Advantages of a PEO From a User’s Perspective

Please note that these sessions are for educational purposes only. TriNet provides HR guidance and best practices. TriNet does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. The materials in these sessions and the products, advice and opinions expressed in these sessions are solely those prepared by the presenter and not necessarily those of TriNet.

Katrina Faessel:
We are very excited for you to hear from some of our current TriNet PEO customers. Our customers will be sharing first-hand accounts of their PEO experiences and why it works for them. Time permitting, they will take a few of your questions. Please help me welcome to the virtual stage, Erin McGinty, divisional vice president, Health and Welfare Services, TriNet, Rahul Kholsa, CEO and founder, Heady LLC, and Erik Maltais, CEO and co-founder, Immertec.

Erin McGinty:
Hi, welcome to the PEO Edge. I'm Erin McGinty. We have an exciting panel of TriNet customers who will share their real-life experiences and the highs and lows of using a PEO. I want to first start with introducing our panelists. So Erik, how about we start with you?

Erik Maltais:
Thank you, Erin. My name is Erik Maltais. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Immertec. We help medical device companies like Boston Scientific, Intuitive Surgical and Philips train their customers on safe and effective use of their medical devices and teaching hospitals from Stanford to Johns Hopkins.

Erin:
Wow. That's impressive. Thank you. Rahul, how about you?

Rahul Kholsa:
Sure. Thanks, Erin. I'm Rahul Khosla. I'm the founder and CEO of Heady. Heady is a digital product consultancy based out of Brooklyn. And we do everything that goes into making digital applications. So be it mobile apps, websites, the design, development, launch, post launch support, all of that. And in former life, I was a software engineer and I'm just very lucky to have combined my two passions, which is building products and business into one. And I'm running this agency now.

Erin:
Wonderful. Well, congratulations. You both sound like you have really interesting companies and we really appreciate you being here. We're here to talk about PEOs and a PEO could be a game changer for businesses who are looking to streamline their HR operations, mitigate compliance risks and really improve their overall workforce management. But it can also be a scary change. And so I want to thank you both for being here today so we can talk about your insights. So, Rahul, let's start with you. How has partnering with a PEO positively impacted your business operations and your overall efficiency?

Rahul:
Yeah, tremendously, I have to say and I think for the audience’s as well. I've been with TriNet since day one, since I started the company, it was a party of one. So I actually don't even know what life is without a PEO, but also I'm not too keen in understanding what that will be just because everything has worked really well for me. We've scaled from one through 75, not a problem.

And I think the best part about working with a PEO and especially one like TriNet, for us was that it allowed us to focus on what really matters from our perspective that is more strategic. And of course, everything that TriNet does for us is amazing. And it's no less than what we do for our people, which is like culture, providing them just the best place for them to work and all of that. However, compliance, HR, payroll, all of that, I just never had to think about it and it's just such a blessing, cause that's how much mental capacity and bandwidth I have to do other things.

Erin:
That's amazing. And you've been in business since 2015. Is that?

Rahul:
Yeah, 2015, 2016. The idea was sown in 2015 and legally 2016.

Erin:
Got it. Yeah, that's a long time. Wow. And starting as one. That's amazing. Thanks for that.

Erik, how about you? How has partnering with the PEO positively impacted your business operations and efficiency?

Erik:
My story is a little bit different than Rahul. There was a time before TriNet for us and we founded the company in mid-2017 and we transitioned to work with TriNet right around the pandemic time. And that was because our business, as you could imagine, remote physician training became a widespread thing.  We went from a small startup that was trying to demonstrate to large medical device manufacturers that they should innovate and try new things. You have no choice, but to innovate and try new things because you can't get people in the OR. That required us to hire people and staff up and grow really fast. Very painful, but also a good thing for us and couldn't have done it without the help of TriNet.

Using a PEO, I'm more of a big picture, the little details are not my thing. And that's so I find complimentary people on my team, and that includes HR, so worrying about all the details of each state and filings and hiring in those states is just something that I don't ever want to have to do.

Erin:
Yeah. A lot. And it's interesting too. The pandemic was obviously a very unfortunate situation. However, we all had to make changes quickly, whether we wanted to or not. And the fact that you were in the industry that just made a lot of sense, but growing that fast must have been very difficult.

