Achilles Group FAQs
That’s the reason we exist! Over the years, we realized that there are always points in a company’s life cycle where human resource issues take more and more time from those whose primary activities are to manage and run the business.
By delegating your people issues to Achilles Group, executives and managers can focus on what they do best. We handle your day-to-day and strategic HR needs while working collaboratively with your business to help drive profits and minimize employer risks. Our professionals become part of your team.
Achilles Group is an organization that proactively delivers human resources expertise to small and mid-sized businesses (25 to 2,000 employees) in a cost-effective way. We take a professionally human approach by placing people, yours and ours, at the center of everything we do.
Whether you need to leverage our expertise and best practices to enhance and support your current employees, or effectively fill a key position, our keen understanding of your organization and its culture allows us to tailor a solution specifically for you.
If you are a company leader who has recognized the need to alleviate the emotional pull of people-related issues, and are looking to off-load some of your more time-consuming HR concerns and tasks, you are a great candidate for HR outsourcing and Achilles Group.
Achilles Group was established in 2002 with the vision of providing world class human resources expertise through a “shared services” model to small and mid-sized businesses.
Following and then cultivating the dream of our founders, Achilles’ current generation of HR professionals has evolved and enhanced that vision with the creation of our Fractional HR approach.
Today, we provide innovative HR expertise to serve clients across all industries while having a fun time doing it.
Most organizations have a need for multiple levels of HR skill sets that are not commonly found in one person. Finding that ideal mix of expertise or making the investment in multiple HR people can be overwhelming for most companies. Our “Fractional HR” concept provides our clients with the ideal mix of expertise without making the investment in multiple HR people.
We are able to spread our expertise and costs over many clients, allowing you to get the capability of a Fortune 500 HR department, for far less than the cost of hiring the same level of HR competency internally!
Our unique methodology is a collaborative approach that starts with identifying your specific needs. We then determine the percentage of focus on each particular level and type of HR expertise necessary to satisfy your needs.
The level of HR talent you require will vary. Through Fractional HR, Achilles Group is able to engage as a blended team to provide broad and deep HR expertise customized to your unique set of needs.
With Achilles Group and Fractional HR, you get a designated HR professional who will drive the workload, partner directly with your leaders, and coordinate engagement of additional Achilles members’ competencies and expertise on an on-going basis to accomplish key initiatives.
At Achilles Group, we call this People Performance!
We believe that encouraging growth in your people is a catalyst for profitability. We engage as a team, learn your business, what you produce, the services you offer and how you make money. Then we align your job descriptions, accountabilities, roles and requisite knowledge, skills and abilities with your performance management focus, tools and techniques.
That’s People Performance, The Achilles Way!
Absolutely! At Achilles Group, we encourage, and even insist on Recruiting Effectiveness becoming a vital component of your business strategy.
We recognize that your frontline leaders know the work demands of your current team, and are best positioned to determine the right skills profile and fit factors required of prospective team members. We also recognize that they need help, focus, structure, tools, coaching and direct timely support.
We begin with a series of discussions designed to clearly understand your business culture and your current recruiting approach. With this information, we are able to develop a holistic effort that equips your team with processes, tools and techniques to fit the current and future recruiting needs of your business.
We then continue as a coach and ongoing champion of your recruiting effectiveness. Together, we ensure your leaders develop an ownership mentality and embrace their responsibility to drive all aspects of this critical competency.
That’s Recruiting Effectiveness, The Achilles Way!
We sure do! Fundamentally, leadership is all about getting others to follow the course you set with full competency and commitment. However, the challenge of a leader is that you’re often too busy to sit down and agree upon that direction or to lay out the strategy that truly focuses all of your business goals.
At Achilles Group, we engage as a catalyst for the visioning and planning stages and serve as both a contributor and coach for a disciplined approach to equip your team, build engagement and execute on those plans.
That’s Strategy Alignment, The Achilles Way!
Not a problem! Through our HR Risk Mitigation approach, we work to install effective policy and process efficiencies, improve HR workflow, update and streamline tools, clarify leadership / HR roles and engage technology partners where it makes sense to enhance your payroll, benefits and administrative transactions.
We will collaborate with your team members and designated administrative employees to create and implement all HR-related policies and procedures.
Your administrative employees keep things running, and we will encourage their growth, provide HR development, training, coaching, mentoring, compliance guidance and a quick-connect advisor when things get risky or challenging.
That’s HR Risk Mitigation, The Achilles Way!
A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) allows employers to bundle payroll, employee benefits, basic HR administration, and worker’s compensation together with one provider. These organizations typically charge by per employee per month (PEPM), or a percentage of total payroll.
Click Here to learn more about how much a PEO costs.
ASO stands for Administrative Services Only. This arrangement describes an employer who has “carved out” certain aspects of an ASO bundle – opting to get either benefits or payroll services through an alternate provider, while still getting the ASO provider to handle basic employee administration.
Click Here to also learn about PEOs and HROs.
A PEO is a Professional Employer Organization. Employers are able to bundle payroll, employee benefits, basic HR administration, and Worker’s Compensation together with one provider. Your employees become employees of the PEO, and thus the PEO assumes limited liability for employment and compliance risks. Your company must adopt the PEO’s policies and practices with little opportunity for customization. PEO’s typically charge by headcount (PEPM, Per Employee Per Month), or a percent of total payroll.
As companies grow, their needs get more complex, and they tend to have greater strategic HR challenges the PEO is not designed to handle. In general, PEOs offer HR advice as part of their bundle because it is expected of them to do so. In most cases, it is not their core competency nor a revenue-generator for their organization.
Click Here to also learn about ASOs and HROs.
HRO stands for Human Resources Outsourcing and Achilles Group falls into this category.
Most HROs available on the market today basically provide a “hotline” service where questions about compliance or employee matters are handled over the phone, and a library of tools and resources are made available for client use. At Achilles Group, this is definitely not the case.
Click Here to also learn about PEOs and ASOs and also how Achilles Group’s Professionally Human approach separates them from all other HROs.