Zenefits Review

Zenefits
Product:
Vendor:
Founded:
Headquarters:
Zenefits
Zenefits
2013
San Francisco, CA
Ownership:
Customers:
Deployment Model:
Free Trial:
Private
10,000+
Cloud
Yes
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Zenefits At A Glance

Good: HRMS that connects all HR systems and employee data to an online dashboard, allowing HR departments to reduce repetition and improve efficiency.
Bad: Customer support can be difficult to reach, especially after the implementation process.
Bottom Line: Zenefits' cloud-based HR suite creates a central hub for storing employee data and streamlining HR processes.

Product Overview

Zenefits is an online HR suite that creates a central cloud-based hub for all employee data. By connecting all HR tools and services to one, easy-to-use dashboard, it improves efficiency by automating processes, reducing repetition and eliminating the need for paperwork.

The online platform allows businesses to streamline their benefits management and easily complete tasks like open enrollment, online renewal, viewing plans and costs, printing insurance cards and more. Zenefits partners with a wide range of providers all over the U.S. to ensure coverage for every industry, everywhere.

Features

Zenefits has robust features. Here are some of its key ones:

Payroll – With Zenefits’ payroll functionality, companies can enter and approve employee’s time data, reduce errors and ensure their hourly employees are paid accurately and on time. It handles a company’s taxes automatically from processing W-2s to filing federal and state taxes. Additional features include automatic new hire state reporting, automated prorated payments for new hires, automatic payroll reminders, pay previews, bulk earnings uploading, garnishment, the ability to pay contractors, direct deposits, a tips report (for restaurant workers) and custom earning codes.

Administrators can run payroll reports on various metrics like wage and tax summary, job costing and payroll register, to name a few. Finally, employees will have lifetime access to their Zenefits account, so they can look up their info even after they’ve left the company.

Note that payroll is optional for users on the Essentials and Growth plans, while it’s included in the Zen plan (specific pricing for each plan is in our Pricing section below).

Benefits – Zenefits specializes in simplifying benefits management through an online portal. Customers can find resources and quotes, update information, minimize compliance risks and keep up to date with the latest legislation, all in one place. Zenefits supports medical, vision and dental benefits in 49 states, as well as additional benefits, such as 401(k), life insurance, flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and commuter benefits.

Companies can work with their own benefits broker or choose a broker from a list of Zenefits’ certified partner network. Note that they may need to pay an add-on fee for working with their own broker, but choosing a Zenefits broker is free. Finally, Zenefits offers optional services, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) that automatically sends employee enrollment changes to health insurance companies, open enrollment plan building services and insurance carrier management.

Hiring and onboarding – Zenefits’s optional recruiting feature, powered by JazzHR, lets administrators manage their hiring process. They can create a job post and send it to job boards and social media sites, rank top applicants and candidates, send offer letters using prebuilt templates and onboard new hires. New hires can complete their paperwork electronically, as well as automatically get access to their new accounts on other applications the company uses, such as Slack or Google Suite. Zenefits is integrated with Checkr for comprehensive background checks on candidates.

Time and attendance – Zenefits has a scheduling tool that lets managers create, edit and send shift schedules to their employees. They can also block out specific dates in the schedule, set up a schedule based on roles or times, track overtime hours and approve paid time off (PTO). Employees can also clock in and out via the desktop or a Zenefits mobile app. Additional features include time card fraud protection, real-time reporting and compliance.

Compensation management – The software includes a tool that collects anonymous salary data from other SMBs and present them to the company in an aggregated form. The data, updated in real time, helps managers set custom salary benchmarks, so they can ensure salaries are fair, equable and accurate. Managers can also evaluate compensation practices of the company as a whole or drill down into each employee’s salary data.

Performance management – With this feature, both managers and employees can set and track the employee’s goals as they relate to the team’s, department’s or company’s objectives. The goals are then integrated into the employee’s performance review, and employees can continuously track their goal’s progress. Zenefits supports both traditional and continuous performance review cycles, and it includes prebuilt and custom review templates that support 360-degree reviews and more. There’s also a one-on-one meeting feature that lets managers schedule performance-related meetings, share agendas, and set up any action items that arise during a meeting.