Erik:
Yeah, definitely I would describe it as a character-building experience.

Erin:
Thank you. That's a good way to look at it. So Erik, just to continue with you. In what ways has a PEO helped you navigate the complex HR compliance requirements and then mitigate potential risks?

Erik:
I'll start first off to say that I probably can't even describe all the ways and that's a good thing because a lot of this stuff gets done in the background because we have to hire people in multiple states and deal with compliance around those employees and having them be TriNet employees and our employees allows for that to happen on your side. And additionally, we do R&D credits and there's the ERC credits and all the other programs that we've done that TriNet was able to help us with submitting and even in many cases, advancing us, which saved our company probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for TriNet. Definitely want to throw that in there.

Thanks to our team. Karen was the person who works with me and just dealt with me every single payroll until we could get the company to a point where we don't have those problems anymore and super grateful for just all the details that I probably wouldn't have been able to do what we did in our mission without them, you know, without Karen and team solving those problems.

Erin:
Well, that's amazing. What a good shout out. Which Karen?

Erik:
Alba.

Erin:
Oh, yes. Yes, I know. Very good. How about you, Rahul? Talking about HR clients and navigating all those requirements.

Rahul:
Yeah, no, very similar to Erik. There's so much that I never had to learn about because you and TriNet take care of it which is a blessing. I think just as I was growing the company, you don't know what you don't know. And we brought on our first person who was not in New York, which is where the company is located and I didn't even realize that there's additional compliance and requirements that we would have to do, which TriNet to the rescue, always very proactive, letting us know, “Hey, we noticed someone is in a different jurisdiction, you have to sign this paperwork. By the way, signing paperwork, very easy through your platform. Again, log in, read the thing. Honestly, who reads it? It's like 20 pages or whatever, but you sign and you're compliant and I trust you, and so that works. And then also just life events.

It's like the straightforward payroll you may think that you can manage and perhaps that's true, but people will go on parental leave. There will be potentially severances, of course, performance bonuses and out of cycle bonuses. They're just, and the list goes on. There are just so many things that it's just wonderful that we have a partner who takes care of and makes sure that we do it in the right way. So while we may decide that here's the business objective, here's what we want to do for this particular personnel because of this particular situation. But then we have a very competent, almost always available partner who just works with us and tells us what's possible, what's not possible and how do we go and execute it.

So again, is it possible without TriNet or a PEO? Yes. But then is that your core business? And for us, that's not true. Then why would we invest so much time and learning and building a whole team around something, which meanwhile, you have economies of scale and you get the best people and we get the best advice, I think it's just been incredible support for me personally. We've been in business for nine years now and haven't had one compliance related complaint or anything. I'm going to assume everything went really well.

Erin:
That's great. And you're both co-founders and CEOs, right? So I'm pretty sure, even though I don't know you that well, you did not get into business to do HR. Can I take a wild guess and assume that's correct? It's not what kept you up. It's not where you pulled out the napkins and came up with these great ideas. It's not HR compliance.

Rahul:
It is not, but may I add to that real quick though, but always had in the back of my mind and I'm sure most founders do is to create an environment where everyone feels they're taken care of.

And so HR is a very broad term, right? And people operations is what we choose to call it. And HR is a function, right? I don't know which one is the function of the other, but it did allow us to focus on people in a way that we could uniquely own and make it our own, like introducing sabbaticals, for instance, something we did. Now, it'll fall under the bucket of HR, but we at least have the time to think about what we can do for our people and not have to focus on just the compliance aspect of things and the payroll and the benefits and the open enrollment, because I feel like that would, whatever capacity we could dedicate towards this cause would have all been eaten up by those endeavors itself.

Erin:
Please go ahead.

Erik:
Yeah. I was going to say just a little caveat to that. Another thing to your point, I think that it takes a certain personality to try to build a company and that's a certain set of behaviors and usually it's like high dominance, risk taking, high social, quick to make a decision, but that also comes at a cost and it's usually like low compliance and revolt rule following, right? What do you mean? I'm not going to, what do you mean you're not going to be a doctor. What do you mean you're not going to be an accountant. You ignore everybody who says that and then you focus on doing something where there's a good possibility you could fail. That makes it so that it's one of the reasons why many founders probably not suited to do these tasks or to lead these tasks. And so it's better to partner with the right complimentary group that hires us role set, the best talent that are the right type of person. Probably not trying to do crazy startups but trying to make sure that everything is perfect and that's we're grateful for here at Immertec.

