“Published in the Spring 2015 FAPEO Update Newsletter”
Some people seek out the PEO industry when it comes time to choose a career. For others, the PEO industry is a way of life. That’s the way it is for Jennifer Parry, vice president of American Staff Management Inc. in Wesley Chapel, part of the Tampa Bay area.
“My parents owned a PEO called E.M.P. Leasing,” Jennifer says. “I was checking I-9s and sorting checks when I was 15 years old. I worked during spring breaks, summers and after school while waiting for my parents to get done at work. It’s pretty much all I’ve ever known.”
Jennifer’s parents eventually sold their business to Sunwest PEO. Jennifer worked for Sunwest as director of operations from 1994 to 2005, and then Progressive Employer Management Company purchased Sunwest. This transition presented an opportunity for Jennifer, who was in the middle of a transition of her own.
“I was pregnant when Progressive purchased Sunwest,” she explains. “There were lots of adjustments, as always happens during mergers. I decided to take maternity leave early, and I went back to school for my master’s degree. Then I stayed out one year with my daughter.”
In 2008, Jennifer was ready to return to the office. Her father knew someone who was starting a PEO, and Jennifer joined this new venture. Two years later, the PEO split, with a father and son team leaving to form American Staff Management Inc.
“I went with Thomas and Jim Moran and became one of the owners of American Staff Management in 2010,” Jennifer says.
Having been in the business all her life, Jennifer relished the new opportunity of getting to run a PEO.
“Being in the industry since I was 15, it was exciting to finally get to run a PEO instead of working behind the scenes,” she says. “Previously I was director of operations and managed office and payroll. This gave me the opportunity to work in all areas of the PEO.”
Jennifer says she loves the variety of the many challenges that come with operating a PEO.
“There is never a dull moment!” she says. “With all the changing regulations and the many things going on in the different industries we work with as clients, there is always something interesting that comes up and issues that we get to help them solve. It never gets boring.”
One source of those ever-changing regulations is the Affordable Care Act, and Jennifer sees the ACA as an opportunity for PEOs to grow their businesses.
“With all the additional regulations from ACA, we have an opportunity to get in front of clients who didn’t think they needed a PEO,” she says. “We can show these new clients that we can help them out.”
Jennifer also cites the new voluntary certification program for PEOs within the IRS as a big opportunity for PEOs.
Under federal legislation passed in December 2014, the Small Business Efficiency Act/SBEA, a PEO will be able to choose to become IRS-certified by meeting financial standards (including bonding and independent financial audit requirements) and satisfying reporting obligations and other appropriate standards set by the IRS. Once certified, a PEO will take on sole liability for the collection and remission of federal employment taxes for worksite employees. Small and mid-sized businesses that contract with certified PEOs will be assured that they will not be liable for employment taxes once they remit their employees’ tax withholdings to the PEO.
“The new certified PEO regulations that we expect to come out in June will help us gain clients who might have been wary of using a PEO before,” Jennifer says. “This will help us gain that edge, that credibility that we need.”
When asked about the threats she sees for the PEO industry, Jennifer had a quick answer.
“Cyber security is going to be tough with the amount of personal information we have,” she says. “Keeping and protecting that information will be difficult considering the number of hacking scandals we have seen lately.”
She also mentioned another type of scandal as a threat to the industry.
“Every time a big PEO shows up in the news owing large tax amounts, when a PEO gets shut down by the IRS, it’s one step forward, two steps back for the industry,” Jennifer says.
Through the many challenges, Jennifer says she and her company have come to rely upon FAPEO.
“They are wonderful,” she says. “Belonging to FAPEO is like having another member of our team. Between the work they do in Tallahassee and the newsletters, the wealth of information is amazing. I can’t imagine running our PEO without the support we get from FAPEO.”
Jennifer provided an example of that support, saying, “Just the other day, I realized we hadn’t received our state unemployment tax notices, so I sent Robert [Skrob] a quick email and asked if he had heard anything. He was able to tell us that the notices were going out late, and he was able to give us a better timeline of when they would be out.”
As much as Jennifer enjoys her role as vice president and owner of a PEO, she has other important titles as well. She is the mom to two girls, Ella (8) and Ava (5). She is also the manager for Ella’s softball team. The family enjoys getting to the beach when the weather is nice, and they attend a lot of sporting events in the Tampa Bay area.
“We are big sports fans,” Jennifer says. “We have season tickets to the Rays and the Lightning, and we get to as many Bucs and Gator games as we can.”