sales consultant

sales representative

software engineer

account manager

customer service representative

Ellis-CPA-Firm-PC-1

Unfortunately the company has lost focus on their most important asset, their employees. Poor decisions by disconnected upper management has resulted in employees who are dissatisfied, disengaged, overworked and underpaid. While the company claims to have this great culture and values, the truth is employees are not valued and their voices are not heard. The company needs to take a step back and stop focusing solely on what jobs they can outsource to save a buck and start focusing on doing what's right for their employees and clients, as the company isn't anything without them.
 When I first worked for the company, in ’20 - 21’ I was proud to say I was there. (Old) management was professional and attentive to employees well-being. Any issue, whether client or employee related, was handled promptly. Morale wasn't at its highest, but there was recognition for work well done. Since the work could be draining, but you didn't see walk-outs often which I feel part of this was do to the option of working from home.

Now, flash forward to '21-'22. It is staggering how quickly the company turned on its head. Trust between employees and (new) management has been damaged from surprise terminations with no reasons being given. My department is overwhelmed due to staffing shortages, clients are angry and goes days at a time with no responses from their specialist to them being out of office because of the toxic work environment.  On top of that the staff within my department have been asking for a plan of action to boost morale and a better workplace since the return to office For months, employees concerns and wellbeing have remained unaddressed. We are told to just do more OT to catch-up. 

We have payroll specialist that are given on reasonable expectations to handle client list of 1k plus with little to no assistance when needing support from management.

If a client had an issue I was unsure of how to solve, many times I had to practically beg someone to assist, supervisors and managers included on top of approvals taking weeks at a time to be approved and having to give the client false hopes on when they would be refunded for errors on Paychex’s end.

The main reason the company has also gone down hill is due to the lack of accountability, as in Paychex will randomly take a client off of it’s “Tax Pay” services and fails to notify the client expect by mail and half the time the client never receives the mail but we are suppose to say we mailed it when most of the time we didn’t. This then causes the client to owe back taxes and penalties to the respected agencies that they should have owed. As an employee it’s your job to blame the client and be little them into thinking this is their fault and not Paychex’s to avoid lawsuits. Paychex is also famous for not with holding client’s employees taxes correctly causing them to own ten’s of thousands of dollars when it’s time for them to file their taxes and not taking accountability on those issues either. 

Our Online Services Team is like a family.  

A typical day at work:  Helping the team learn, and grow.  Assisting my clients, and handling escalations for management.

What you learned:  I learned the importance of standing up, and speaking the truth even when it hurts.  I've learned to be more direct, but in a way that doesn't come off as offensive.  I've learned that if you support the team, and help them grow, the rest of everything takes care of itself.  This en-turn makes the client happy, but also makes Managements job easier.

I've learned that everyone that works for a company isn't just a number, but a person.  I've learned there are ways to, not only make money and keep the clientele happy, but also the staff.

Management:  I've submitted many innovative ideas to the company I presently work at, and they have implemented many of my ideas.  I believe that there needs to be delegation in the workplace, but also fairness.  I tend to be the go-to person for everything that falls apart, but my personal experience has shown me that everyone has something to offer, if you give them the chance to help improve the day to day, and coach them along the way.

Co-Workers:  My co-workers look to me to be the voice for them, and they seek coaching and guidance from me everyday.  We are like a family.  However, because I try to make sure they are doing their jobs correctly, teach them skills they don't have, and work with management it sometimes becomes overwhelming.  Trying to wear the hat of implementation, support, sales, and management can sometimes be overwhelming.  The reason I continue to fill these roles is because everyone deserves to be trained correctly, and deserves to be respected.

I am consistency told by my co-workers that they don't know what they would ever do if I left.  I want them to succeed at everything they place their hands to, but yet I am very overwhelmed at my current job trying to pick up the slack, and keep the team motivated and happy.

The Hardest Part Of the Job:  There isn't training available for everything our jobs require us to do.  This includes; no training guides, client order forms, and current staff not knowing how to complete a task/add-on modules.  I don't believe it's fare to expect your employees to do their jobs, and do them well/beyond excellence, if you don't provide them with the training materiel that is needed.  Because I took the initiative to learn about the product, I always have co-workers coming to me for help and guidance.  Most of the time I don't have the time to help my co-workers, and/or management, however, I always put others above myself, and still get my work done with excellence.    

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job:  Our team!  We are like a family within Implementation, and are so willing to help each other succeed. For me the most enjoyable part of the job is seeing my team members learn new things, and succeed.  I also love when I am able to connect with clients, and give them a fantastic customer service experience.  I treat them like a person and not a number.

