Trinet is pretty good, some caveats
July 28, 2016
Trinet is pretty good, some caveats
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Time
- Trinet PEO/HR Passport
Overall Satisfaction with TriNet
Our organization uses Trinet as our PEO for benefits, HR, payroll throughout the company. We've also used Trinet's recruiting services to successfully hire an employee.
- We recently attended two, 3/4 day, Trinet seminars, HR 101 for managers and supervisors, covering: 1. Best Practices in Recruiting and Hiring 2. Coaching for Performance 3. Discipline and 4. Ending the Employment Relationship. Excellent seminars and a great value add by Trinet.
- Online I-9 Form is easy and seamless.
- Overall benefits administration is strong, including good selection different plans for health, dental, vision, AD&D, etc.
- Their HR platform isn't really HRIS. Good for payroll, benefits admin, and check the box compliance admin, but that's about it. Needs additional features such as CRM functionality to track job applicants, full on boarding, performance management, off-boarding, paperless HR documentation/records retention, etc.
- Worker's comp can be expensive with Trinet. Because we are in healthcare and under one tax payer ID (Trinet's #), our organization is charged the "prevailing rate" for a medical clinic, even though our billing, finance, HR, corporate, etc. should be separate and charged at the lower, clerical rate. Under any PEO model, we are stuck with the very WC high rate charged for doctors, nurses, etc. even though our corporate offices aren't exposed to the risk of needle-sticks, body fluids, etc. I moved one of my previous companies off of Trinet due to this issue as it was a material cost difference.
- Trinet benefits pricing is very competitive the first year. But WATCH OUT. That gets you in, especially when you compare against other PEOs. However, Trinet tracks utilization, and the next year, your benefits rates could increase significantly (don't ever expect benefits expenses to decrease) based on utilization. They won't tell you that up front. Trinet is a public company, thus needs to earn a return for shareholders, so the bottom line is important.
- Trinet used to have some very useful tools for HR, such as background checks for criminal history and/or credit checks and customizable salary surveys. Now background checks are outsourced and the process is clunky. There are compensation surveys, but you can only choose from a drop down of titles, a geographic region drop down, and industry drop down. Because of all the drop downs, it's not very customizable or relevant so I end up going to PayScale.com to run the comp studies I need.
- As with any PEO, you are under one tax payer ID/employer identification number (EIN), which will be the PEO's ID. That means it will be like getting out of tar if you ever are unhappy and want to use another service or go on your own, unless you decide to leave as of January 1. Any time after January 1, and the FICA, FUTA/SUTA limits that you had paid into using Trinet's EIN, will reset as now you are under your own EIN, i.e. you'll end up double paying employer taxes. Trinet's contract are on an annual basis and automatically renew for 1 year terms unless you provide them with 90 days notice. So negotiate such that your contract is on a month to month basis after the initial 1 year term, to give you the ability to cancel as of January 1 and providing notice by September 30.
- Very good service, although the level of service depends on who your client services advisor (day to day payroll and admin) and HR Consultant (HR policies, terminations, etc.) are - I've seen a decent amount of turnover and some are much better than others.
- Trinet does allow us to not have a larger HR department - but we still need HR given Trinet isn't a true, one stop shop.
Looked at ADP PEO back in 2013 but benefit quotes were much higher than Trinet - primarily because ADP acted more as a broker rather than a PEO, i.e we weren't pooled with the many other employees under ADP, rather we were given the "street" rate that any small business would receive from insurance plans. That said, Trinet gets you in with low pricing to start, but then treats you the same as if you were on your own rather than pooling you with it's 300,000+ employees. So if you are a small company and someone gets cancer, expect to get hit with a big increase in benefits costs the next plan year. That ends up putting us back in the same boat as being with ADP PEO. If I could do it all over again, I might do a combination of CollectiveHealth (so we are pooled) for benefits, and for HRIS use PeopleMatter, Namely, or Cezanne. Might also consider using Zenefits, which provides free HRIS platform, but we are still not pooled related to benefits, and as a small company, we'd get stuck with large increases if we had a catastrophic/expensive utilizer.