Listen to this articleEmployment Hero is the first HR, payroll and benefits platform to make the connection between an employee’s main source of income, their financial literacy and their financial services, such as superannuation, insurance and loans. Below is our interview with Ben Thompson, CEO of Employment Hero:
Q: Ben, what is Employment Hero? Could you tell us your startup story?
A: Employment Hero was started by Employment Innovations Group to help achieve its Big Hairy Audacious Goal – ‘To permanently improve the way employment is managed in Australia and around the world’. EI group, which started as an employment law firm in Sydney in 2002, now delivers employment law, payroll, HR, migration and HR related technology (Employment Hero, Keypay and Power2Motivate) in Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
We started Employment Hero because we think it is crazy that SMEs still manage employment using paper, manila folders and filing cabinets. We noticed that whilst SMEs have been quick to adopt cloud technology for accounting and marketing they remain bogged down by HR administration and compliance. We also think it is unfair that the 70% of the workforce who are employed by SMEs don’t get access to the employee benefits that corporate employees take for granted, such as corporate insurance, corporate superannuation and other discounts (gyms, utilities, home loans and more). We wanted to make it easier for SMEs to employ people and we wanted to make employment more rewarding for employees in small and medium sized companies. We discovered that an HR, payroll and benefits platform was the best way to achieve our goals so we launched Employment Hero.
Employment Hero started as an internal experiment which was bootstrapped and staffed by group employees. As the experiment gained traction we realised it needed its independence from the group so we decided to spin it out and raise external capital. Our Series A round is our first experience with external capital and investors. Its been an exciting journey so far but we recognise we are just getting started.
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Q: Can you give us more insights into your All-In-One HR, Payroll and Benefits Platform?
A: Employment Hero flips the traditional HR software model on its head. Instead of being an expensive HR database we have made Employment Hero as functional as possible. It is pre-loaded with all the employment contracts, company policies, performance reviews and reports that SMEs need. Our employment lawyers and HR consultants maintain this content centrally and can easily customise it to particular client needs.
Instead of being employer centric, Employment Hero is employee centric. Our goal is to make employee’s salaries go further by leveraging the group buying power of the platform to deliver employees lower prices on their major expenses. Our financial model relies on us making employees better off.
Employment Hero is the first HR, payroll and benefits platform to make the connection between an employee’s main source of income, their financial literacy and their financial services, such as superannuation, insurance and loans.
Employment Hero is a platform as a service which allows large institutions to connect with SMEs and their employees in entirely new ways. We are providing a brand new delivery channel that is much more efficient and data rich than traditional B2B or B2C sales models.
We have completely redesigned what is expected of HR, payroll and benefits platform so we can deliver a lot more value for everyone.
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Q: What are main benefits of using Employment Hero’s platform? How is it different than existing platforms?
A: Basically Employment Hero makes employers and employees better off. Employers get a complete HR, payroll and benefits platform for free and employees salaries go further.
I also like to think that Employment Hero helps entrepreneurs sleep better at night because they know that their HR, payroll and benefits platform is making their business more compliant and their employees more engaged.
Q: You’ve recently announced a $2.23 million series A funding round; what are your plans?
A: We are growing our development team so we can turn ideas into reality more swiftly. We are also looking to expand Employment Hero into the United Kingdom by the end of this year.
Q: What’s the achievement Employment Hero is most proud of?
A: We are most proud that we have found a win, win, win outcome for employers, employees and suppliers.
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Q: What do you find most rewarding in terms of running Employment Hero?
A: Creating permanent improvements to the way employment is managed. When, in 5 or 10 years from now, all SMEs are managing employment using an cloud HR, payroll and benefits platform (preferably Employment Hero) we will be able to say, “we made that happen”.
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