The Shift of HR Roles and PEO Services During a Global Pandemic
By Chris PetersonFirst published Updated
The short answer
In a crisis, a PEO partner helps HR move people to remote work, decide which functions and roles are critical, handle furloughs and layoffs properly (unemployment, COBRA, outplacement) and plan the recovery: which roles to bring back, change or make remote, and how to restart hiring.
Written in April 2020, in the first weeks of the pandemic. The playbook still applies to any business disruption.
If the PEO model ever had to prove its value, it was during the coronavirus pandemic. The right PEO partner helps your HR leaders guide the company: identifying the key business functions, roles and processes, and if cuts are needed, deciding where.
Just as important, the right PEO can show leadership how critical HR is, both to getting through a crisis and to thriving afterward. That's especially true for small companies where the owner also wears the HR hat; a PEO lets the owner get back to running the business.
How does a PEO help with the move to remote work?
Often the first job is getting employees who can work from home the tools they need. Even weeks into stay-at-home guidelines, most companies were still patching problems they never saw coming.
How do you decide which business functions are critical?
With a possible recession ahead, it's smart to work out, before cuts are needed, which functions, roles, skills and activities will be critical going forward. You and your PEO partner can test each function against the priorities you've named as critical, such as sales and customer relations, and then identify which roles could be paused or cut without hurting those priorities.
How should you handle layoffs and furloughs?
Helping a company furlough or lay off people properly is one of HR's most important jobs. With a PEO partner, you can help workers:
- File for unemployment
- Sign up for COBRA
- Connect with an outplacement service for help with resumes, job searches and interviews
- Stay informed about further layoffs or furloughs
- Learn about job openings
- Know when they'll be called back to work
How do you prepare for business after the crisis?
Business continuity planning
Decide how the company will restart the functions you paused, and whether some should come back at all.
Which roles to rehire or change
Not every role may be needed afterward, and many may change. Some jobs you assumed could never be remote, like customer service, may have worked well from home.
Keeping hiring on the radar
Hiring will slide down the list for a while, but good people will still be hard to find later. If you let your talent pipeline dry up, you'll feel it when it's time to hire again. Your PEO can help with confidentiality agreements, orientation, retirement plan enrollment and the rest, so you can get back up to hiring speed quickly.
What if you don't have an HR department?
If your company has no separate HR department, or you're growing and buried in crisis-related admin, the right PEO can help you operate as well as possible through a hard stretch and then thrive once it's behind you.