With the manufacturing environment getting more competitive, just getting your core business tasks done is overwhelming. If you’re also trying to handle all of your HR functions in-house, it pulls focus from other critical areas.

That’s where a Professional Employment Organization (PEO) comes in. A PEO operates as a co-employment partner, working as an extension of your business to handle HR duties so you can focus on your area of expertise.

Partnering with a PEO with experience in the manufacturing industry gets a variety of tasks off your desk, from timekeeping and basic payroll processing to benefits administration and HR compliance. Outsourcing these jobs (which are often outside your own expertise) lets you focus on what you’re good at: building your business. Specifically, an outsourced HR solution helps you:

• Attract & retain talent.
• Provide consultative safety services. 
• Streamline HR processes and remove the burden of HR-related administrative duties.
• Ensure HR compliance with expertise your in-house team lacks.

Here’s how:

A PEO Helps You Attract & Retain Talent

The labor market is in a constant state of flux, and attracting the right talent can be an uphill climb even in the best of times. Attracting and keeping top candidates starts even before you write a job description. 

“Becoming the employer of choice starts with setting up the right company culture to appeal to the best employees,” says Marla Markoff, Manager, HR Services at Insperity. 

Your PEO partner can help you develop the company culture you want to present to potential employees and then create job descriptions and an interviewing process with those values in mind. A PEO can also partner with you to train leadership in the skills they need to motivate and train employees to do their jobs well, all while building on that company culture and communication plan you and your PEO create together. 

Your PEO Partner Handles Safety Programs and Compliance

Reducing workplace injury exposure is crucial, both for production line efficiency (which is impacted by employee absence) and for avoiding expensive attention from OSHA and other regulatory agencies. It’s also an important factor in maintaining employee trust and the company culture you’ve worked so hard to build. 

The tricky thing here is that safety programs are not one-size-fits-all. The policies, design of physical workspaces, required safety training and processes can all vary greatly depending on your unique production setup, products or work environment. Googling a generic safety program and thinking you’re covered can leave your employees open to injuries, or even fatalities.

Partnering with a PEO with experience developing safety programs for manufacturers significantly reduces your risk. “When it comes to Department of Labor and OSHA compliance, there aren’t a lot of resources out there to just build a safety program from zero,” says Peter Zaretskiy, Safety Services Manager at Insperity. “It’s very easy to make a mistake and assume your Googled safety program makes you compliant, until OSHA shows up and tells you your program isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

The years of experience offered by a PEO (especially a PEO who has worked with a varied roster of manufacturers) ensure your safety program fits your work environment and keeps you out of regulatory liability. A PEO also develops employee training to keep everyone educated on safety protocols and rules they need to follow to keep everyone safe.

Outsourcing Streamlines HR Processes

If you have an in-house HR team (or just a single HR professional), keeping up with all of these potential issues is a struggle. Your small team or one-person show will run into things they’re unsure about – and as noted in the safety section, internet searches for solutions can quickly lead you astray.

A PEO’s biggest advantage is that they have an entire HR team at your disposal: a Payroll Specialist, Human Resource Specialist, Learning and Development Specialist, Client Liaison, Safety Specialist, and a variety of other teams to support your compliance needs. You get the benefit of expertise in all aspects of human resources, rather than a generalist who can’t help but struggle to keep up with things like constantly changing regulations.  

Partnering with a PEO with Manufacturing Experience Ensures HR Compliance

Regulations change all the time, and without a team whose sole focus is keeping up with those regulations, you can find yourself in compliance one day and facing penalties the next.

Zaretskiy notes, “Just this last year in California, we saw a new standard for workplace violence prevention and worksite security that many manufacturers were not prepared for, because that’s not where their immediate attention is.” 

No two manufacturers are alike. Your HR compliance requirements may be wildly different from the manufacturer down the road, depending on your respective industries. That’s why it’s essential to your overall business success to partner with a PEO with experience working with manufacturers across industries. 

A PEO can steer you away from potential liability and keep up with HR compliance issues for you, so you can focus on your area of expertise: running your manufacturing operation.

Ready to find out exactly how Insperity can benefit your business? Call 800.465.3800 or click here to learn more.