HCPA takes a serious interest in enriching the lives of their employees. Partnering with SWBC PEO allowed HCPA to leverage great benefits
at a great price because of the negotiating power that SWBC can deploy. In a practice of <30 employees, HCPA lacked the buying power that other larger companies have. Insurance benefit options can remain somewhat limited for a business of that size and often the “big insurance players” aren’t even among consideration due to the elevated cost for coverage.
Like many other businesses, HCPA has a diverse employee pool—from women of child-bearing age to aging individuals with potential health concerns. It was absolutely critical that HCPA find valuable insurance choices that provided comprehensive benefits across their employee base. Working with SWBC PEO allowed HCPA to offer their employees a notable, reputable insurance provider that they feel they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to offer had they gone at it without the partnership. SWBC PEO is able to leverage their buying power (after all, they represent 10,000+ employees across all their client base) when insurance shopping for their clients to bring more options for consideration.
In turn, clients like HCPA are able to proudly offer a wide range of benefits to their employee base—and that’s a huge differentiator when it comes to retaining employees in a competitive industry. “The level of benefits that SWBC offers us is amazing; we’d never be able to replicate those offerings on our own,” reported Laura.
A COMPREHENSIVE HR SOLUTION
All-in-One HR Workflow
HCPA previously worked with a PEO provider that only performed payroll processing. At that time, HCPA didn’t see the need for requiring their PEO to offer anything more. As the practice began to expand, HCPA quickly discovered that they needed a partner that could offer a more comprehensive HR administration solution.
Today, SWBC PEO provides payroll processing, employee benefits administration, workers’ compensation coverage, and support for all other HR-related activities. Expanding HCPA’s suite of products to include ancillary products not only provided HCPA employees with a better human resources experience, it streamlined HCPA’s vendor management process and back-office operations. Rather than managing multiple vendor relationships, SWBC PEO made it easy by taking on all HR functions, and essentially gave HCPA one proverbial neck to choke.
Recruiting and retaining a talented workforce was an area that seemed to drain HCPA’s resources prior to the partnership with SWBC PEO. Today, HCPA benefits from a partner that helps them find employees, screen them (with background checks), and onboard them when hired. HCPA has been able to shift a number of new employee-related activities to SWBC PEO—from gathering and completing to employment paperwork to creating comprehensive, compliant employee handbooks.
AN OUTSOURCED HR TEAM
An Extension of the Team
Perhaps one of the greatest benefits noted by Laura when working with SWBC PEO is the partnership that came standard. The SWBC PEO team and their 45+ industry experts quickly became an extension of the HCPA team. Laura and her team communicate daily via email and phone with SWBC PEO to resolve HR inquiries. And, with a strong army of HR experts at SWBC PEO, Laura never has to worry about her service suffering due to HR representative absenteeism. If and when HCPA’s dedicated account manager at SWBC PEO is out of the office, there are 44+ experts ready to step in and serve. That speaks volumes for business continuity.
When Laura was contemplating outsourcing HR to a vendor (or hiring internally), she went through a systematic pros and cons exercise. One of Laura’s recurring concerns always came back to efficiencies and cost. If she had to hire someone to do all that SWBC PEO does for HCPA, she’d be lucky to get by with one staff hire dedicated to these functions. (At a practice the size of HCPA, having only one
HR representative handle all these things is a tall order.) But, now compound that concern with the fact that she’d only have one employee in the HR position, Laura’s comparison of her options quickly pointed out the obvious: working with SWBC PEO was not only a bargain in comparison, but a headache relief for now and the future state of the business because their model offered something that a one-man HR department couldn’t—scalability. And, if Laura, personally, took on the responsibilities, it would easily occupy at least 30% of her daily schedule—one that is already jam packed with deadline-driven obligations.
“What’s so refreshing when working with SWBC PEO is the familiarity I get when working with my reps; I know who is going to answer when I call. We’re on a first-name basis with the team at SWBC PEO and never routed to a call center,” said Laura when reflecting on the partnership with SWBC PEO. “I get to talk with someone that truly knows my business and all the intricacies of how it is run.”
