When it was founded in 2010, Swipely, a late-stage start-up in Providence, Rhode Island, whose payment processing system helps smaller retailers and local businesses better understand their customers by analyzing their credit- and debit-card usage, had no dedicated human resources staff. HR work was divided among several employees with previous peripheral HR experience. As the company quickly grew, doubling the number of employees in just a year, it knew it needed someone with expertise to help it manage the HR issues that accompany rapid growth.
We initially planned to outsource only some of the HR functions, explains Carol Gordon, controller at Swipely. The company started with those activities that were directly related to compliance, such as audits of I9 documentation and its employee handbook.