I will say that in all of my years of working for major companies, Paychex.Inc had one of the most toxic, stressful work environments/cultures. It is rather unfortunate as the pay scale was actually very fair, as well as excellent benefits. I will also state that their sales goals were fair for the most part. They were attainable monthly sales forecasts, that with more seasoning and more direction from a competent manager would have been acquired. That I can not detract from this organization. There are some genuinely good people there as well. A few who tried to actually help when I needed it. However many, unfortunately are looking out for themselves. Some of who will blatantly lie and steal accounts in order to get sales. 

   The training there could really use an overhaul. I was given a “mentor” but after giving them a call and one text, I stopped, as it felt as if it was a burden on them to ask any questions for me, some of which they sounded unsure about answering to begin with. And I can understand why. There is no incentive whatsoever for them to try and help the mentee. The online classes just do not work and do justice to learning how to close sales in this particular industry. Too much emphasis on a two and half page script about nonsensical verbiage that the average business owner or CEOs would never care to ever sit and listen to. 

 However with that being stated, my manager NL was by far one of the absolute worst human beings I have ever had the misfortune of working with. He constantly trashed talked other reps and managers. He blatantly bullied a former co-worker into quitting (the amount of joy this “manager” took in harassing the Representative before he ended up quitting, was mind numbing to me). This job was stressful to begin with (most sales positions are) however NL often masqueraded as being direct, all the while coming off as being very disrespectful. Taking credit for having someone purposely fired isn’t necessarily the sign of someone that I would wish to lead me into anything, let alone a potential client. He was constantly condescending, and god forbid you asked him for advice. 18 years in the company and I felt at times, that he either blatantly lied or did not know what he was talking about. Above that and his constant contradictory behavior, NL would be very quick to throw a representative under the bus, without knowing all of the facts. 

 I wish the organization well. I have never had to write a negative review of any company I have ever worked for, however since Paychex. Inc has decided to continue to employee individuals such as NL, it is only fair to hold them accountable for promoting a culture that feeds on a toxic mentality along with shady sales tactics.

Years ago, the payroll department had truly talented people and a sense of collaboration. Sadly, years of misguided management focused on pushing sales and expanding the bottom line has corrupted what was once a strong foundation. The voices of those actually interacting with clients were ignored and fundamental issues were given band-aid fixes. Instead of addressing the true issues like lack of training for new hires, overloading performing specialists with too many challenging clients to handle, and unattainable metrics, middle management fell into the age-old trap of micromanaging all the way to the bottom. Struggling to service the needs of your clients? How about an archaic performance-tracking system to help us observe how much time you're spending on each email! Spending most of your day with that account of yours that was rushed out of implementation before it had any right to hit the actual payroll floor? Well, it seems like you aren't replying to your other emails fast enough. Tsk, tsk. Sure, everyone understands that struggle, but sadly this will be included in every quarterly and annual performance check despite the fact you were set up to fail.

This company truly could be something great; the software shows real potential in addressing client needs. Unfortunately, Paychex is focusing on short-term results to massively inflate their profit margin at the expense of fostering the most important resource a payroll company has: their employees. Limited options to use PTO, lower-than-average industry pay, and sluggish internal promotions/raises effectively makes employees feel disconnected from a management team constantly throwing new ideas at the wall to see what sticks. Managers and supervisors will tell you what you want to hear and act like they're considering the real issues at play and have your best interests at heart, but will always without fail ignore the shortcomings of the company and will go with the worst, most micromanaging solution to every issue (it's hard to blame middle-management here; this is a top-down toxic culture).

Steer clear of this company if you want a work environment that treats front-line workers with true respect and appreciation; steer clear if you want management to value work/life balance. Dive right in if you think a 2% annual raise is fair given the massive profits Paychex rakes in; apply now if you want a management team to focus only on your negative qualities instead of celebrating your successes.

You are primarily viewed as just a number. Working at MPSC can be quite challenging; clients are demanding, and the workload can feel like a revolving door. The company struggles to retain employees, and the job often falls short of the hype. You're typically underpaid and overworked. 

While there are promotions intended to motivate you, they often feel inadequate. The company frequently tries to entice employees with monetary incentives, perhaps as compensation for the unrealistically high expectations set each year. Your service level agreement (SLA) metrics are adjusted annually, making it more difficult to achieve your goals. If you fail to meet your sales targets or the number of referrals, it can jeopardize your entire year’s performance, resulting in no bonuses or raises. For example, if the requirement was 20 last year, it could rise to 24 this year and may continue to increase at the discretion of upper management.

Various incentive programs throughout the year aim to compensate for missed bonuses or pay increases, but the demands are still high. This role is extremely stressful and comes with a high turnover rate. You manage a portfolio of clients where expectations are elevated. 

