Leveraging Gusto to Boost Employee Retention Round 2

I feel like 3 minutes in is pretty good. Micah, if you want to go ahead and kick things off, that would be great.

Yeah, sure. Well, good afternoon, everybody, or for anybody on the West Coast, good morning. So my name is Micah Cannon, partner and COO of Club Capital. As I would imagine everybody here has likely heard me on some webinars previously, but thank you for joining today. I'll help kick things off. For today's presentation, but then going to be handing it over to Chris Freddie, our Operations Manager and kind of in-house payroll guru, as well as our VIP partner at Gusto, Madeline James, who is also a CPA too. So she is a great resource for us and all of our clients at Gusto. And really for For today's purposes, we really want to be able to go over how to leverage Gusto to boost employee retention. So in some of the emails talking about this presentation, we talked about how Club Capital launched some of the coaching services last year, really with the idea of getting into helping people understand some employee retention issues that they were having. We decided to— tackle it from a sense of, uh, of coaching. Um, and honestly, we listen to, uh, to feedback of all of our clients, um, as what's going to help them the most, what's going to be maybe the quickest way, uh, to, to be able to tackle some of the biggest issues that they're having. Um, and so for some of this, we actually leaned on some of our partners, um, Gusto being, uh, the biggest one, to say, really, how can we do a better job of highlighting and spotlighting the tools that people have in front of them to help them with some of their other problems, right? And I think we do this with a lot of the applications that we have today. We use, uh, you know, probably 20% of what the application actually does, right? Um, so much of, of Gusto, we look at it for, you know, okay, does it solve my payroll need? Does it get my payrolls, my people paid on paydays?

Yes.

You know, but this is not the type of platform that we want to be utilizing twice per month. It's something to really leverage for a host of other initiatives within the office. And so what we want to talk about today is how to use it and use some of the tools on it to boost employee retention. And it's one of the reasons why— I mean, what we see you know, our purpose with a lot of our clients is to do some of the research in the space to say, what are the vendors out there that you should be using? And it's why Gusto has been such a big partner of ours in the payroll space, but really the way in which we talk about it, the way in which we talk about our relationship with Gusto is the people space. So the people advisory space of yes, payroll, but what else? Benefits, onboarding, HR. There's so much more to Gusto, which is why we've had such a big relationship with them. And so this is, you know, another installment in the series of, you know, what are you getting out of Gusto and out of your relationship there? So I'm excited to be able to just be here, you know, briefly to help kind of kick off the presentation for you guys. But please, without further ado, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, so like Micah mentioned, my name is Chris and I'm here at Capital. I've been with the company for quite some time now, since I want to say August of 2018, and really pretty much held every position within the company besides an accountant. And I've really gotten to know all things insurance agents, all things insurance agency related. And like Micah was saying, the The thing that we see agents needing, uh, needing the help, needing help the most with is definitely people and working exclusively with Gusto. Uh, up until now we have seen that Gusto is being underutilized. Like, like I was saying, we're only scraping the surface. So we're super excited today to be showing you tools that are already at your disposal on how they can help you tackle your biggest issue. And to help us with that is here Madeline James, who is like I said, our customer success champion over at Gusto.

Thanks, Chris. Yeah, so like Chris and Micah mentioned, my name's Madeline. I'm actually a CPA. Don't ask me your tax questions, I do not know them. But I work with the Club Capital team to support in onboarding. So some of you may have chatted with me in the past. Also providing webinars like these, making sure you're really getting the most out of your platform instead of just thinking of it as what you're paying your employees through. So I'm excited to chat through how Gusto can help continue your processes for your agency throughout the next 40 minutes, 50 minutes.

And here's the agenda for today's meeting.

Yeah, so we'll go ahead and start with Gusto's values and mission. I think it's a really great place to start. And then we'll go through, you know, employee retention tools, HR Resource Center, some benefits, specifically low-cost and no-cost benefits available to you. And then make sure to jot any questions down throughout or use the chat function in Zoom, and we'll address those at the end of the webinar.

So with that, let me just jump in here, uh, for a second, and because, uh, I don't want any of our clients here looking at this, oh, Gusto's values and mission, you know, hey, this is fine. We already work with you guys. What do we need to hear about that? I would really encourage everybody to really pay attention to this too, because the thing that gets me excited about Gusto's values and mission really goes into where are they going, like, think about product roadmap, right? So you think about what their values and mission are, that'll get into, you know, and kind of allude to where are they gonna be taking their product down the line. So it's really cool to see. It's one— it's again, why we've partnered with them so much today.

