Fast Forward Jay Fulcher Zenefits 2019 Audio

Dan Costa (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to Fast Forward. We have ongoing conversations about living in the future. I'm your host, Dan Costa, the Editor-in-Chief of pcmag.com, and my guest today is Jay Fulcher, the CEO of Zenefits. We're gonna talk about the future of HR and how small businesses can compete with big tech firms. Jay, thanks so much for coming onto the show.

Jay Fulcher (0:27)

Yeah, Dan, glad to be here.

Dan Costa (0:29)

So I think most of our listeners are gonna know and have heard of Zenefits, but the company has changed a lot over the years, especially since you've taken over. What is Zenefits today?

Jay Fulcher (0:38)

Yeah, I think we have made a lot of changes as a company. So today, we're a fully resurgent company, and really now a very comprehensive technology platform company, first and foremost. Zenefits 1 was really a fairly clever business model, but it was a very services intensive type model and company. And what we've done is we've really transitioned and pivoted to being a very comprehensive payroll benefits human capital management platform for small business. And so our whole approach is how can we provide the kind of both technology and expertise that small and mid-sized businesses need in order to compete.

Dan Costa (1:25)

So tell me what the product does. Why do people come to you and what problem do you solve for small businesses?

Jay Fulcher (1:30)

Yeah, I think the reason that we are resurgent and growing so quickly is the fact that, you know, small business has really never had a level playing field. You know, we talk a lot about nearly half the workforce in the US., 48% to be precise, works for companies that have fewer than 500 employees. And those companies, for the most part, have just been shut off from the type of technology that we provide that allows them to not only compete for the best talent, but also enables them to be able to harness and leverage that talent, to be able to grow their businesses. And so, you know, again, across a variety of different products and applications, we provide these companies with, we think, a very sophisticated but easy to use, very employee-friendly type of technology platform that really allows people to get a lot of the headaches and the compliance issues and the regulatory issues out of their way, out of their day-to-day life, and allows them to focus on the really meaningful work, you know, that they're most interested in.

Dan Costa (2:37)

So is this for companies that do have an HR department but want a technology stack that they can deliver services on? Or is it for small businesses that maybe don't even have an HR team?

Jay Fulcher (2:47)

Yeah, it runs the gamut. So we have, you know, we've got thousands and thousands of customers across the US. And it runs from companies that maybe have a couple of handfuls of employees all the way up to companies that have a thousand employees. And so at the end of the day, for the most part, I'd say about maybe 20% of our customers are coming from either a outsourced HR environment or some kind of an environment where, quite frankly, they didn't necessarily have an HR product or platform internal to their company. And about the other 80% are coming off of some other kind of capability, whether we're talking about spreadsheets or whether we're talking about some sort of a relatively rudimentary HR platform and are now really looking to be able to have the kind of technology that they can scale their company with.

Dan Costa (3:37)

So what are some of those technologies that big businesses have been taking advantage of that you are enabling small businesses to leverage?

Jay Fulcher (3:44)

Well, I think, first and foremost, we're in an age of transparency. And I think these small businesses are really looking for insight and guidance and help related to where do I find talent, how do I bring them in very seamlessly into my company, how do we pay them both competitively but also in a way that is going to produce the best results, you know, what sorts of benefits capabilities, what kind of benefits offerings are going to be necessary to be able to attract the kind of talent we want into our company. And then all the way through to, you know, learning and development and all the professional development work. We're in a world now where, you know, the workforce is very different than what it was not even five or ten years ago.

And that's a workforce that has a different level of expectation in terms of what it expects from its employer.