Erin:
For sure. Yeah, I was thinking about no good deed goes unpunished, right? Because you're clearly both very passionate about your people and that your people are everything to your business. But you can have great ideas, but maybe in California, it doesn't work the same that it would in New York. And when you hit multi state, it gets really complicated. So, yeah. That's great.

So, Erik, can you share specific examples of how your company has benefited from the employee benefits and the perks provided through a PEO?

Erik:
Yeah, specific examples, for me, it's just a seamless part that my whole team gets to do their own selection and we can reevaluate every year based upon where the company is. We can improve what they get and they have a place they can call in and have it communicated. I'm a veteran, so I actually use the VA, so I am the only one on the company, the founder's the only one in the company who doesn't use the benefits. So I'm not familiar exactly with how that works and Rahul probably could give a better answer on that question, but I know that our team does and they benefit from it. And my co-founder seems to somehow have the ability at five kids during the six years that we've been co-founding the business together. And so he definitely is aware of the benefits and health insurance and how it's helped his family. And so he'd probably be better suited to answer that question.

Erin:
He'd probably let you know if it wasn't working.

Erik:
He would definitely be like, "We need to switch" if there was an issue. Me, no kid, no, just VA, I just go to the VA for all my stuff, so it's a little easier for me, but I do know that no one's complaining, so.

Erin:
Thank you for your service.

Erik:
Thanks. Thanks for paying for my college.

Erin:
Yes, you're welcome. Rahul, how about you? Let's talk benefits.

Rahul:
Yeah, no, it's been again seamless. Seamless is the word that keeps coming to mind with TriNet. A lot of options to choose from, a really good platform and overview stepwise you can go through. Not only the basics that you would want, like health, vision, dental, but also like additional accidental and there's just many steps to the process and I feel like TriNet makes it very seamless and offers many options that you can select from.

Plus, there's always more documents that you can read to be a more informed decision maker for yourself. And this is from the employee standpoint, because I do get insurance through TriNet and I've maintained the plan and I think it's been incredible. Also, the reminders leading up to open enrollment.

I know that you offer assistance as well to the company on delivering that news to our employees. And from an employer perspective, again, very easy to use. How much do you want to contribute to our employees plans or not? And making those changes. It's just all very straightforward. And you give the control in our hands without having to pick up.

You're always very responsive over the phone and text, I mean, the chat especially. But everything is so well designed and it's a self-service, so its benefits have been very seamless part of our existence, which I understand that they're not always the case. So there's never been any benefits-related issues that we've heard from our employees, either be the experience or the insurance or the package itself.

And then also commuter benefits, there's additional benefits, I think someone used legal help, there's just so much that you can get from TriNet so it covers the gamut of what we would want to provide as a base service and much more. And something you didn't ask about, but I'll just use this question to talk about that as well, is reporting.

You won't really think, you don't really think about reporting from an HR platform as much, but we use it extensively. We are a people business. It's as weird as it is to say we're an agency and it's an arbitrage on people's skillset and their hours. And so people really are, and their time is really what we're, and their skillset is really what we're selling and being able to get the data at per employee level on just the payroll reports and everything. And then being able to use that into our P&L where's cogs, where's DNA, what are we attributing towards sales and what's where the taxes, all of that. It just made running an efficient business possible.

Erin:
That's awesome. That's awesome. I do have another question on the benefits piece. You know, when you have this technology that can support your employees, and the people behind it too, right? Because it's not just tech, it's tech and it's people supporting your people. Do you find that you have less employees coming to you with specific questions around, you know, “Hey, these are my benefits really beyond benefits, right?” Direct deposit benefits doesn't matter. Are you seeing a savings there?

Rahul:
For me?

Erin:
Yeah, sure.