Love that callout. Thanks, Micah.

Yep. Thank you, Micah. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it. Cool.

So really here at Gusto, everything we do and build is surrounding our values and mission, and that's exactly what Micah just mentioned. So here, our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life. And it's really based on 3 pillars, which are peace of mind, great place to work, personal prosperity. So peace of mind really means making it easy for you as business owners to build great teams and stay compliant. And then at the same time, by building a great place to work, you can transform your workplace into a place of community in which employees really feel valued and energized. And then personal prosperity is more so about helping people grow and plan for a better future beyond work. And does that kind of sound familiar? I hope it does, because really the virtue of what you do, we're working on the same mission. So we put people first because people do matter. And that old moniker, business is built on relationships, has really been around for a long time because it rings true. So whether that's your relationship with your team or with your customers. And so with that, Gusto really makes it easy to onboard, pay, insure, and support hardworking teams. Like yours.

So when it comes to employee retention tools, everything starts with the first impression, and we believe that the first impression, at least when it comes to hiring, starts with an employee description and of course the offer letter that you send out to the employees, and both things can be found within Gusto. Here to get into just documents in general is Madeline again.

Yeah, so One thing I'll call out is throughout the webinar today, you'll notice in the top right corner of each slide which plans that specific gusto feature we're talking about is available on. So you can just always keep that in mind when we're going through here. So now on all 3 of our plans, it used to only be on Complete and Concierge, but now on all 3, you can actually upload custom offer letters to send out to prospective agents. Club Capital actually has customized offer letters to upload to your accounts too. So they have made it really easy for you to send out an an amazing offer letter with just a few clicks. And really, like Chris said, a great first impression for your agency is to start with a great offer letter.

Yep. And I do want to call out that the offer letters that we have templates for are actually the top 6 positions that we see agents hire for. So if you have any questions or just want the template, by all means, let— like, just either give us a call or send us an email, and we'll be more than happy to upload it to your profile.

So once an employee accepts their offer letter, you're able to upload other custom documents within Gusto. So think of this as a DocuSign within your payroll system. If you have an employee handbook, confidentiality agreement, or other types of documents that you have your employees sign on their first day or even midway through the year, we can make it easier for you to distribute to your team. And the employees have access to these documents in their employee profiles, so they can self-serve when it comes to questions on their employee handbooks or really anything else for that matter. One of my favorite features, honestly.

And going, uh, going, um, in the same vein of making a first impression, it's really important to have processes established pretty much for everything, but especially when it comes to onboarding, because you want everybody to be trained the same way. One example that was given to me when I first came to Club Capital is that, you know, there's plenty of ways to make a burger, but if you want to go buy a McDouble at McDonald's, it's always done in the exact same fashion and all employees are trained in the same fashion. So you want that process to be very seamless, and the onboarding checklist at Gusto helps you do exactly just that. And once again, here's Madeline to tell us more about that.

Yeah, so think of the first day of work for a new employee and all of the tasks that need to be completed to ensure they're set up for success. So adding them to payroll and making an employee email, setting up, say, their software, or maybe even an office tour. On the Complete and Concierge plans, you have that option to make that extremely customized and save it for future hires, so you don't even need to take time to reinvent the wheel. And then with this, you know, work from home orders are more and more in many states, so this keeps your task list all in one place. And then also you're able to really dive deep into that training rather than making sure they're going through their checklist, because both the admin and the employee can view those at any time.

Yeah, the way that I would think about this is, it's just like, this is really a tool that can help get everybody up to speed in the shortest amount of time possible, because you as a human, as an agent, there's a lot of things that are always requiring attention, but the more of a process that you establish within Gusto using this tool, the easier it is for you to, A, make sure that you properly train the employees, and then of course make sure that they get up to speed that much faster because you can literally see whether things are being checked off or not. Just something to keep in mind. And then one thing, speaking of people in general, One thing that I have seen agents, uh, you know, just talk about is they really never know how the employees feel despite working at a very small agency, you know, with typically 4 to 6 employees. Uh, as far as like the number of people isn't that big, like when you compare it to large corporations, agents still have a hard time really figuring out how employees feel about their leadership, how employees feel about the company culture, how employees feel about just working there in general. Well, Gusto makes it incredibly easy to find out exactly how employees feel in an anonymous fashion so that they never feel intimidated to share feedback with you.

