When I was hired, I was sold a dream that became a false reality. I was told that the best part about working at paychex was the exceptional culture and amazing work like balance. Couldn’t be further from the truth. For one, you feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off from all the different areas of focus they want you to implement. My main role was to sell payroll, which is complex being new, then they hammer you to be knowledgeable in other areas with HR and retirement and merchant service that you feel like you can’t ever become a subject expert in the one thing I was hired to sell which was payroll. Second, You are really just a number at this company. There is constant pressure to run faster and harder. They say selling season is the craziest month, but honestly they hammer you every month. You feel bad for taking anytime off because if you do, your meeting and eup numbers are down that week (naturally because you took time off) but then they expect you to come back and make up all your numbers you missed that week for for the month. It’s just all micromanaged down to the nth degree. You write multiple goals and commitment plans that are just iterations of the same thing that are a complete time waster. Third, don’t fall for the unlimited PTO BS. They make you feel bad for taking anytime off. It’s natural to not have as many meetings because you took time off! Don’t make employees feel like they can’t ever take time off when you sell them on unlimited PTO!! Fourth, the commission structure is so complicated that it’s hard to really determine how much you’re going to make on a sale. They change the structure too frequently too. When I was there they changed it to where if you didn’t hit 75% of units then you don’t get paid on any of those units you sold. That’s robbery in my opinion. You mean to tell me that if I bring in revenue for the company, I don’t get credit for it if it’s not a certain amount. Come one. Robbery. The mentorship program is useless. All my mentor did was show me how to submit a deal from the paperwork side. Which is overly complicated btw. Ultimately, I struggled to hit quota. My whole team struggle to hit quota regularly and then being new and having an underperforming territory that had 1.5 banks, because one was a solution branch, and CPA’s that hadn’t seen a paychex rep in 10yrs and took time to build trust, I struggle to hit quota. I still sold each month but not at 100%. Because of this my manager told me once I was off mentorship and there about 9 months if I wasn’t at 100% quota she had to let me go. After multiple conversations she told me it was black and white. I reached all my activity metrics for EUP’s and meetings, but not quite at 100%. She even wrote me up for it and put me on an improvement plan with threatening termination! How does threatening to fire someone help them improve! The worst part about it was my manager was newer in her role and had never been a rep in my position before nor had any sales experience!! So how could I feel like I’m taking advice from someone that’s been in my shoes to improve!! Talk about the blind leading the blind! Ultimately I felt backed into a corner and felt like I was going to be fired because my pipline wasn’t there and I was going to be fired so I left. This company is a complete hypocrite to what they teach you about business. How a business employees are their greatest asset and it’s cheaper to retain an employee than hire a new one. Yeah right. I was told that I was just a number and if I wasn’t at quota then I had to be let go. Dispite giving my best and trying. I mean I wasn’t even there a whole year yet!!! I was still in the learning phase!