Rahul:
Okay. No, totally. Like I said, from the very beginning, I don't know the alternative. So yeah, it's hard for me to say whether we're seeing fewer questions then because I don't have a baseline to compare with when we didn't have TriNet. I can answer it in this way that we're not seeing any more so many questions that it would warrant like an investigation as to why are people asking so many questions, everything being very smooth and I believe that quite self-service and the level of question and the quantity frequency is very low.

Erin:
Excellent. How about you, Erik? Yeah, you guys come from different perspectives. So it's interesting.

Erik:
Yeah. Yeah, I know. I probably wouldn't be the one fielding the questions to be honest with you. Anyways, I'm like, constantly raising money and it's just like a different type of business. Then it is a people business where people first, but most of our people are developing IP and, which is similar to what they're doing, I guess, but like ours, they don't seem to want to talk very much. And I've learned that distracting them just only loses flow state and I get in trouble. So, not many questions. And we've been on for like, four years now. So everything's been great.

Erin:
Well, similar to before, you probably know if it was a problem, right? But he would be saying, I don't have enough time for all these questions. Okay. That's great. So, Rahul, back to you. How has outsourcing the HR responsibilities to a PEO allowed you to focus more on your core business and your strategic initiatives? I know you don't run your people team, but I'm certain you're very connected to the people that do.

Rahul:
Yeah, and they're very grateful to have TriNet as a partner because I know that our people team, and we have a team of three in the U.S. and also in India can focus more on, of course, making sure compliance is being done the right, you know, is being done and that you help with.

So now they have time to think about individual experiences, making sure they have enough bandwidth to meet with people to take a pulse check of the company and organize whatever might be the right thing to do at the moment. And it could be surveys and events and, you know, individual career paths, charting that, it becomes more of an ally, less of like we need to do this, here's your paperwork, sign this, where's your ID, upload it here, it's like not transactional like that anymore.

So their role becomes more like, how are you feeling? And more genuine connections can be formed when it's less transactional like that. Like I mentioned, like going back to the office that we go in twice a week now and that's a decision that we don't want to take in haste.

And we took our time and our analysis of why we should get an office. We got an office space towards the end of the pandemic. And that was a reason behind it. And I was able to partner with our people ops leaders to really rationalize that thinking, introducing sabbaticals. So initiatives of that nature, I think, allow us to really be uniquely us and provide an experience that we would want to have experienced ourselves if we were working or if I was working at another job, but taking away this, you know, work that otherwise if we were to do our own payroll, our own benefits, like those people will be just so overworked. And in my business, I couldn't like instead of say we had like six people dedicated to HR, some doing compliance and that's just not, you know, for the size of the company that we are, that wouldn't have been a financially right thing to do.

So this set up really works for us. And to the degree that, you know, we get and I'm assuming Erik, this happens for you as well. Like emails for, from other PEOs, like asking us to meet, to switch, to do a cost analysis. The things that worked out so well for us, and we've been honest with them as well, we're not switching. There may be some benefit and we may save some dollars, but why change something that's working so well, and we're not looking to do that.

Erik:
Yeah, I get way too many calls to the point now where instead of explaining and we're happy with TriNet, which starts a whole conversation when they're cold calling me. Now I say the business is sold because I don't know what else to say to them. So they'll leave me alone. And it's just like, and it works. And they're like, okay, thank you. I'm like, wow, I should have been doing that forever.

Rahul:
Yeah, thanks for the tip.

Erik:
Yeah, it makes them go away because otherwise you get on a tangent.

Erin:
No, I think that's wonderful, Erik. How has it, leading into you, how has it helped your company as well?

Erik:
With our company, especially because we're a different type, we're not a profitable startup. So I'm imagining Rahul runs a profitable business where he's got a margin on top of all the people that he works and whereas with us, we have these large customers, long sales cycle, long, big problems, but future large exit that incentivizes investors.

And, you know, we were all of us doing all of our banking with Silicon Valley Bank. And, so we were a part of that whole thing. And one day, the company's dead and all of our money's gone and then it's back, and then you're out raising and the whole market kind of shut down because of that. And so we had to make tough decisions and be more switch from startup mentality to getting to profitability as soon as possible and being more conservative while still being innovative.