Yeah, so to Chris's point, a lot of the time employees— employers are too nervous to ask for the feedback, so they'll fly blindly and just assume that everything's okay. And so on Complete and Concierge, you have the opportunity to send out insights surveys. This is an extremely valuable tool to ensure you know how your employees are feeling about different themes at work. These surveys are anonymous and provide objective feedback from the employees. And as you get the results back, you'll be able to decide if you should keep doing what you're doing or pivot to ensure that your employees are satisfied and want to stay with you for the long term. This is huge for employee retention. And we give you those questions up front, so then that way you're not having to think of them on your own.

Yep, and this is like— this can all be found very easily on the left-hand side of the custom menu. So all the features that we're going over today, you don't have to be a custom wizard at all to have access to them. You can very easily access them, like I said, on the left-hand side. Then another thing that I see agents constantly reach out about is just HR-related questions. So it's things like, Chris, I just got a letter in the mail for— and this employee's claiming unemployment on me. What do I do now? Chris, this employee hasn't shown up for the past 5 days. Can I fire them, or are they qualified for the EPSL or the FMLA? Those are all questions that sometimes I don't have the answer to right away, and really they require an actual HR specialist to be able to answer them. And I do want to make it known that Gusto, that Gusto actually makes HR specialists available to you for this, for questions like the ones that I just mentioned and so much more. And another thing is that on the other spectrum is that I speak to agents that are, I would say, very confident in their HR skills to the point that sometimes they think that they can do everything on their own because of previous jobs or any case and really might be making the incorrect steps, which can quite literally cost them a lot down the line. So Gusto actually has an HR fitness test that can allow you to be objective about where you are from an HR perspective. Like it can literally let you know, you know, if you are ready to actually handle and run your HR department or not. So I would definitely recommend taking that test. You can really be, once again, objective about where you stand in terms of HR.

Yeah, so really it's a great way to understand if you don't understand where you come, uh, when it comes to HR and compliance requirements. So the HR Fitness Test is actually an 8-question test, so probably only take you about 10 minutes to complete, um, and it's a great way to see how you would go about different types of HR functions. So this will allow you to find your strengths and potential HR grap— excuse me, gaps, so you can ensure you're set up for success when it comes to employee-related situations. You can also take this several times so you can see how you're doing as time progresses, but it's really eye-opening to see some of these questions and realize Google may not be the best place to go for the answers to these.

100% agree. Now, what about HR on demand? Can you elaborate on that, Madeline?

Yeah, so owning a business comes with a lot of responsibilities. Some of which include questions surrounding how to respond to HR compliance and employee-related questions, just like Chris mentioned earlier. So the concierge plan allows you to speak with certified HR professionals via email or phone call to ensure you're staying compliant both federally and in the states you operate in. Their phone window is a 12-hour window Monday through Friday, and their emails, they promise to respond back to you within one business day. So when you have those urgent employee-related questions, you're able to talk with an HR professional, be confident in how to go about handling those situations, and walk step by step with, with that individual to make sure you feel good.

Yeah, I would say that this is huge because when you compare it to hiring an actual HR professional, you're probably paying them at the very least, you know, $40,000-$50,000, whereas this, with just having the Gusto Complete plan, you literally have access to an HR team, uh, that can answer your questions at the very latest within one business day. So definitely a huge value added for sure. Uh, now the oh-so-loving employee handbooks. I actually, uh, speak to a ton of agents about this as well, um, mainly because of the fact that once again I've, uh, held a lot of roles here like within Club Capital. And, um, when it comes to particularly brand new agents, um, they tend to grab their employee handbooks. It's basically like a copy and paste for the agent that they interned, whose office they interned at, or the one where they were an aspiring agent at. Or sometimes they literally go on Google, type in like employee handbook for blank, like insert state here, and then just copy and paste that, turn into a PDF, and then just like send it to the employees for signing. And that, in my opinion, and in a very legal opinion, it's not the best way to go about pretty much laying out the guidelines of how, of what employees employees can expect at working with you. Luckily, Gusto makes it incredibly easy to actually create your own handbook, and in fact, they have experts that can pretty much build one for you.

