Slashdot Mirror
Human Resources Startup Zenefits Is Laying Off Almost Half Its Employees (buzzfeed.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Zenefits will lay off 45% of its employees in an effort to slash costs, according to an internal memo this morning that was obtained by BuzzFeed News, a stark acknowledgment by the embattled human resources startup that its onetime expectations for growth were vastly inflated. Roughly 430 workers will be cut, including 250 in Zenefits' San Francisco headquarters and 150 in its office in Tempe, Arizona, leaving the company with about 500 employees, according to the memo and a person briefed on the matter. That's about a third of the size it was a year ago, when it ousted its founding CEO, Parker Conrad, over revelations that it flouted state regulations for selling health insurance. Thursday's announcement, coming on the morning after the one-year anniversary of Conrad's departure, is the third round of layoffs -- and the largest -- to hit the company since the crisis began.
When it comes time to shed employees, corporate HR usually has a mysteriously low (if not the lowest) termination rate, despite being overloaded with redundant workers that have very little to do with the actual production of things. I think their self-entitled protectionism is only second to CEOs and politicians who can vote for their own pay raises.
Kind of sucks to be the #1 target of your own collusive practice, doesn't it?
In today's world, you don't sack the CEO for flouting regulations. You do it brazenly, and then complain that regulations are hurting your business model (See, Uber, AirBnB).
Your ad here. Ask me how!
wasn't what it was cracked up to be
Small companies contract out their HR.
I work for a small contracting agency. They outsource everything online. Google Mail for email, Intuit QuickBooks for bookkeeping, and an HR provider for benefits and payroll. The 20 or so people at the NYC headquarters is to keep tabs on hundreds of contractors throughout the U.S. and maintain onsite records for government inspectors.
How is HR going to fire people, if you fire 1/2 of the HR people? They won't have time to process all that paperwork.
Simple. You outsource it to an third-party HR firm.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Like deconstructing a human linked list! This is amazing.
An internal system operation returned the error "The operation completed successfully.".
I work at a small company (~30 employees) total that's been around for around 35 years. We don't have anyone dedicated to HR, it's just part of the jobs duties for one of the founders. About two years ago I heard bout Zenefits and went through a sales call with them.
The sales guy sounded like he was about 21 years old, didn't know anything, and was a total Bro.
Everything in the call was like "Ohh man, you're still doing it that way, bummer! That sucks man, check this out..."
"Yeah, what we're doing is rethinking HR from the ground up, and we're like Amazon disrupting all those legacy companies out there! We're so innovative you won't believe!!" (no, actually you're just fancy insurance brokers....)
"Yeah man, I hear you, , right man??"
It was an incredible turnoff.
I do think that HR, benefits management, payroll, etc., is totally ready for disruption and a good product, but Zenefits definitely is not it.
That site was one of the best places to go for company meltdowns, layoffs, rumors of acquisitions, malfeasance, and other shenanigans. There's nothing like it nowadays.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/