Syndeo Outsourcing is part of an ongoing national dialogue about how to advance the professional employer organization (PEO) industry.It’s an issue for which Bill Maness, Syndeo’s founder and president, has a passion and one he had the opportunity to address during the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations.“I saw something three years ago that opened my eyes to what I saw was the future, and I want to be a part of what that is because we’re in a place now where we’re at full employment, we are still growing – the country is still growing,” Maness said during a state-of-the-industry discussion at the conference. “We can’t find qualified workers to do anything in any market. The future of our business is at a precipice where there are more people retiring than are coming in. … That’s going to create great opportunities in the next 10 years for our industry because of timing, and I think that we need to be prepared as an industry for explosive growth.”Maness was one of five executives from outsourcing companies around the U.S. to participate in the talk, which took place in September and is featured in the November issue of the trade publication PEO Insider.

The conversation touched on a variety of other topics, including emerging opportunities within the PEO space and what’s driving them; nurturing the groundswell of awareness and interest in PEO use; growth opportunities; technology and the role outsourcing will play in businesses moving forward.Participants said the PEO industry is ripe for growth because of a larger move toward outsourcing in general, but more needs to be done to ensure businesses understand the concept of using a third-party vendor to provide human resources services.As a PEO, Syndeo provides its clients with comprehensive services in human resources, employee benefits administration, payroll and workers compensation insurance. That setup allows for certain employer responsibilities to be shared between the client and the PEO provider as outlined in a client service agreement. And PEO use is on the rise across the country. Recent NAPEO research shows professional employer organizations (PEO) accounted for 3.7 million worksite employees working for roughly 175,000 businesses nationwide.Maness said more human resources outsourcing is inevitable given the problems employers are having finding qualified workers.

“The fact of the matter is that outsourcing exists all around us,” Maness said. “We just have to learn to better adapt our story and relate it to everything else going on.”

The panel consisted of new members of the NAPEO Board of Directors. Barron Guss, president of the board, moderated the discussion.Maness is in the midst of a two-year term on NAPEO’s board.He said during the NAPEO discussion serving on the board is a way for him to give back to the industry.“This business has been so good to me and my family and the people I engage that this is the natural step for me to start the process of giving back because I have gained so much from being involved in the industry,” Maness said. “The only way you can evolve is to give back.”