Employee leasing is anytime you enter into a contract with a staffing or employee leasing agency to lend you an employee to perform work for your company. Work responsibilities are typical to those of a regular employee at your business, such as customer service, executive assistant, marketing, and so on.
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.
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.
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.
The definition and the status of a temporary or leased employee can be described simply as employees who do not have the status of common law employees, which are employees who have access to all of the benefits and job security that an employer may provide. This simplified explanation does require elaboration.
An employee lease agreement is a legal business document that allows a company to set terms and conditions around "leasing out" or contracting out the services of an employee. Companies may lease out their employees to reduce administrative or benefits costs.
The key difference between employee leasing and co-employment is staffing. An employee leasing agency will provide you with temporary workers, but a PEO doesn't. In a co-employment arrangement, you supply and manage your own workforce, while the PEO helps you handle HR administration.
Summary Definition: Temporary workers assigned to a client by a leasing company for a specific project or timeframe.
Staffing companies lease employees to other businesses and remain the sole employer for those workers. PEOs, on the other hand, don't supply a workforce, but assume certain responsibilities that make them co-employers with their partner organizations.
Leased employees are considered to be employees of the recipient organization for purposes of the requirements set forth in section 414(n)(3)(A) and (B), even though they are common law employees of the leasing organization, unless (i) they are covered by a safe harbor plan of the leasing organization, and (ii) leased ...