What is a PEO?

A PEO (Professional Employer Organization) allows businesses to say goodbye to the tedious day-to-day admin that comes with HR and start focusing on what really matters. PEOs offer a wide range of HR services to small businesses, compliance with local labor laws, payroll management, employee benefits, and any other employment-related administrative functions. 

Because as your business grows, so does your workload. And this can be extremely stressful for business owners as they try to juggle customer satisfaction, employment law and everything in between. Using a PEO provider in Singapore can empower organizations to fully streamline employee management.

PEOs can also take on a range of roles and responsibilities within a company by using a co-employment model. This means that an employee is actually employed by the PEO as well as your business. Wages, taxes, benefits, etc. are all managed by the PEO, while the employee continues to perform their role directly for the business. 

All of this might sound a little daunting, but if you pick a PEO provider like Skuad in Singapore then you’ll be in very safe hands indeed.

What are the benefits of using a PEO service in Singapore?

A PEO in Singapore makes it easy to do business and hire talent. They provide a huge variety of HR services required to help a small business to run smoothly and efficiently. 

A good PEO can assist with:

Payroll

Your PEO partner will handle payroll for your full and part-time employees, as well as administer one-off payments to employees, vendors, or contractors. With many PEOs offering services such as direct deposits, running payroll becomes a seamless task.

Compliance

By far the biggest benefit to partnering with a PEO in Singapore is the amount of stress they can take off your hands. Employment law is notoriously complex, and international employment regulations are even tougher. 

Employers hiring workers from Singapore need to continue to abide by local employment laws as dictated by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower. Staying on top of requirements and regulations can be hard even for large businesses, and is a real challenge for small firms. Over 33% of small businesses are fined every year for payroll mistakes, and the penalties for non-compliance can be devastating to an organization.

One of the most common mistakes businesses make involves misclassifying employees as contractors. Like many countries, Singapore takes a tough stance on employee misclassification. Despite the very thin line between contractor and employee, getting it wrong can be extremely costly for both the business’s finances and reputation.

In Singapore, the Ministry of Manpower places a large focus on the rights of employees, and penalties for violations can range from fines to jail time. In the interest of transparency, the ministry keeps a public record of employers who are convicted for offenses under the Employment Act. The registry lists the name of the business and business owner, the type of offense, and how they were charged. 

Looking at the list, it’s clear that one of the major issues is a business failing to pay salaries to workers. While that seems like one of the fundamental tasks required to run a business, it can be easy to fall behind, especially when you’re managing remote workers from Singapore. 

With help from a PEO like Skuad, however, you can be sure that your employees are paid correctly and on time every single pay period.

A PEO has more time to focus on payroll, taxes, and anything else required to ensure that you stay on the right side of the red tape. 

Risk mitigation

The co-employment model means that a PEO takes on many of the risks and responsibilities of the small business, and shares the burden of risk management. Working with a PEO helps ensure that businesses remain fully compliant. Your PEO partner will even take care of the relevant paperwork!

Benefits and employee retention 

Benefits are one of the most influential elements of employment contracts — that’s as true in Singapore as it is elsewhere in the world! 

PEOs can often access employee benefits packages that a small business cannot. As the PEO is responsible for many more employees than your own business, they can unlock access to great health insurance and other employee perks at extremely affordable rates. This allows talent-hungry businesses to offer potential employees a benefits package that rivals even the largest employers.

When it comes to employee retention, a great retirement plan — or Central Provident Fund (CPF) as it's known in Singapore — makes a huge difference. A PEO can provide access to superb savings programs, as well as offering and managing these sorts of plans for your employees in Singapore.

A PEO with experience in Singapore will also often provide a full program of training, education, and awareness to help employees make solid retirement choices. This is the sort of service that can set a company apart from its competition when it comes to attracting talent.

Cost savings

While the idea of paying a third-party company to perform actions you already do seems counterintuitive, using a PEO could actually save your business money.

No matter if your business is looking to access better rates for health insurance, improved benefits, or streamlining the recruitment and tax process in Singapore, working with a PEO can help small businesses cut costs and make savings. 

Time

One of the most important ways that a PEO helps improve a small business is by freeing up time. With a PEO handling the day-to-day admin of HR and employment issues, you and your staff are free to take on more creative tasks — and work towards helping your business flourish.

‍Skuad offers all these benefits and many more, schedule a demo and see for yourself.

What does it cost to build a team in Singapore?

Businesses looking to hire in Singapore have an important decision to make: whether to take the long and expensive route of company incorporation in Singapore or to partner with a PEO.

Company incorporation in Singapore

Ready for a shock? Companies looking to open a legal entity in Singapore could be looking at $13,990 USD just to open a limited company by guarantee. Yikes! 

Add to that the cost of banking, essential legal fees, any office space you take on as a headquarters and you could be tens or hundreds of thousands out of pocket very quickly indeed.

PEO services in Singapore

At Skuad, we offer three distinct packages starting from just $19 per worker, per month. That’s our PEO cost in Singapore, Spain, and any other country you might ask about. It’s as simple and transparent as that.

Our Global Payments package will onboard and pay your contractors anywhere in the world through a single, unified platform, while the Global Employment package can hire and manage your full-time employees across the world. 

Need something a little more specific? The Skuad Enterprise package offers a tailor-made solution that addresses your business needs at a price that fits your budget. 

So, what are you waiting for? Let’s work together to free up your time — so you can focus on business growth and talent development. Schedule a demo with Skuad’s PEO experts in Singapore today and see the platform for yourself.