Your responsibilities include overseeing everything for your clients from payroll to retirement plans, 401(k)s, general ledger management, time and attendance, time clock troubleshooting and more. You serve as the primary contact for these clients. For issues beyond your scope, you are expected to coordinate with the relevant departments to resolve them. Even if clients are unhappy with Paychex, it falls on you to address their concerns. Internal partners may also reach out to you about client issues, adding to your workload.

Your book of business can consist of anywhere from 110 to over 165 clients, with some clients managing multiple locations. For instance, one client may have 13 locations, each housing between 25 to 300 employees. 

One of the most challenging aspects of this job is that, regardless of your hard work or if you meet all your metrics, if you falter in any one area, you will not receive any raises or bonuses. In contrast, at ADP, if you fail to meet expectations across the board, they at least acknowledge your efforts with a small reward. Unfortunately, Paychex does not offer the same recognition.

I've also observed discrepancies in pay among account managers when they start. The pay can vary depending on the interviewers’ preferences, resulting in some new hires earning more than others. Interestingly, those who began with higher pay often no longer work here, while those with lower starting salaries have remained.

I had an optimistic attitude that this could be a good opportunity to make some decent money. Say, $65-$80K. Far from the truth. $38K base is non-negotiable unless you get lucky. You may have a gap of $50-$60K from your actual goal vs. attaining "Conference Goal". Your odds of hitting conference are few and far between. You WILL NOT make your quota if you don't have a juicy territory with multiple CPA firms referring you in on deals. I've put 40 thousand miles on my car in 15 months. The gas reimbursement doesn't come close for how much gas money I spend. Paychex has the advantage over ADP in the CPA world. But nothing is guaranteed. CPAs are logical thinkers and aren't here to ruffle "their clients" feathers. They won't refer unless the client is having issues with ADP or another company, and don't think you're going to show more value than the next payroll company. All the client cares about is price. Reduce their cost and you might have a shot at getting the deal. Why would someone increase their payroll cost by 10-20% if you present the same services they already have. Not going to happen! If anything, the client gets so tired of payroll reps calling them, they eventually decide to do it in house and control cost, period. Paychex does have an advantage to be able to integrate many services including H&B, but it's like finding a diamond in the ruff to find a client like this. The client will buy because they don't know any better. If you're a college grad, take the job, get some B2B experience and training. But be ready to be a whipping boy/girl to put up numbers for the company. That's what it's all about for any payroll company. "What have you done for me lately?" Mgmt will ride your backside everyday if you aren't reporting your activity, showing projections and when you're closing your next deal. They think deals should come in like hot cakes. Umm, not going to happen. Human beings, and especially business owners who are smart never make a decision lighting quick. They expect you to one call close deals and get them in asap. Finally, Paychex management is very methodical on how they can position themselves to look good. They'll cut the heads off of senior reps who have higher quotas and replace them with new recruits who have lower quotas. The odds of the new reps to hit these lower quotas are higher. Hence, allowing DMS' and Zone Managers to shine at 100% or higher. It's BIG corporate, you're expendable period! This is why many reps either get canned or won't last more than 1-3 years.

With an extensive HR background, and a graduate degree. I was offered an entry-level pay per hour position. Took the job based on reputation of the company and due to economic issues. They hire a lot of inexperienced young 1st time college grads w/o Corporate experience so they can pay them less wages, work them hard and mold them into thinking this is one of the greatest places to work. I must say I have worked for much better organizations. At Paychex the structure of the business and operations is not streamlined. They do promote from within however, their is favoritism involved. There is no HR presence in interviews or during the on boarding process. The culture, products, operations and management are behind the times (10-15 years). Professionalism is encouraged but looked down upon. Most of the management lacks knowledge & experience in developing and managing employees and operations. Most of the management staff were groomed at Paychex many are unaware of best practices and tends that occur outside of the organization. Products often have technical issues and truly only meet small start-up business needs. Training is inadequate to properly prepare new employees for job demands, requirements and to support the client needs. Many new hires come out of training feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and struggle in understanding the step to perform what becomes 2nd nature after a year on the job. They promote team support but everyone is so over worked and under paid they often won't, can't, or don't have the time to help. Job duties are not clearly defined. Cliques and management favoritism are of the norm. Jobs are classified incorrectly and therefore compensation is low. Corporate HR acts only as a consultant service separate from the rest of the organization on legal issues and not any of the pertinent HR issues (Employee Development, job classification analysis, compensation analysis, etc.). Paychex feeds the employee base that they care about their well-being and feedback, yet try to make up excuses on why changes have not been implemented. They have lots of programs to distract the employee from what really matters to realize a true work/life balance.

