Fast-growing cloud HR startup Zenefits has seen its customer base and revenues ramp up dramatically since launch, and it’s looking to aggressively expand its headcount to keep up with demand. To do that, the company is opening a gigantic, 100,000 square-foot office in Scottsdale, Ariz. and plans to hire 1,300 full-time employees there over the next three years.
Zenefits allows businesses to manage multiple human resources services from a single cloud-based dashboard. The service, which is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, is designed to simplify the process of onboarding new employees and getting them signed up for payroll and benefits, as well as removing them at termination.
The service is offered to businesses for free, enabling them to import all their existing employee and benefits information into the Zenefits system. But the company makes its money by taking a commission as an insurance broker if clients end up changing their plans at any time after signing up.
That business model has proven extremely attractive for businesses, who have adopted the platform in droves. And it’s been incredibly lucrative for Zenefits, which has grown dramatically over the past year.
After expanding its service to all 50 states a year ago, Zenefits says its user base has grown by 1,600 percent in 2014. The company now has more than 2,000 businesses signed up for its cloud-based human resources dashboard, which can be used by more than 50,000 employees.
To meet that demand, Zenefits has rapidly expanded its own workforce. It had 15 employees at the start of the year in San Francisco, and now has 390 here. And, even though it’s announcing its Scottsdale office today, the company has already hired 60 people in the area.
But there’s a TON of hiring ahead. Zenefits expects to hire 1,300 full-time employees in the Scottsdale area over the next three years (which is like, 21 years for a usual tech company). It likens that to the largest expansion of a California-based company in the region since PayPal.
Scottsdale is a good place for Zenefits to be because there are already a lot of financial services, insurance, and general customer service workers in that area. The company hopes to hire HR specialists, sales representatives, account managers and executives, and client support staff in that area.