Partners Magazine - December 1997

Administaff Named as an ICED Preferred Vendor

Administaff, a leading Professional Employer Organization (PEO), has been recently named as an ICED preferred vendor of human resource services. This designation follows a highly successful test project conducted earlier this year by long-time ICED member Tracy Gaulding.

"I found Administaff to be a tremendous resource to me and my staff," says Gaulding, owner of Kwik Kopy Printing #709 and a partner in Copy Club #6. "The bottom line is, with Administaff in place, we've been more productive in building our business."

So exactly what is a PEO? And what does Administaff provide to Gaulding that other ICED members would find attractive?

"Working with Administaff is like having a full-service human resources department. It's our job to ensure that the administrative responsibilities of payroll, employee benefits, workers' compensation and other important personnel matters are handled efficiently and accurately," says Jerald Broussard, senior vice president of Business Development at Administaff's Houston headquarters.

"When every ICED franchisee started his business, he also inherited a second one - the employer business," adds Broussard. "What we do is to separate those two so that the franchisee can focus on the core business - the ICED franchise."

Gaulding says he was vaguely familiar with the PEO concept and was a willing volunteer for the pilot project. "They came along just when I needed them most," he recalls. "In the past seven years, we had grown from three employees to 40. Quite simply, our success had left us in the thick of payroll and personnel challenges, all of which were requiring a lot of my time to resolve. Administaff offered us a solution to better manage our employee obligations. I was pleased to discover that the Administaff concept didn't interfere at all with my management style or control of the business. I just wish we had done this earlier."

In addition to the time-saving benefits provided by Administaff, Gaulding also is pleased with the attractive benefits package he can now offer his employees. "The Administaff health insurance plan is much better than ours ever was, and our employees now have access to a 401k program and a credit union that we could never have offered them." These benefits, says Gaulding, help make his company a more attractive employer, thereby helping him recruit and retain top-notch people.

Administaff describes its new relationship with ICED as a strategic alliance. "We like to build partnerships with the best of the best, and we found that ICED complemented our goal of bringing added value to its members," explains Randy McCullum, Administaff's director of Strategic Alliances. "ICED recognizes the benefit of its franchise owners being able to concentrate on their businesses and sees the Administaff program as a way to help accomplish that objective."

McCullum says the PEO concept can free business owners from administrative red tape so they can focus on growing their business. "That's usually what entrepreneurs enjoy most and why they started their companies in the first place," he said. "Our goal at Administaff is to further understand the things that can impact the ICED franchise - new products, training that allows their employees to be more productive, creating a safer workplace - and to assist in making them happen."

With more than 28,000 worksite employees and 350 corporate staff, Administaff is one of the nation's largest professional employer organizations. "They may be a big company," says Gaulding, "but they take care of me through excellent customer service."

For more information about Administaff, contact the nearest office at 800-465-3800 or visit the company website at http:/www.administaff.com.

Reprinted with permission of Partners Magazine and The International Center for Entrepreneurial Development (ICED).