The true cost of HR

* According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, a typical business with 100 or fewer employees does not have a Human Resources (HR) staff even while today's employment has grown increasingly more complex and prone to litigation.

* PEOs provide five core benefits to their client companies: time savings, reduced costs, enhanced employee benefits, regulatory compliance, and employee satisfaction.

* According to the Small Business Administration, companies with fewer than 500 employees spend $5,000 per employee annually for regulation, paperwork, and compliance. Larger firms spend $3,400.

* A recent Small Business Administration report suggests that small-business owners spend up to 25 percent of their time handling administrative paperwork related to their employees, much of it because of government regulations.

* The SBA reports that the average small-business owner spends 7 to 25 percent of the day on employee paperwork. Nearly nine out of ten companies (89%) reported their PEOs significantly reduced their time demands, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) foundation. Relying on a PEO saves the average company nine hours a week; the largest firms in the survey saved 23 hours weekly.

Take our HR calculator for an estimate of your expense: