Payroll

In the old times, people were hired just because they were needed, but with the industrial revolution, the process of hiring people became a skillful trade. With time and advancements in technology, the field of human resources became a separate entity and an equally important part of a company like the others. Today, the field itself has a different set of rules, programs, software, and in fact, companies. Paychex is one of the leading human resource, payroll, and benefits outsourcing companies that is providing its services for small to medium-sized businesses around the world. It is a fifty years old corporation and has clients in almost every country in the world.

About the Company

Paychex is an American company with its headquarters based in Rochester, New York. B. Thomas Golisano founded Paychex in 1971, and for the past 50 years, the company has established over 100 offices in different sites across the globe. The company has a client base as big as 670,000 in the U.S. and Europe only, and as of 2018, about 14,300 are working for the company. The company deals in Payroll, HR, Benefits, and Insurance services, whereas, the United States, Germany, Brazil, Denmark, Norway, Sweden are the major countries of service for Paychex. As per the 2018 records, the company held assets worth US$ 7.46 billion and made revenues worth US$ 3.38 billion.

Founding of Paychex

B. Thomas Golisano founded Paychex in 1971 in Rochester, New York. Before founding the company, he worked at Electronic Accounting Systems (EAS) as a sales manager. EAS was a human resource company that offered its expensive services to well-established companies in the area. This ignited the idea in Golisano’s mind of having similar services for small to medium size businesses at affordable prices. After researching for quite a while, he realized that his idea had a lot of potentials, so he decided to start a payroll service for small businesses that was also affordable for them.
Before starting his company, Golisano reached out to the head of EAS with the idea to market a similar service for the small business. But the company was not interested in targeting the small businesses, despite it helped Golisano to rent a space, and he started Paychex as PayMaster with a $3000 capital in 1971.
Since PayMaster was going to target small businesses, the fees were quite minimal and based on the number of employees in the company. Also, there were no unnecessary formalities of form filling and submitting to the company. In fact, the clients just had to contact PayMaster through a phone call, and the rest was in the hands of Paychex. Within a year, Paychex had got 42 clients, and in the next five years, the number raised to 300 clients in the Rochester area.
The expansion of the company started with opening a branch in Syracuse in partnership between Golisano and his friend and selling a franchise to another friend to work in Miami. By 1979, the company had reached 22 cities and employing 200 people to serve 5,700 clients. In 1983, the company went public on NASDAQ, setting a record of steady growth.
By 1986, Paychex had raised to 60,000 clients and 58 offices. By the end of the 80s, the company profits were doubled. During the same time, Paychex also made some acquisitions like Minneapolis-based Purchase Payroll. The company also spent money on staff training and made sure that the clients were served professional assistance. At the beginning of the 90s, Paychex added services like Paylink, Reportlink, Taxpay service, and Human Resource Services, etc.
In 1996, Paychex acquired Californian company Olsen Computer Systems Inc. and Florida’s National Business Solutions. In 2002, the company was listed in the Fortune’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” in the United States. The company’s revenues also exceeded $9 billion in 2017. The next year, Paychex won the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere for the 11th time in a row, and Forbes listed it 76th on its list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies.

The Founder/CEO

Blase Thomas Golisano founded Paychex in 1971. He is an American entrepreneur and author. He was born on 14 November 1941 in Rochester, New York, the U.S. He went to Alfred State College and has a degree in Business Administration. Before founding Paychex, he worked at EAS as a sales manager. He served the company as the president and the CEO from 1971 to October 2004. Currently, he is the chairman of the board of the company. According to Forbes 400 list, he is the 238th wealthiest person in America.