What is a PEO?
A professional employer organization becomes the co-employer of your team for administrative purposes. You keep running the business; the PEO runs payroll, benefits, HR administration, and workers' comp behind it.
The model in one paragraph
Your employees stay your employees in every way that matters day to day: you hire, manage, pay-set, and if needed fire. The PEO becomes the employer of record for administrative purposes, which is what lets it run payroll under its tax accounts, pool your team into large-group benefits, and take on defined compliance responsibilities by contract. That arrangement is called co-employment, and it is defined in a written service agreement you should read carefully.
Who uses PEOs
Typically companies from about five to a few hundred employees, in every industry. The common thread is wanting big-company HR infrastructure without building it: benefits that compete, payroll that just runs, and someone accountable for compliance.
What a PEO is not
It is not a staffing agency (it does not find you workers), not a payroll app (it takes on far more than processing), and not an employee leasing arrangement in the old sense (your people remain your workforce). It also is not automatically the right answer, which is why we put the math first.