So that required us to really be careful on what things we did ourselves and what things we outsourced. And so having someone internally do HR or any of these tasks was just not realistic for us. There's no way it was going to work and still be able to innovate in the way that we do and continue to enter these top teaching institutions and work with these big device companies while being capital efficient.

So that was probably one of the best parts of working with TriNet, is just knowing that I don't have to worry about any of that and I don't have to dedicate any team members' focus there. So they can focus on the things that uniquely they can do and then outsourcing elsewhere.

Erin:
Yeah. And then I love what Rahul had said about the ally piece. Because we talked, when we started this call, we talked about it can be scary to change to a PEO, and I think it's especially scary for the HR folks, the people teams, whatever you choose to call those groups, because it can look like competition, but in reality, and this is my opinion, and it's a partnership that where you come in, because if you have all the things that you need to run a compliant HR part of your business, you're going to need more people because the walls just change everywhere. So I really picked up when you said ally because I think of that quite a bit as well, right? I actually have an HR background. I can't imagine working with just myself or even a couple of people and not getting nervous that I'm going to do all the things, right.

Erik:
Especially when you don't have HR and it's the job is our CTO/CFO or fractional CFO. They split up the working closely with Karen and the other people from the team. So yeah, that for us, definitely that's an important element and they don't have any expertise. So we really leaned heavy on the PEO and we definitely wasn't going to do that with Gusto or some other type of just manual. There's no way we were going to try to figure it out ourselves right now.

That definitely was huge benefit to us without having those HR people on our team.

Erin:
For sure. And when you're a startup, you wear a lot of hats.

Erik:
A lot of hats.

Erin:
A lot of fingers. Right? Excellent. So let's talk about savings, right? Because there are cost savings and administrative efficiencies that come with working with the PEO. But I don't know that everyone on the surface would think that outright. So, Rahul, how about you? What kind of cost savings have you seen as a result of working with the PEO?

Rahul:
Oh, I sound like a broken record, but again, we started with the PEO. So I can't compare savings from having an in house team or individual consultants that you were working with versus the PEO. But savings, I think I will describe in just time savings that we've had. Can't comment on the dollars, but I'm sure that there are. We were able to manage a team upward to 50, like 75, had all the locations with one people operations person in Brooklyn, New York, and that's a lot of people.

So just compliance would be very difficult. And of course we have three overall. So there's support for this person as well, and especially location-specific. The ability, the bandwidth that's created for this person, cause they don't have to focus on compliance and also their day doesn't get taken over by one unique request that comes in and now they have to figure out like how to handle this new, like freelancer we're hiring and to, you know, Washington state and what that's going to affect and be on our business. If someone's going on leave elsewhere, there's a unique situation and circumstances that don't like just take over the entirety of what was planned for that day or for that week for our people because we will just take that request and pass it on to the experts, which are you guys, and meanwhile maintain the ability to focus on the other larger initiatives and more strategic initiatives that we have.

So in terms of time, it's been a lot of savings. I think in terms of dollars as well, now that I think back, there have been some savings in that we spun out a second entity from the agency, which is a C Corp. It's a SaaS product that we built within the agency. And now it's a standalone product. It has its own employees. Of course, we're using TriNet for as a PEO for that as well. And now all of, both of those entities are within an umbrella and as one like top level account with TriNet, and I think that allows us efficiencies, and also savings in terms of cost that there's some overheads are shared between the two accounts. The new entity gets the benefit of that as well.

Erin:
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting perspective. Thank you. Erik, how about you, from a cost savings perspective?

Erik:
I haven't really done a comparison. I know that it's reasonable what we're charged and I've said, but unless Karen leaves somewhere. She's just our lifesaver. She's the one I can go to solve my problems. And you can't really put a price on that for me personally. But I do know that the prices are competitive. And even if there is a switch in cost to what Rahul said, and it's like having a relationship that you can trust, and so it makes it where the value, I've not gone through the process because the business was sold. So I don't know what the price comparison would be for the other competitors. There're like hundreds of PEOs. I mean, I guess it's a big business if everybody wants to start a PEO company.

I would imagine that it'd be similar. And if it's, even if it's like a 25% or 30% savings, it's like the amount that you pay to TriNet is not immaterial. For what we're doing, I consider it immaterial to make any type of switch and to lose Karen.