People analytics – Powered by Visier, the people analytics feature allows HR users to get insights into employee trends with data visualizations. They can create charts or reports using an interactive template and then either filter into the data for more insights or share the reports with their executive team.

People enablement – Zenefits’s people enablement features helps employee collaborate and stay in touch, as well as empower organizations to monitor employee engagement via surveys. Firstly, the People Hub includes social-networking features where employees can share files, receive announcements, post comments or track their tasks. Then, the employee engagement survey feature allows HR staff to set up and send out surveys and to track responses, as it includes prebuilt survey templates, automated email reminders and data visualizations.

Target Market

Zenefits has helped over 10,000 HR departments become more efficient, and it has a customer base ranging from start-up to mid-sized organizations in many industries, such as healthcare, IT and retail. We’ve listed 10 of its customers below.

  • Agency EA
  • Coney Island Prep
  • Fireclay Tiles
  • Goals for Autism
  • Impact
  • Lensrentals
  • MeUndies
  • Narvar
  • Strada
  • Ylabs

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Implementation/Integration

Prospects can sign up for a demo account and Zenefits’s support team will work with companies one on one to start the implementation process.

Each company is assigned a support representative as a main contact. The company will continue to work with that representative from the initial set-up process to launch and training to periodic software/account maintenance.

Customer Service & Support

Zenefits offers various support options to fit a customer’s needs via its online Help Center, which includes guidance on various topics and phone support.

If a company chooses to manage its benefits through Zenefits, a benefits representative will be assigned to the company for a consistent point of contact.

Pricing

Zenefits offers three levels of pricing: Essentials, Growth and Zen. Customers can be billed monthly or yearly.

Essentials: This plan is $10 per employee, per month ($8 for yearly billing) and includes:

  • Automated onboarding
  • Employee management
  • Time off tracking
  • Scheduling
  • Integration with most third-party applications
  • A mobile app
  • Analytics dashboards

Growth: This plan costs $20 per employee, per month ($16 for yearly billing) and has all the features in the Essentials plan, plus compensation management, performance management and configurable people analytics.

Zen: This plan is $33 per employee, per month ($27 for yearly billing) and includes all the features in the Growth plan, plus employee engagement surveys, a People Hub (a centralized hub where employees can see and participate in company feeds, track tasks and more) and payroll.

Zenefits also offers optional features, such as:

  • Payroll ($6 per employee, per month) for users on the Essentials and Growth plans
  • Recruiting (starting at $35 per employee, per month)
  • Benefits ($5 per employee, per month if company wants to use their existing broker; free for companies that use a broker from Zenefits’ partner network)
  • Advisory services ($8 per employee, per month): This feature includes access to certified HR and payroll experts for questions or issues

Shortcomings

Zenefits is a growing company that recognizes its software limitations, and it’s diligently working to expand its features. Once bugs are found in the software, the support team quickly sets to work to fix the issues.

That said, some customers reported that their assigned representatives were difficult to reach during implementation, resulting in missed deadlines for insurance open enrollment. Other customers mentioned that Zenefits’ initial implementation support was good, but representatives became distant after launch.

Screenshots

Zenefits Screenshot 1
Zenefits Screenshot 2
Zenefits Screenshot 3

About

Co-founded by Parker Conrad and Laks Srini in 2013, Zenefits has been dubbed as one of the fastest SaaS start-ups in Silicon Valley.

With its “hub and spoke” business model, Zenefits offers an online dashboard, including all the bells and whistles to alleviate HR headaches. In 2017, it pivoted from being a digital broker to partnering with leading brokers who use its HR platform, and in 2018, it began offering advanced HR features.

Zenefits is headquartered in San Francisco, and has additional offices in Tempe (AZ), Charlotte (NC) and Vancouver (British Columbia). As of February 2022, it has been acquired by TriNet.

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