People Operations

How the Best Companies are Skipping HR and Winning the Future of Work with People Ops

People Operations: Automate HR, Design a Great Employee Experience, and Unleash Your Workforce explains how leaders at small- and medium-sized businesses can stop spending time on HR administration—"paperwork"—and start focusing on the "peoplework" that truly fuels employee growth and productivity. Authors Jay Fulcher, Kevin Marasco, Tracy Cote of Zenefits, the leading people operations platform, provide readers with a playbook for creating a massive competitive advantage by eliminating antiquated approaches to HR. The book takes a look at how work has changed and what companies need to do about it, and the new approach they must take to processes, systems, and best practices. You'll learn how to eliminate busywork and hassle, and how to use that newfound time and capital to empower your biggest asset: your people.

You'll receive the end-to-end guide to:

• Digitizing legacy HR functions
• Using robots for the busywork you hate
• Employing software to design and improve your employee experience
• Assembling and empowering your "people team"
• Utilizing the included plans and templates to guide each stage of your business transformation

Perfect for managers, leaders, small business owners, and executives, People Operations is perfect for anyone who wants to optimize HR, maximize their workforce investment, support their employees, and modernize their business.

Preface: Leveling the Playing Field for the “Other 99 Percent”

Part I: The Rise of People Operations

Chapter 1: The Great Pivot: The New Work Order!

Chapter 2: So Long, HR

Chapter 3: The Rise of People Ops

Chapter 4: People Ops in Action

Part II: Automate HR: Kill Paperwork

Chapter 5: Make the Stuff You Have to Do Easy (Go Digital)

Chapter 6: Step 1: Create Digital Employee Records

Chapter 7: Step 2: Automate Hiring and Onboarding

Chapter 8: Step 3: Automate Time and Pay

Chapter 9: Step 4: Automate Health Insurance Benefits

Part III: Build an Incredible Employee Experience

Chapter 10: The Bones of a Successful People Operation

Chapter 11: Employee Motivation

Chapter 12: Fair Pay

Chapter 13: Rethink Communications

Part IV: Unleash Your Workforce

Chapter 14: Performance Alignment

Chapter 15: Closing the Engagement Gap

Chapter 16: Creating a Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive Workplace

Chapter 17: Making Remote Work Work

Part V: The Future of People Operations

Chapter 18: The Rise of the CPO: Building a Modern People Ops Team

Chapter 19: Measuring People Ops

Chapter 20: POPS Technology

Chapter 21: Turning POPS into a Competitive Advantage

Appendix: Digital Tools and Resources

Glossary

References

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

JAY FULCHER is Chief Executive Officer of Zenefits, an organization that offers people and payroll services to over 11,000 small- and medium-sized businesses. He has over 25 years of experience in technology leadership. He is a sought-after business advisor and speaker.

KEVIN MARASCO is Chief Marketing Officer at Zenefits, where he taps over 20 years of expertise at the crossroads of technology and the future of work. He is a sought-after industry thought leader, advisor, and speaker.

TRACY COTE is People Operations Advisor at Zenefits. Her expertise as a people leader has garnered Best Place to Work accolades and built healthy teams across numerous growing businesses. She has also contributed to the practice as a professor of HR at San Francisco State University.

People Operations is a practical guide to the future of work that explains how leaders at small- and medium-sized businesses can stop spending time on HR administration―”paperwork”―and start focusing on the “peoplework” that truly fuels employee growth and productivity. Authors Jay Fulcher, Kevin Marasco, and Tracy Cote of Zenefits, the leading people operations platform, provide readers with a playbook for creating a massive competitive advantage by eliminating antiquated approaches to HR.

The book offers a start-to-finish guide to digitizing legacy HR functions, automating the busywork that everyone hates, using software to design and support your employee experience, and assembling and assigning your team. You’ll get plans and templates to guide each stage of your organizational transformation, as well as checklists, tools, and examples curated from some of today’s most successful small businesses. You’ll also find strategies and techniques you can implement immediately to boost productivity and scale the right culture across your company.

Perfect for managers, leaders, small business owners, and executives, People Operations is an indispensable guide to improving your organization’s HR framework, maximizing your investment in your people, supporting your employees, and modernizing your business.

PRAISE FOR PEOPLE OPERATIONS

“Regardless of your business’s size, if you employ people, you want to empower them to create the most value they can for your customers and their fellow employees…. But there are lots of other demands on your time that can take your eye off the ball…. People Operations shows you how you can use technology and tools to offload all that other stuff so you can focus your energies on the stuff that really matters.”
—Geoffrey Moore, Author, Crossing the Chasm

“People Operations is critical reading for businesses of all sizes. The book expertly lays out an updated vision for what had traditionally been considered ‘human resources’ and makes clear that a new way of thinking about engaging with and managing employees is not just needed, it is critical for the success of businesses in the 21st century.”
—Seth Levine, Co-author of The New Builders; Partner and co-founder of Foundry Group

“People Operations provides a prescriptive and pragmatic playbook for going from paper work to people work, giving small businesses a competitive dvantage by bringing the human back in the center.”
—Pat Wadors, Chief Talent Officer, Procore

“Here’s the thing that the People Operations book does that small business entrepreneurs don’t get in business school, from investors, and certainly not from HR Tech providers: practical, actionable ideas and examples to build your people and your business. The authors of this book, who are also small business leaders, recognize the obstacles and the opportunities that many business books overlook: winning is a team sport.”
—Ronnie Lott, Small Business Owner, Investor, and Hall of Fame Athlete

"People Operations is the go-to-handbook for replacing conventional HR with People Ops (POPS). POPs is a powerful way to build a team and fuel your business. Using helpful frameworks like the POPs Maturity Model, you can accurately identify your organization's stage of development and create a vision for a future where, at maturity, people and culture become a true competitive advantage.

New to POPs? Expect to reach for this book often. Experienced POPs professional? You'll find the frameworks accessible for helping others understand the goal of POPs, and you'll be left with some gems to consider like high-performance reasons your team works and how to tap into them."
—Amy Dalebout, VP People & Culture, MotoRefi

"Adapt or die. It really is as simple as that, and yet no one has time for all of that adapting. Keeping up with the Kardashians of business is incredibly hard when you're a small business, yet small biz is the engine behind incredible economies. Here's a book written by a company that gets it; written by small business for small business. Often business books can be drier than toast, but this book is great for new and established businesses to reset your priorities and get solid footing in an ever-shifting landscape of the operations of being, and employing, people."
—Sarah Shepard, COO, StringCan Interactive

"I've always been fascinated by brain science— the intersection of psychology, philosophy, AI, and neuroscience—offering exciting insights into what's possible. People Operations taps into the potential of the small business workforce at the intersection of motivation, collective purpose, and technology, opening new advantages for the massively shifting world of work."
—Jeff Stibel, entrepreneur and author, Breakpoint and Wired for Thought

"Business leaders know that their only true competitive differentiator is their people. Knowing how to transform from traditional HR practices to an employee experience set of approaches means disrupting status quos without adversely impacting business outcomes. People Operations explains why the shift is important and provides the practical insights and tools that small business leaders can use to transform how their people experience work without risking business results."
—Patti Fletcher, CMO, Workhuman

"One of the biggest challenges for business owners today is attracting and retaining employees. People Operations will help you create a great employee experience, which will help you keep your staff and grow your business."
—Rieva Lesonsky, CEO, President & Founder at GrowBiz Media/Small Business Daily