So yeah, so on Concierge, you have the option to build a new employee handbook with the help of the HR professionals. So employee handbooks should actually be updated annually as states and federally, uh, they update and roll out new labor laws often. Um, once you've built an employee handbook through the Concierge plan, you you actually have that opportunity to review that annually with an HR professional to ensure you're not missing any key policies. And also on Concierge, you get proactive law alerts, so no need to wait for that annual review. You can be making sure that you're rolling out new policies as they come through instead of waiting, you know, come January 1st the next year.

Yep. And one quick pause that I want to take when speaking about handbooks. A lot of the times employers and employees can take a look at a handbook, just quickly cruise through it, and then just sign it and, you know, forget about it. But I think that it should be taken as an opportunity to really communicate your story, your values, and your mission as well. So don't just think of it as something that you just have to do to stay compliant. Like, really use it as a tool to let employees know what they can expect, you know, when they work with you and what your story is as well. Like, I feel like it can actually be a differentiator as opposed to the employees signing a bunch of documents when they join any random company and, you know, just they don't know how to differentiate it because once again they don't know the story, mission, or values. So really use it as a tool to communicate all those things.

I like that, Chris. That's a good point. I think to that, that same vein, that's a big proponent of Gusto and how we hire here too is making sure that really who we're hiring is aligned with our mission and values. And so you want to make sure you really communicate that with your employees too, so then that way they feel energized to come to work every day. And that's a big part of putting that into the employee handbook so they can read through that. That's usually one of the first pages through, through the creation.

And I want to reiterate, building like a proper handbook that truly does communicate your story, your mission, your values, and of course is federal— federally and also statewide compliant can be done by somebody at Gusto. Somebody at Gusto can help you out. So definitely something to take advantage of as well. And of course, job descriptions.

Yeah, so Chris mentioned this earlier in the presentation, but job descriptions are extremely important when attracting top talent to your agency, and you want to make sure the job description is completely clear on what the position you're hiring for entails. In Concierge, the HR Resource Center, you'll be able to browse our library of job descriptions, download it, and customize it for your specific agency. So you don't have to go with exactly what it says. Of course, things can change, but it's a great starting off point. I'll actually give you a personal anecdote of a job description. Before I was at Gusto, I was at a large healthcare company, and they gave me my job description, and it was very, very unclear of what it was because it was a new position. I only lasted there for 6 months. So making sure that you are really being clear on what the job is going to entail will help in that employee retention because then it's very clear what's expected of that prospective employee going into the gates.

Great point, and thank you for the anecdote, Madeline. What about benefits? This is something that it's like a hot button for just for employers in general and something that I think people need guidance with. So if you could please elaborate on that, Madeline. And of course, we all know that you sell some benefits and you can use this yourself as well. We do get like a lot of agents that obviously just sell their own policies, but at the same time There are some benefits of using Gusto for benefits, particularly just because of the fact that they are all integrated and really easy to use and set up.

Yeah, so from a lineup perspective, you can see all of the benefits that Gusto currently offers, and we know that you're trying to balance cost and coverage, so this structure really helps to find what you need and can afford quickly. Please note that all benefits that we offer are available on all three of our plans. You don't have to be on a specific plan to utilize any of these benefits. So you'll see there's three different structures here. Cost— or no-cost benefits. So that literally means no cost to you, but it's a great thing for your employees. Low-cost benefits. So very low in terms of you offering from your contribution angle, but great for the employees again. And then premium benefits when you're ready to start offering those high premiums small group health insurance, things of that nature, all of which you can do through Gusto. But today we're going to take time to discuss our newest offerings, which is the health reimbursement powered by Qucera and Gusto Wallet. I will preface, I am not a benefits advisor. So if you have questions throughout this part of the presentation, feel free to write them down. I may have high-level answers for you, but I can always follow up with with you and our benefits advisor to make sure that you feel confident in any of those questions.

Yep. So without further ado, you know, what is QSEHRA? So Madeline can elaborate in just a second about what QSEHRA is and how to go about implementing it, but a lot of agents are essentially implementing something like QSEHRA but just unofficially doing it. I see agents typically give a health reimbursement to employees, but in reality, that health reimbursement is just like extra cash on top of their base pay, which can or which may or may not be used towards health benefits purposes. So for the sake of ensuring that you're doing things the right way and that the funds are being utilized properly, I would say it's definitely important to use a benefit like QSEHRA. And here's Madeline to elaborate on how to go about doing that.

