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ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

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Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#41

Post by CountSessine »

tdees40 wrote: post #4

The descent into lawsuits is pretty sad. When customers hate your product (i.e. the ADP front-end) so much that an entire company forms around making something less terrible, you really have to look at yourself in the mirror. I continue to be amazed by the horribleness of benefits web front-ends. I recently did a simple task in our Hewitt system, and it required five pop-up windows. It's just so, so terrible.

I continue to be amazed by the horribleness of benefits web front-ends. I recently did a simple task in our Hewitt system, and it required five pop-up windows. It's just so, so terrible.

ADP EZ-Labour - not so EZ, but plenty of labour. There are 20 work days in a month. There are 20 rows in the timesheet form. Every one of them has 8 drop-down boxes, and every one of them needs to be filled with your work status, project code, etc, individually. No group actions. Seriously.

What's so frustrating about benefits front-ends is just how much low-hanging fruit is sitting there uncollected. I'm not asking that ADP implement some awesome canvas-based rendering with AJAX storage and async field update - I just want a lousy 'apply all' button and maybe working tab order between the form controls. Jeebus.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#43

Post by wcummings »

rubiquity wrote: post #26
bttf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some of the other missteps Zenefits has made in the past (for the uninformed)?

I remember the Zenefits founder rescinded a job offer to someone that asked on Quora whether they should accept the offer from Zenefits or some other company.

I guess that answered his question, huh?

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#44

Post by josefresco »

rubiquity wrote: post #26
bttf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some of the other missteps Zenefits has made in the past (for the uninformed)?

I remember the Zenefits founder rescinded a job offer to someone that asked on Quora whether they should accept the offer from Zenefits or some other company.

To be fair, the applicant "slammed" Zenefits by saying that having their name on his resume would be less valuable than others when applying FOR A NEW JOB (my emphasis).

If an employee applied to work for my business and one of their "concerns" was how our company would appear on their resume (in contrast to another), I would similarly discard their application.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#45

Post by [deleted] »

olafskyansian wrote: post #19

I have a lot of respect for what Zenefits has done to date in shaking up the insurance space, but you have to REALLY question what the heck is going on with Parker's leadership there. What is going on that the founder/CEO has enough time to chastise an engineer candidate on Quora and put out factually inaccurate posts on topics like healthcare reform (he had something out on LinkedIn a few weeks back) but doesn't hav…

[deleted]

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#46

Post by DannyBee »

peteretep wrote: post #39
DannyBee wrote: post #13

Reading the complaint, ADP is not likely come close to winning. The defamation they claimed happened is that Zenefits "alleged that ADP intentionally sought to cause harm to ADP’s clients solely to gain an unfair competitive advantage against Zenefits.” Even if you argue this is defamation per se (and not per quod), about a matter of private concern, they'd still have to prove "4. That [name of defendant] failed to u…

> ADP is not likely come close to winning Are they trying to win the case, or a longer game involving customer confidence?

Probably the latter, but this is a dumb way to do it :)

As a customer, my takeaway would be "If ADP doesn't like what i tell people about it, it's going to actually sue me".

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#48

Post by sjm-lbm »

jusben1369 wrote: post #2

I feel like Zenefits is becoming a case study in everything you don't do when you enter an industry. We'll be switching away because I'm worried who else they won't play nice with in the future. Uber and AirBNB have scared the heck out of huge incumbent industries and cities/governments and had scraps to be sure. But they don't have the consistent missteps as Zenefits. They know when to fight and when to take a lump…

I'm honestly wondering if half the point of this lawsuit is just to keep Zenefits' professionalism and Parker Conrad's mouth in the news as much as possible.

ADP might lose this lawsuit (I have no idea), but Zenefits is already looking much less impressive.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#49

Post by dworin »

josefresco wrote: post #44
rubiquity wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the Zenefits founder rescinded a job offer to someone that asked on Quora whether they should accept the offer from Zenefits or some other company.

To be fair, the applicant "slammed" Zenefits by saying that having their name on his resume would be less valuable than others when applying FOR A NEW JOB (my emphasis). If an employee applied to work for my business and one of their "concerns" was how our company would appear on their resume (in contrast to another), I would similarly discard their application.

I disagree. I'm not promising someone a job for life and they're not promising to work for me forever. Part of the value I offer them as an employee is what I can do for their career going forward. Sometimes that's a prestigious name, other times it's by giving them better opportunities to grow. It's one thing to say "I want people who want to work here," it's another to discount people who might want one day want to work someplace else.

Re: ADP Sues Zenefits for Defamation

#50

Post by CPLX »

DannyBee wrote: post #16
ceejayoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADP's legal department is likely larger than Zenefits itself, and well funded. They can probably drag it out for quite a while.

Maybe? This is an oft-repeated claim, but my experience tells me differently. Contrary to popular tv shows, there is only so much that can happen. Lawsuits drag on whether someone is trying or not :) Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2. State court is kind of a crapshoot, for sure. But you are super-unlik…

> Barring some outliers, the difference between lawsuits that are dragged out and ones that aren't is not a factor of 10, it's probably a factor of 1.2.

That's crazy talk. You can double the length of a lawsuit in one simple stroke just by having your attorney say "Sorry that week is bad for me can we do [date]" every time there's a continuance or adjournment. You can set return dates for any motions you initiate to the last date permitted, you can meet every filing deadline in the last hour, etc.

The legal system has many built-in safeguards and protections for all parties but guaranteeing timeliness just isn't one of them.

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