How It Began

Many startup leaders deal with internal ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and coaching company Reboot supports the growth that they need to improve their performance and their lives. Based in the strong roots that founder Jerry Colonna laid down over his 10 year coaching career, Reboot is an effort to scale the main tenants of this entrepreneurship coaching to a wider audience in several formats, including leadership retreats, workshops, and events. Ali Schultz, COO, coach, and all around busy woman, walked us through how Justworks has made her life measurably easier.

What a COO Looks for in Their Business Tools

“In addition to being leaders, some of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face center around the practical skills required to build and run a company, and the company culture can take a turn for the worse from there. Even the most practical skills, from, What do I need to do in this situation? to What is HR? to How is my role as CEO different from that of a salesperson? to What am I supposed to do as CEO? come up in the early stages of growth for new leaders of new companies. The process of company growth becomes one big learning experience in all realms of the company, and I’m frequently surprised at how little most people know about HR when they get started and how that is so easily disregarded as an important piece of the business puzzle. Especially in the ways that impact a company’s most precious resource – its people.”

When Ali started to get in to what her biggest challenges are, she explained that, “it’s challenging finding the solutions that make my job as COO easy. Since we’re talking about the more tedious aspects of HR, Justworks just makes life insanely easy. I’ve got every HR solution in one place, plus my benefits and a rad team to support it, and that helps my internal team work really efficiently.”

Escaping the Minutiae of HR

Explaining further, she admits, “Justworks makes my job easy because I don’t have to worry about the minutiae: the compliance, the paperwork, the benefits administration, filling out the forms, and dealing with endless phone chains trying to get an answer for an HR question.”

At a previous company, Ali had experience with two other payroll providers that were clunky, hard to use, and complicated. One of her tasks was to switch from the old provider to a new provider, which proved to be not much better than the original one.

“The amount of hours that I (and my assistant!) lost in that transition, that pains me. I wish Justworks would have been around then – it would have made everything a lot easier. I want all those hours back!”

Now that Ali has had Justworks up and running for a while, she admits, “I don’t even think about it at all. I don’t worry about logging in and running payroll, setting up payroll for the week, like I’ve had to with other systems. It’s already done, and that’s the beauty of Justworks. So, the mental energy that would normally be spent remembering all these tasks if freed up. It’s all automated!”

Justworks just makes life insanely easy. I've got every HR solution in one place, plus my benefits and a rad team to support it, and that helps my internal team work really efficiently.

Real People, Real Customer Support

Ali describes contacting Justworks customer support as, “non-eventful. I was notified and updated when things were happening, and it was easy to respond to support emails. It was a nice and easy experience. I like having a real person who can answer all my questions, from whomever on the team I’ve worked with. What I really appreciate about Justworks, that surprised me, is that there are real people at the company who really care about this stuff. Knowing that I can actually call and talk to someone, and get a square answer quickly, is important.”

A Worry-free All-In-One Solution

“When I was first learning about Justworks, I was talking to a member of your team on the phone, and I asked a ton of questions. And he kept assuaging my fears, telling me, ‘Yes, it’s that easy. We do it all.’ Then I ask, ‘What about the W-4 or the W-9 or the I-9 or whatever it’s called?’ He’s confirms, “Yes, it’s all in there. You do it all online.” Then I got into the Justworks platform, and I tried it out and I said to myself, ‘This is genius. It’s HR management that isn’t complicated!’ I still feel that way! I got everyone set up in Justworks in two seconds, and I don’t think about it at all. Everything just runs on its own. My accountant knows where to go to download reports and documents, and she can adjust things if she needs to anywhere. It’s a dream. I love it.”

In comparing services, when making her decision, Ali looked at all of the major players, but honed in on Justworks quickly. “Justworks has it nailed in terms of perfection. I couldn't believe how easy it was. In fact, after that first call I was in disbelief. I kept asking, “So I don’t have to worry about X, Y, and Z and you're taking care of all of that and more?” And Justworks kept coming back to me with, 'Yes, we do it all.' I was blown away at how simple it was. I wanted an all-in-one solution and I wanted to not have to worry about it. Because I’m not an HR specialist, I didn’t know the compliance requirements that applied to us, and I also knew I didn’t want to keep track of any of it, nor did I want to hire anyone to keep track of the minutiae that falls in the HR bucket.”

“I also didn’t want to have a semi-solution: something that does three out of five things that we needed an HR solution to do. This would lead to me needing to worry about and spend energy reminding myself to remember those other two of the five things. To my amazement, Justworks had it all. I chose Justworks because it means I can relax and I don’t have to worry about it. Justworks has us covered. They know what’s going on with my business, they can help me if I have questions, and the system does everything I need it to do, all while being affordable for our small team.”