Erin:
Yeah, I'm going to have to get Karen this video. That's my priority when I hang up from this call. I want to be Karen right now. So let's talk about employee satisfaction. Erik, have you seen since moving to a PEO or when we get to you Rahul, since being with one from the start, let's talk about employee satisfaction, engagement, retention. Are you seeing any results where you've seen improvements or just really good satisfaction from working with a PEO?

Erik:
That's for me. It's hard for us because we're a startup with, you can be passionate about virtual reality and stepping into or in medical saving lives or being in the OR. There's just so many different things for people to hold on to. And we've never really had an issue. Unfortunately, the only issue has been having to cut people, if anything. But everybody seems to be pretty passionate and happy. And I think they would be happy if we wrote them handwritten checks and handed to them as long as they could build the tech that they were building, they would be happy. And that's a good thing. No one's made any complaints or anything like that. And so I think that it's not causing any type of churn or any issues.

Erin:
That's good. That's good. How about you, Rahul?

Rahul:
Yeah, I think our tenure with you speaks for itself more so than anything that I could say. We've been with you for nine years and that wouldn't have been the case if there were any issues. We absolutely take a lot of care and listen to our employees. And so for sure, if something so fundamental to them wasn't working, we would have had a conversation. We would have figured things out, but everything has been working. So in absence of negative, it is positive, I would say. And I think everything has worked out really well.

Erin:
Good, good. And I think your roles, you know, really add an interesting piece to this because it goes back to the know, if you're not hearing anything, it can be working really well because you always know when it's not, right?

Erik:
Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that. I was going to say like, unfortunately, when you do a good job, it's hard because there's nothing to report because no one's going to bring any of this stuff to our attention, right? Unless it's really bad, right?

Erin:
And you don't have time for that.

Erik:
Combined 15 years of not causing us troubles, right, between the two of us.

Rahul:
Which is incredible, by the way. Congrats to you guys for such retention and sticky customers. I would go to bat for you because I don't, even if someone brings up internally, which hasn't happened, but hey, let's switch from TriNet, and now we're large enough that we can do this ourselves. That'll be a very long conversation. And it would need to be very convincing for me to even consider that because everything has worked so well. And as Erik will confirm, my guess that as a founder, if something is working really well, it is within the budget that you've allocated towards that, don't change it.

Erik:
Yeah. I feel the same way. It's not broken. Don't fix it.

Erin:
Well, thank you. And thank you both for being such loyal customers. It says a lot and it was so fun to be here with you today. I don't know if we had any questions from the panel. But I think we're about out of time. I think we have one minute to spare. So, any parting thoughts?

Rahul:
Did I hear correctly that if you're with TriNet for 10 years, you get a fully paid trip to Hawaii?

Erik:
No. Actually, Rahul, it's six years, I heard.

Rahul:
Mine is due and yours is upcoming.

Erin:
Maybe we should get this video to the right people to see if we can. I have no control over this, but we can certainly share your feedback.

Rahul:
Also tell them that even if we don't get it, we're still going to be with you, so it's all good.

Erin:
Okay. Well, I think as a colleague, I've been here 19 years. So I get a couple of Hawaii trips. Yeah.

Rahul:
Yeah, I think we should do that.

Erin:
I think so, too. Well, listen.

Erik:
Actually, I think what you heard is that after six years, then you do this in person. We speak on in Hawaii. Of course, you know, about TriNet, right? An all expenses to Hawaii to do a talk on a podium about why people should switch to TriNet.

Rahul:
I like how you think Erik. That's spot on.

Erin:
Yeah, Erik, if your colleagues find out about this, they're going to think that your next offsite is in Hawaii. So be careful, right?

Erik:
Yeah, well, I definitely would. With that said, it was great seeing everybody.

Erin:
Thank you both for your business. It's been really fun hanging out with you today and appreciate all the insight and all the positive feedback. So appreciate you very much.

Rahul:
Thank you so much. And everyone listening. If you're on the fence, go ahead, get TriNet. I would say.

Erin:
Yeah. Thank you.

Erik:
Take care.

Erin:
Thank you.