Intro
Early last year I was on a call with an HR manager from a manufacturing company that makes trailers. About 120 employees, more during busy season.
She'd looked at other systems before and you could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
When she finally reached out to us, she was done with the comprehensive implementation approach. She'd seen how those projects drag on... endless workshops, process mapping, consultants asking how you currently do things just to tell you it's wrong.
She didn't want to "transform HR" or "modernize the employee experience" or any of that consultant-speak nonsense. She wanted to stop printing pay stubs. That's it. Not because it made her look strategic to the board. Because it was eating six hours of her life every two weeks.
We did it in thirty days, and we didn't charge her an implementation fee.
Her team got their time back immediately, and then she asked what was next to fix.
That's when I knew she'd actually make it to the end this time.
The Implementation Fee Scam
Here's what's actually happening when vendors charge $15,000 - $25,000 upfront in implementation fees: they get paid whether you succeed or not.
Think about that for a second.
If the project dies at month eight because your team can't keep up, or your implementation lead quits, or your CFO loses patience, they already have their money. The risk sits entirely on you.
And if it doesn't die? By year two or three, it might be working decently. Not great, but decent enough. And you've already invested so much time, so much budget, so much political capital that starting over with a different vendor becomes unthinkable.
You championed this project. Your name is on it. Admitting it failed puts your job at risk.
The three-year contract locks you in. The sunk cost keeps you there. And they know it.
It's actually a brilliant business model.
For them.
But what if you could just start? Pay monthly for what you're actually using. And stop if it's not working.
Most vendors don't want that arrangement because it completely shifts the power to you. And they can't have that.
What Actually Happened
We started with HR Core. Getting personnel records, compensation, and departments set up. No six-month planning phase. We just said... your employees need access to their information, let's make that happen.
First 30 days: HR foundation in place. Then we got payroll processing with pay stubs going straight to employee self-service instead of printed and distributed. Time was brought in manually to bridge the gap, not elegant but it worked.
She got hours back each pay period. No more printing, stuffing envelopes, and playing mailman. The 'where's my pay stub?' and 'can you email me my last three pay stubs?' interruptions basically disappeared. Employees just logged in and grabbed what they needed.
When she saw the results, she added Workforce. Two months in we brought scheduling and time tracking online, which meant time was now flowing automatically instead of manual entry. The payroll errors basically stopped. By month three, we automated leave requests.
Six months in, she'd automated five different processes and the whole system was humming.
She started with HR Core at $4 per employee monthly - around $500 a month for her team. Added Payroll, then Workforce at another $4 each. Total monthly cost stayed under $1,500 even at peak season.
Over six months she spent ballpark $7,500 total.
The comprehensive quotes she'd gotten from other vendors? Between $25,000 and $36,000 for the first year - on top of $15,000-$25,000 in implementation fees paid upfront before anything worked.
But here's what really mattered: her team never stopped doing HR.
No "implementation mode" where everything descends into chaos. No big-bang go-live where everything changes at once. No panicked debugging with real payroll hanging in the balance.
And if it hadn't worked? She'd spent $500 and 30 days. Not $15,000+ upfront and six months of her professional reputation. No explaining to her CFO why the project failed. No resume updating.
We fixed one thing, she saw it work, and then we moved to the next.
What Comprehensive Actually Looks Like
The first six months are discovery, process mapping, and data migration planning. Endless workshops where consultants ask how you currently do things, tell you that's wrong, then ask you to document it anyway.
The next six months are configuration and testing. Your team is doing their actual jobs while also trying to implement, and both suffer. Everyone's working late because the day job doesn't stop.
Between months 12 and 18, reality sets in. The timeline slips - timelines always slip. The budget's blown because of "unforeseen complexities." Everyone's exhausted.
That's when you start cutting scope just to hit go-live. "We'll add it in Phase 2," they promise.
Phase 2 rarely happens.
Month 18 is go-live day. Everything changes at once. Your team's overwhelmed, adoption is slow because nobody really knows how to use it yet, and you're debugging in production with real employees waiting for their paychecks.
Two years later you've spent somewhere between $65,000 and $95,000 for a 120-person team. Your team's burned out and the system works... mostly. Some things work, some things don't.
But you're definitely not $95,000 better off than you were before.
Teams That Actually Finished
County of Renfrew, 900 employees, started with recruiting and onboarding. Saw it work. Added safety tracking. Phased approach, nothing dramatic.
Silvera for Seniors, 400 employees across 36 buildings. HR manager Crystal Murray said they were "buried in spreadsheets and paperwork" before. Now HR tasks are simpler, less admin, more time supporting staff.
Island Luck in the Bahamas, 850 employees across 60+ locations. Started with payroll and timekeeping, then added scheduling, then recruiting and onboarding. Got value at each stage instead of waiting until some mythical "end."
None of them paid five-figure implementation fees upfront. None spent six months in planning purgatory. None tried to fix everything at the same time.
They just started. Fixed one thing. Moved to the next.
Where People Actually Start
Employee self-service: You're spending hours every pay period distributing documents. Research shows every "where's my pay stub?" interruption takes 23 minutes to refocus. Most systems already have employee portals built in - you're just turning on something that already exists.
Leave requests: When you handle leave through email, one vacation request can involve six people and take half a day. Automation puts everything in one place where managers get notified with full context. Balances clearly stated, schedules shown, easy 2-minute review.
Time to payroll: If time doesn't flow automatically from your clocks into payroll, you're spending about eight hours per pay period on manual entry and corrections. Clock data should flow straight to payroll, and exceptions should get flagged before you process.
Why Incremental Works
When there are no implementation fees, you're paying for actual value instead of someone's upfront profit.
The pricing is straightforward: HR Core costs $4 per employee per month with a $400 minimum. You can add Workforce, Talent, or Payroll at $4 per employee each. The full solution maxes out at $16 per employee monthly. See full pricing.
It's monthly billing so you can scale up when you're ready or scale down if things change... and you're not locked into a three-year contract that you'll resent two months in.
That first win creates momentum, and momentum creates confidence. Each process delivers measurable value before you invest in the next one.
Comprehensive implementations have exactly one advantage: they look impressive in presentations. Great slides, nice roadmap, executive sponsors love it because it makes them look strategic.
Incremental has every other advantage. It actually works. It actually finishes. And people actually use it.
Start Here
Pick the one process that's causing you the most pain right now - the one that gives you a headache every other week.
Let's chat for 15 minutes and we'll figure out which process is bleeding the most time. I'll show you what fixing it looks like in 30 days... with no implementation fees, no pressure to do everything at once, and no multi-year contracts.
One process. Fixed fast. Actually working.
About Workzoom
Workzoom's been building HR software for over 25 years, and the philosophy is pretty straightforward: no implementation fees because we don't believe in front-loading risk onto clients. No contracts because we'd rather earn business every single month through consistent value.
The goal is long-term relationships built on realized value, not ones forced by contracts or sunk costs.