allow small businesses to shift their HR needs outside the office walls. When considering which PEO to partner with for your medium-sized business, it’s important to consider a handful of good characteristics:

• Knowledge of regulations and requirements: Every state, country, and even some cities have their own human resource regulations. Be sure any company you partner with is aware of all the rules in your area from federal to local laws.
• Use of modern technology: Technology should always be compatible. Remember the tech needs of your business and look for a PEO with human capital management software for an easy transition.
• Funding for quality benefits: When it comes to employee satisfaction, find a PEO offering fully insured benefit plans.
• Memberships with professional organizations: The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) is a great place to start when looking for reputable PEOs in your area of business. Industry trade organization memberships often lead to quality contractors and PEOs.

Contact Us Today

With innovative technology, a knowledgeable staff, and personalized attention, TANDIUM is the cost-effective answer for total business support. Today’s business owners have found the solution with TANDIUM, a complete human resources service organization, offering PEO, ASO, HR consulting, and payroll services. Contact us today to learn how we can personalize our services for your business.