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is a residential mortgage lender that works with mortgage brokers to process, underwrite, and approve loan applications for customers. Their mission? Provide a “BETTER LENDING EXPERIENCE” for brokers and their clients.

When Lisa Beaman, Strive’s Chief Operating Officer and first employee, helped launch the company with its three co-founders in 2021, she knew it would be all hands on deck to get the business going. And one key piece they needed in place for launch was a payroll, HR, and time off tracking solution that would streamline their processes and provide a professional experience for their employees.

The challenge

Prior to her role at Strive, Lisa spent 18 years running operations at First National Financial LP, where she oversaw HR, recruitment, onboarding, benefits, payroll, employee engagement surveys, marketing, mortgage servicing, and more. 

With her expertise in juggling the different components of staff management and operations, she knew Strive needed a people operations system that was all encompassing. She also had to ensure that the system would be able to scale as their team grew.

Lisa had previously worked with other software solutions and thought that “they just weren’t that great”. The challenge was in finding a one-stop-shop solution that was easy to use, with resources in place to help set up and learn the software.

“I had to set up a company and make sure it was operational. I knew we were going to scale fast, so I needed a system that I could use and get implemented very quickly, and train another team member to process payroll and understand time off tracking.”

The solution

Strive found 91���� through , the fractional HR consulting firm they work with to support the HR functions of the business. Having partnered with 91���� since 2019, Carly Holm, Humani’s CEO, recommended 91���� as they worked through the policies and back office items needed to launch the business.

What really stood out for Lisa was the ease of getting everything set up with 91����. There was online training and in-depth resources to help if they needed it.

“This was why 91���� was so ideal. I really consider 91���� a self service HR management system. There are experts working behind the scenes that know everything if you need help and if they don’t, they tell you exactly when they’re going to get back to you. They never let me down.”

And, they didn’t have to spend a fortune to get an essential part of their people operations in place – an important factor, Lisa notes, for small businesses.

“For a new business, it’s amazing. You don’t have to spend $10,000 to get a time off and payroll system up and running.”

The results

Three years later, Lisa boasts that she’s 91����’s and all its employees’ biggest fan. She details the journey from being Strive’s first employee on 91����, to now having 85 employees and still growing.

“As we’ve scaled from a small to a medium-sized company, 91���� still provides everything we would need. It scales perfectly, there was nothing that was missing. It’s so easy to add modules as you grow.”

Lisa highlights Payroll, Time Off, and Onboarding as the modules that she relies on the most. For payroll, features such as EHT reports, reporting for internal and external audits, and simple T4 generation have made running payroll much easier.

“Payroll is really intuitive and modern. It isn’t laborious. The system does a lot for you that you’d have to manually enter in other systems. For a company with almost 100 employees, payroll only takes two hours every two weeks.”

For Lisa, 91����’s Time Off module shines because it allows visibility into everyone’s booked time off, simplifies time off policy creation, assignment, and tracking, and includes approval workflows and time off usage history. With customizable time off policies, Lisa’s even found creative ways to maximize her use of the module, such as using it as an in-office booking system to book desks for employees’ in-office days.

Onboarding also plays a big part in creating a positive and professional employee experience. Lisa highlights that she was able to onboard seven employees in one day – a feat she couldn’t have done without 91����. 

From day one, new hires can access important documents and are quickly integrated into payroll. The dashboard shows welcome messages and who’s off, alongside work anniversaries and birthdays.

“There’s a two-way communication between management and employees that doesn’t feel invasive. For smaller organizations, it gives their staff a sense of ‘I’m in good hands here. I feel like I’m working for a company that has 1000 people because all the HR needs are met through the system.’”

The platform's efficiency, along with the help center and support team, contributes to significant monthly cost and time savings. Even at 85 employees and growing, Lisa doesn’t feel the need to employ a full HR department because they have 91���� to simplify their processes and Humani HR to turn to for HR expertise and recruiting support.

“With its integrative nature and updates, 91���� is five times more effective and cost efficient than other systems.”

In addition to the platform itself, Lisa also speaks highly of the 91���� team.

“Every person I’ve dealt with is amazing. You’re all just fabulous. It’s an unbelievably dynamic, useful, engaging, hardworking, driven group of people that are obviously very bright because 91���� is a huge success story too.”

When asked if there’s anything else she’d like to add about her experience, Lisa jumps at the chance to recommend 91���� as a solution for small businesses.

“I found out about 91���� through a consultant, and I wish more companies could know about it because it is so easy to use when starting out. I think more small companies need to use 91���� because it would make them incredibly efficient. There’s an easier way to get the work done and it saves you a lot of time and money.”

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