As their staff grew, so did the demands on the founders’ time as they juggled new employee on-boarding, payroll, and employment compliance. The team knew they wanted to offer benefits as well, but understood that researching providers, negotiating prices, and administrating benefit enrollments would time-intensive. The founders’ first priority was to provide a company healthcare plan for their employees. The team wanted the ability to meet employee needs and create a culture that matched their values while still having enough time to focus on product development and sales.

After some research, they learned about offering benefits through a PEO (professional employer organization). Because PEOs are able to bundle their clients’ employees under their name, they have significant group buying power which allows them to offer more competitive health insurance rates to small businesses. In addition to getting access to group healthcare, Scholastica also wanted an HR partner that was familiar with the needs of startups and growing businesses. Today, CognosHR supports Scholastica by handling the following: health insurance, payroll, transit benefits, onboarding and offboarding, development of internal policies and compliance with state laws and policies.