附近上门

Employees of several small businesses were paid late Friday after payroll and benefits platform closed for the Juneteenth holiday and experienced a glitch, two people affected told 附近上门 News.

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Zenefits provides tools for businesses to handle HR, onboarding, benefits and payroll. It鈥檚 used by many small and medium-sized businesses. The San Francisco-based company has raised at least $584 million in known venture funding, per 附近上门 data, and was most recently valued at $4.5 billion by private investors when it raised funding in 2015.

On Friday, several people took to the comments section of a post Zenefits made in honor of Juneteenth, which this week became a federal holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S., to complain that their employees hadn鈥檛 been paid, despite their respective companies processing payroll.聽

The post was soon deleted.

John Bazyk, CEO of Connecticut-based security system company Command Corp., told 附近上门 News that he realized Friday morning that his company鈥檚 employees hadn鈥檛 been paid after one of them contacted him.聽

Command usually sees a tax withdrawal and employees鈥� net pay come out of its bank account on Wednesday, but this week only the tax withdrawal was taken on Wednesday, Bazyk said.聽

The payroll amount was taken out this morning, but had yet to be disbursed to employees as of 4 p.m. Eastern, he said.

Bazyk said he spent four hours Friday trying to deal with the issue, and hadn鈥檛 received any communication from Zenefits such as an email alerting him of the issue.聽

Some employees have bills that automatically debit from their bank accounts, he said, and not being paid could put them in a bind.

鈥淭he employees are upset at me, they think I didn鈥檛 run payroll,鈥� Bazyk said. 鈥淪ome of these are new employees. They鈥檙e joining a new company and it鈥檚 like, 鈥榃ait I鈥檓 not getting paid?鈥� 鈥�

Usually preceding a holiday, Zenefits will remind customers to run payroll early, Bazyk said, but that wasn鈥檛 the case this week. He noted that he understands it鈥檚 a unique situation 鈥斅爓ith President Biden on Thursday signing legislation that made Friday a new federal holiday in celebration of Juneteenth 鈥斅燽ut the situation and lack of communication from Zenefits were frustrating.聽

鈥淓ven if they make it right, we鈥檙e probably going to leave them because it鈥檚 an unacceptable mistake,鈥� Bazyk said.

It鈥檚 not clear how many of Zenefits鈥� customers or their employees were impacted by the error.

Nancy, a controller and HR administrator at a company in the Washington, D.C., area, said she was notified by two employees Friday that they hadn鈥檛 been paid. Around 2:15 p.m. Eastern, she saw a notification in the Zenefits portal acknowledging the issue. Nancy did not want to share her full name because she was not authorized to speak on behalf of her employer.

鈥淏usinesses can make mistakes,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hatever caused the debit to not go out is not good. But then to not be there to answer what happened … that鈥檚 bad.鈥�

A Zenefits spokeswoman said in an email to 附近上门 News that the issue causing the payroll delay was resolved, and that employees would receive payment by 5 p.m. Pacific time.

鈥淭oday, Zenefits experienced an issue that resulted in a delay for some employees鈥� direct deposits,鈥� the statement read. 鈥淭his has been resolved and we can confirm that employees who did not receive their direct deposit this morning will receive it today by 5 PM PT. All employees will be paid and the funds have already been processed. We are currently waiting on the banks to send them out this afternoon.鈥�

Another Zenefits spokeswoman said in an email at 2:40 p.m. Pacific time that the issue was resolved and affected employees had been paid.

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated after it was first published to reflect that payment for affected employees had gone through late Friday afternoon, after 附近上门 News first spoke with sources.