Employee leasing is an arrangement between a business and a staffing firm, who supplies workers on a project-specific or temporary basis. These employees work for the client business, but the leasing agency pays their salaries and handles all of the HR administration associated with their employment.
Drawbacks of employee leasing Less control: One of the greatest risks of employee leasing is that you're delegating an important part of your business to an outside company that doesn't know your business as well as you do. You lose control of your processes, systems and benefits.
Still, an employment contract may contain clauses or components that are not legally enforceable. In Texas, courts generally favor the freedom to contract, meaning they will uphold and enforce agreements as long as they are clear and voluntary and do not contradict public policy.
California law has stipulated the requirements for classifying an employee as a temporary agency employee. These requirements include the right of the agency to assign and reassign a worker, but the workers have the right to refuse an assignment and remain on the agency's hiring list.
While leased employees are legally employed by a PEO, they work under the day-to-day management and supervision of the leasing business — much like any other employee. This generally gives the leasing business control over how they spend their time, which tools they use to perform their work, their deadlines, and more.
A PEO, or professional employer organization, has a different relationship with client companies. Instead of being a firm that leases employees to their clients, a PEO becomes an employer of record for the client's employees. This is known as a co-employment agreement.