Culture is great at Paychex, values are often times utilized. The peers you work with are amazing and management itself is great. The downfalls start to happen with Executive Team. They forced leadership back into offices, despite having barely any employees in offices. All front line employees are granted WFH but Leadership is not. The Execs make decisions without knowing how it impacts front line, or clients. Messy and very non-strategic moves that you wouldn't expect from such sources. Lack of support as a Supervisor, this is a position which the company essentially does not give a care about and just piles things on their plate with no extra. Hiring people who work as front line at extreme rates (people who left the company and now we are asking them to come back at much higher rates. Seems unrealistic, would have likely been less costly to retain them in the first place) and not giving people in their current seat reasonable raises. Philosophy as stated in a recent round table was "anyone who doesn't agree with the demands can be replaced and that is what we will do". Shameful. They used to care about the company, but no longer do. People are leaving left and right. If they LISTENED to employees, they wouldn't be in the mess they are in. It's not even like these moves are benefiting clients, they just brush things off and mask it but ultimately they're creating chaos. The company succeeded working from home and employees were extremely vocal about wanting this option. The company caved and allowed non-leaders to do so but forcing leaders back. Shoots a bad message; we are NOT more collaborative in the office and we are NOT pleased with any of it. No option for hybrid which is ridiculous in 2022. Company preaches innovation without actually practicing it themselves. Execs only care about shareholders and what money they bring in. Huge change in dynamics from even a few years ago when employees were treated amazing. Employee burnout is extreme and unmanageable at the moment, and the company does not seem to care. 
Benefits are good, reasonable and affordable. The ultimate lack of caring about management will ultimately trickle down, leaders are putting in notices left and right and the 'top dogs' do not seem to care. 

•	Implementation, support and inventory control of applications/Training clients on the latest software upgrades

•	Develops and implements the most effective and cost efficient solutions per application

•	Evaluates system specifications for business requirements including,Mac pcs,Windows 10,8,7

•	Develops and prepares computer solutions that best fits the client’s needs

•	Visit and conduct onsite visitation including software installations upgrades and downgrades at clients locations

•	Supporting sales with representatives with presentations in pre-sales efforts that can be custom to the client’s needs 

•	Leadership efforts to teach others how to succeed in their current job position within the I.T department

•	Works consistently as the assistant Branch manager of the company helping to work with other departments

•	Also works as a retention representative to find the best solution to make sure Client have a great experience within the company

•	Cisco Unity Support Technician managing the connection of server, and phone system integration, settings, reports diagnostic tools.

•	Utilizes web-based collaboration tools to guide the client through the migration process and provides instructions for basic system access and utilization.

•	Maintains knowledge of product application configuration to effectively install and test each client’s unique technical environment.

•	Researches and resolves client issues in a timely manner to optimize client experience and satisfaction.

•	Coordinates the installation of hardware and software for products for existing complex clients to ensure successful migration to new products.

•	Provides client service and support in troubleshooting and resolving any customer software and hardware concerns.

•	Proactively ensures ongoing client satisfaction and the highest client retention levels by participating in proactive client calls and other retention-oriented programs.

•	Manages client service and support on multiple complex accounts while delivering exceptional customer service during implementation.

Have you ever had a birthday or a holiday that you received a beautifully wrapped present and you assumed the content would be the same? And once you opened this package you were met with maybe a toilet plunger or an ugly sweater three X’s too small/large? Perhaps it’s dollar store perfume or an obsolete VHS tape… this is that company. 

Now it wasn’t always this way. At one time many of us employees wore our #paychexproud T-Shirts in office and even in public. However, the last three years have had a significant decline in taking care of employees. I understand that COVID happened and when it happened, thousands of  us employees reassured our clients that they were in good hands and worked diligently after hours to assist. That year and several years after Paychex made a profit hand over fist and gave employees a .25 raise each year. And they were proud about it. 

Management is often times hired off the street and while I understand it may be well intended, often times they have NO idea how to solve client escalations. New hires and employees are left to solve complex issues on their own.  Team members were left to assist with new hires. I personally on any given day had 6-10 people requesting assistance. (I was glad to help) 

Workload is often doubled, many employees have twice the amount of clients they are originally told they will have. Employees are reprimanded if they don’t clear out daily email queue. I often left my day with 80-100 daily interactions with clients. Customers are given random phone/email survey’s and employees are unable to challenge or dispute, this counts against you. Even though all calls are recorded and there is a record of all emails sent. 

Retention is a huge problem, this company has a HUGE revolving door. Paychex spends thousands on training new employees only to have them leave shortly thereafter. I once watched 8 people walk out in a local office during year end in one week. 

Many of the computer applications that Paychex promotes to clients (and we used as employees) have bugs, don’t work correctly, calculate important data wrong. The payroll system is basically excel with fancy buttons. These platforms need an overhaul. 




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