Yeah, so QSEHRA is an affordable, flexible, and convenient health benefit option. Small employers can provide tax-free reimbursements to help their employees pay for health insurance. So that would be through the private— or public market, but for individuals. So it's a great option for small businesses that find group health insurance unattainable, those that simply aren't ready for that commitment, or those that have remote teams or employees in multiple states that just make it difficult to find the right health insurance plan.

Yep. And, uh, just one quick point, um, just is that, uh, right now when you're doing the health reimbursements, um, that what— that are once again just compensation on top of their pay, those are actually not tax-free. So it's like, in a sense, if you give somebody $100, depending on what their tax bracket is, they're actually not receiving like the full $100 towards their like health insurance. They might only be receiving, you know, $70. As opposed to that full $100. So just something to keep in mind as well.

So how do health reimbursements through QSEHRA work at Gusto? So really pretty easy here. The employer chooses a monthly amount to contribute to their employees' health insurance, which you can work with your benefits advisor to really determine what that looks like for you. Then employees self-serve. They bring their own health eligible health insurance from the individual marketplace. They have the flexibility to choose the best plan that really meets their needs and their family's needs. And then employees get reimbursed tax-free. So they submit their proof of insurance to Gusto, we review, and once approved, the reimbursement is included on their next paycheck. And then at the end of the year, Gusto automatically handles the tax reporting. So you— so Chris's point of just like putting it in as a reimbursement, uh, on payroll, the tax reporting piece is not getting taken care of. And so that's why you want to make sure that you're actually going through a QSEHRA-type situation to ensure that it is set up as a health reimbursement.

And what about Gusto Wallet? What is it? How do we go about implementing it? Do I get a shiny wallet sent to me from Gusto? Please elaborate.

Yeah, so before we go deep into what Gusto Wallet is, um, recently we took a survey of employees that use Gusto to find that financial insecurity is really affecting many people. So you'll see that 40% of employees don't have sufficient emergency savings, 41% say COVID has negatively impacted their financial situations, and 42% are stressed about their current financial situation. So our company— our country is suffering from a financial health crisis, and Gusto is uniquely positioned to offer better banking experiences to your employees. So having better underwriting models and recovery methods means that we can eliminate the need for payday loans and their predatory fees. Leveraging the new employee onboarding flow and encouraging employees to save for a rainy day can make a real difference. And supporting employees with better bank accounts that remove the outrageous account fees, minimum fees, overdraft fees, and hidden fees can help them stretch their dollar further, which is why I'm excited to introduce Gusto Wallet. It's a simple app that helps you earn, save, spend, and borrow within your Gusto account. So employees can create up to 5 automated savings goals. They get a free spending account and debit card that has their back. They can access up to $500 between paydays to cover unexpected expenses instantly, as well as view their pay stubs and split their paycheck. It's a free app both for Apple and Android phones, and it's pretty cool. So I, I personally love it. I'm excited to actually tell you a little secret. This will also have time tracking on it in the next month. So this will be a great opportunity for your employees to really get the most out of this app.

Yep, and one huge point, like, in like a small anecdote as well, like, there have definitely been stuck in a pinch, and I remember having to take out a payday loan to take out $1,000. Even though I paid it off within a couple of weeks, I paid upwards of like $50 just to take out a $1,000 loan. Like, that's crazy interest. And if I hadn't paid it off within— I think I paid it off like within 15 days. I actually looked at the table that shows you when you pay it off, if you make the minimum payment, and how much interest you would pay. I would have paid— I'm not even joking— it was like 400%, 500% in interest, which is insane. And that's something that can easily be avoided when employees just use a benefit like, you know, because of cash out. And of course, with Gusto Wallet, they can just have better financial habits as well and have it all, you know, be handled within one place, one application, one debit card.

Hey, Chris, this is Micah. Your microphone is kind of garbled a little bit. Maybe just try turning it off and on there.

