Zenefits’ new paid app offers companies HR advice from experts and business owners

Zenefits has launched a paid app designed to offer advice and support to small businesses on how they can create a successful human resource department. The new HR Advisor app is part of Zenefits’ slew of announcements relating to its Z2 platform as the company pushes forward with its all-in-one HR platform. Companies can sign up for this HR resource starting today for a monthly price of $5 per employee.

“We built this app because we heard from a lot of customers and business owners that they don’t have HR experts in-house,” explained Arisa Amano, Zenefits’ vice president of product. “It’s usually the owner or an office manager pretending to be an HR manager or recruiter. While Zenefits has always been about helping automate a lot of these things to eliminate work, there’s always foundational things you have to take care of, such as creating an employee handbook … but how do you create one? Or if you’re opening up an office in another state, how do you get started?”

HR Advisor is intended to be that go-to guide, complete with a comprehensive library of information sourced from attorneys, HR experts, and others. But it’s more than a knowledge base of data, it’s a service where administrators can reach out to industry experts certified by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and ask them questions specific to their company’s situation.

When it comes to problems, the first place most people go is to Google. However, Amano said that there’s an issue about how accurate the information is for HR compliance queries: “The reliable place to go to now is Zenefits’ HR Advisor.”

The release of this new app makes it the first premium service that Zenefits offers in the HR space. Other paid apps the company has are in payroll with its Zenefits Payroll offering and its Time and Attendance app, and in benefits administration around commuter benefits, FSA, and HSA. That being said, Zenefits’ HR Advisor is the first self-help application the company is making available.

As Zenefits continues its push to be the employee system of record, it’s not always about providing software to make recruiters, benefit administrators, and others in HR have less work to do. It’s about empowering businesspeople who are just starting out to have a chance to succeed.