No experience with Zenefits, but we have several clients on Gusto. They also offer some HR automation, which we haven't taken advantage of. Have you spoken to Gusto about their HR platform before you make the switch?

How many employees do you have? How many employees are currently participating on the benefit plan?

I have some knowledge in this field.

Hi exp,

I am a Benefits Consultant and work with a lot of clients that have used or currently use both Gusto and Zenefits. Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses. I am happy to walk you through my experience if you would like. Feel free to post any specific questions or send me an email to set up a time to chat.

In general, I think both platforms are better suited for companies with lower employee counts. Once you get over 20-30 employees, and especially over 50, the problems are highlighted. I have heard of more issues with Zenefits than Gusto.

Ian Goodman
FTAC '07
first name_last name@ajg.com

exp,

Did you end up making the switch? If so, how's it going? I've had a small handful of clients that used to use Zenefits but moved on, and am curious to see how it's going for others.

Be weary of promises for "full benefit-payroll integration" for a company your size - from any vendor. The fact is that the insurance carriers typically will not provide EDI files (automation) for benefits until you have 100 enrolled employees.

When Gusto, Zenefits, a Broker, or any other company is promising that type of integration they have someone transferring data on the backend. It might look fully integrated, but it is not. I have seen many problems with process from Gusto and Zenefits in particular.

Not only is there an opportunity for manual data entry error, the people entering the data have to keep track of differing business rules and state laws.

For example, your company might make employees eligible for benefits the first day of the month following 60 days after their hire date. The person (low level employee) at Zenefits might interpret that as after 90 days or 2 months. With that error an employee might be promised benefits under your policy or SPD and not receive them. If a catastrophic medical event were to take place your company could be liable. I have seen this exact error take place.

I hope this helps. As mentioned earlier, I am happy to discuss or answer questions.

Ian

My company left zenefits this past year for Namely. Pros and cons with both platforms. Biggest issue I had with zenefits was at least 3 different times I had employees go to the doctor only to find out zenefits had forgotten to enroll them with our health insurance carrier. We had other issues as well that may no longer exist (like they couldn't do payroll in a couple of states we had employees and they wouldn't allow us to use any insurance broker we wanted and still have their HR functionality)

exp - Do you mind sharing your contact data?

Getting set up with namely was a bit of a pain (I wasn't around for the set up with zenefits though). Some of the onboarding workflow for new employees isn't quite as nice at namely as it was at zenefits...it's a slight pain with how you have to set up your onboarding for new hires and there also is not a great way to get all of your current employees to sign an updated handbook for example. overall, namely has been much better and customer service response has been better. the main advantage I think zenefits has over namely is that their platform is a little more user friendly and we didn't have to use a separate platform/company for COBRA administration like we do with namely.