I'll take over while he's adjusting that. So through surveying employees, we know that many of them can benefit from a better banking experience. As well as support in improving their financial well-being. So not only that, Questo is uniquely positioned to help as we have a great opportunity to encourage smart financial choices at critical life moments like new employee onboarding or when receiving a raise. So for those reasons, we've built a best-in-class banking experience for employees. One of the most important parts of establishing financial footing is to save consistently over time. Our members now have access to simple savings tools right in Gusto, allowing them to save automatically from every paycheck. And not only that, accounts are fee-free and earn 8 times the national average on deposits. I will call out Gusto is not a bank. We do partner with a bank. So if for any reason your employee were to leave your agency, it's not like their funds would also disappear. They will be able to take that bank account with them to wherever they go to next.

Now, now we would definitely like to open up the floor, uh, just for any questions that anybody could have. This is the time to ask them. You can either write them into the chat, uh, or email them to me if they're more elaborate questions.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and— or do you want to read the question, Chris, and then I'll answer?

Yes. So it says, so one question is, what do you mean when you say time track?

Yes. So that was more so for your hourly employees. If you're utilizing our time tracking tool in Gusto, Gusto, that would be on Complete Concierge. A lot of people have asked for an app that their employees can clock in and out of from their phone rather than logging on to, say, like a Safari browser. Yeah, so this way it's going to be implemented into the Gusto Wallet app.

Um, now, who is the bank partner that Gusto is going to be utilizing?

Yes, so the banking partner is Bank of Kansas City. So brick-and-mortar bank that your employees and potential employees would be able to reach out to if they ever left you.

Now, in regards to QSEHRA, can the funds be applied to a spouse's health insurance?

Great question. That one I'm going to write down, and I'm going to get back to you. On that one because I'll have to ask the benefits advisor on that one.

Now, uh, there is a question, um, there's a question that, that I, I'm not sure that I fully, uh, get in. It's in regards to, um, the format that documents are uploaded. I believe that those are— that's why, like, discussing, um, discussing the custom documents that can be uploaded to Gusto. Can that be any format like Word or PDF Or does it have to be a very specific format?

Yep. So when any upload of a custom document into Gusto will need to be uploaded as a PDF. The reason for that is so then that way you can go over top of that PDF and enter in your smart text fields. Think like for an offer letter, for example, that would be your first and last name, compensation, maybe a manager is connected to it. And that way, when you go to send that offer letter out, that will just automatically populate by what's already in Gusto. Other smart text fields available are like checkboxes, text fields. Think of that like, you know, DocuSign type fields, but anything that you would see in Gusto already could be done just automatically. So that pushes over for you. So if you had like a Word document, I would just change it to a PDF and then upload it to Gusto.

Now, can you walk us through the process of an employee being reimbursed for their health premiums?

It's a great question. So from my understanding, if you have QSEHRA— and again, I can follow up on this one just so you have full understanding of how that goes— but my understanding is if you have the QSEHRA set up in Gusto, the employee's portal will have that opportunity where they can upload their receipt, and then that way we can review to make sure that is actually for health insurance, because that's what that tax piece is going to be really focused on. Because we wouldn't want them to just upload, you know, they went to Dunkin' Donuts and bought a box of donuts for the office and they want that reimbursement back for that. So it is a very like structured process from my understanding. And so again, I'm going to follow up on that one for you, but that's— I'm about 95% sure that's the process.

Yeah. Just to elaborate here, this is Micah. I mean, just to— for everyone to probably just think about what the process is here, it's very much like the way expense reimbursement works. This is just like a qualified health expense, and so it just needs to be verified, in essence, by Gusto that it's a health expense, and then it gets processed through payroll, right? So if people aren't using it already, there's also an expense reimbursement tool in Gusto where you can upload receipts. So if your employees went out and bought office supplies, they can upload that receipt to you for approval. You can look at it, approve the expense, reimburse it in the next payroll. Very similar here. This, um, the— with the QSEHRA plan, it would be like Gusto is actually reviewing to make sure it's a healthcare expense before having it be something that would be tax-exempt.

Thanks, Micah.

What about funding? Like, how do you go about actually funding the account for the health expenses as the employer?

Yeah, so that'll be done through the benefits advisor and being able to determine what that, uh, that QSEHRA amount would be per employee. Um, and then the funding would come through the company bank account and then paid back on that next paycheck when it's been approved. So it's really dependent on that initial conversation with you— that you have with a benefits advisor on how much you're going to actually contribute 'Cause of course we wouldn't want people just submitting a bunch and you never agreeing to a certain amount. So it'll all be dependent on what that amount looks like based on that conversation.

I was gonna say, when discussing this benefit in the past, I had an agent ask me if he could have, for example, a certain amount that he contributes to one employee and then a different amount to another employee. And the answer is no. The amount has to be the same for all employees. Now, in regards to the monthly satisfaction survey, can you just walk us through that to let us know what that looks like again and what plans it's available under?

Yes. So the Employee Insight Survey is on the Complete and Concierge plans. You can set those up to actually automatically send monthly. So then that way you don't even have to think about it. Your employees would get an email to their— whatever their employee email is connected to Gusto, and then they'll be able to review those, answer the questions, and then you'll get emails as those get answered. You'll also be able to see a graph that shows you kind of the satisfaction ratings. So then that way you can really see month over month how things are going. And as I mentioned earlier, there are already preset topics that you can send. So then that way you don't have to think like, what would I even send? What does that look like? I don't know. This way it just gives you that set. You could send one at a time. You could send two at a time each month. And then that way you can also see trends over time for the same types of topics.

Is there an additional charge to use Kusara?

That's another great question. I believe it's $15 per participating employee, but I could confirm that here shortly. Again, benefits aren't my strong suit, so I gotta look at my resources here.

Mary Jane, yeah, this is Micah here. I think I've seen that before, and to confirm with you there, it's $15 per employee per month, but it would just be for participating employees, right? Not possibly— not if for everyone like the rest of the employee platform. At 6 or 12 for everybody per month.

Yeah, thanks, Micah.

And to touch base on the employee surveys, I actually recently did a podcast episode with the author of a book that's coming out in May. It's called To Be Honest, and basically it talks about like the power of radical honesty and how it can help your business. And employers are often afraid to give feedback, and employees are often afraid to receive feedback, and vice versa. So these surveys are pretty much a safe space for, like, the— for the employer to actually get feedback on how the employees feel about you. This way you're never going to be blindsided with somebody just leaving you, um, because you actually know, like, hey, like, this aspect of your business is not It's not, you know, working out so well right now. Um, like, you're never going to get feedback like that if you don't ask for it. So there's no better way to ask for it than sending a harmless email every single month that can— that gives the employees the, like, the power to anonymously share feedback with you. Even if it's nasty feedback that you get sometimes, it's feedback that's very necessary because if you don't know where you stand, then you don't know what to fix, and then you just are gonna fly blindly thinking that everything is okay. When in reality things are not, and that's when things are going to, you know, hit you even harder. Like, to use a, uh, like a boxing analogy, like the punch that knocks you out is the one that you don't see coming. So definitely, you know, stay on top of just how the employees feel about you by using the monthly surveys.

Um, going back to Qsara, I know Micah, uh, did confirm this, but Last confirmation, it is $15 per participating employee per month. I will also—

I'll just go ahead and let everyone else know, don't forget to plan for, you know, that's the administrative fee for it. And then obviously, whatever the amount you're reimbursing per employee is going to be, you know, what you'll need to budget for. That's just the— the finance guy stepping in here.

That's a good call out.

You're pretty much paying that administrative fee right now in taxes because when you pay somebody, you know, like you pay payroll taxes on top of that as well. So in a way you're, you're like, you're already paying for that.

Separately, anything to do with benefits, anytime you're curious about learning more, there's no obligation to move forward with any benefits in Gusto. So if you were to go into your Gusto account and click on benefits on the left toolbar, you can search through what we have available. You can request to be contacted to learn more about whether it be QSEHRA, if it's, um, say for example 401(k) or maybe small group health insurance, you want to see if you can actually afford it. Um, there's no obligation to moving forward. There's no cost to getting, um, even just a quote. So it's just a good way to really understand all of the pieces. And then that way you will be connected with an actual benefits advisor who knows all of the ins and outs and all of your deep questions that I personally just can't answer. So any other questions?

I think that might be all for the questions. So thank you, everybody, for coming out, and thank you, Madeline, for being thorough about, uh, like the tools that are available within Gusto to help retain employees. If anybody has any questions, by all means, uh, just reach out to support@club.blackcapital. I'll be sure to address them ASAP. And without further ado, wish you all a great day. Thank you for coming out and take care.

Yeah, and Andy and Mary Jane, I will follow up on the two questions I did not know, um, and I'll have Chris follow up with those answers once I get them from the benefits advisor.

Yes.