When Lily Nguyen first started at Sage Intacct two years ago, her role as an HR assistant was limited to completing immigration paperwork and implementing learning and development programs. However, when a new role in benefits administration opened up, Lily accepted, hoping to expand her skillset and move forward in her career. There was only one problem.

“I knew nothing about benefits back then. Maybe I could tell you what a PPO is or what ‘deductible’ means, but that was pretty much it,” Lily explained.

Though she was apprehensive, Lily was determined to be successful and leveraged all the resources available to her, including Sequoia, who Sage Intacct had partnered with for over 12 years on employee benefits.

“In the beginning, I talked to our Sequoia team probably every day, just because I had questions about everything benefit-related.”

Employees would reach out to Lily asking about premiums, spending accounts, or benefit elections, and at times, she said, she started to feel overwhelmed. “Thankfully, any question that came my way, any benefits I didn’t know about, Sequoia was always there and quick to respond. It’s an HR person’s dream.”

Meeting leadership expectations

One of the first big projects Lily worked on was a benefits analysis for Sage Intacct’s parent company, Sage Software.

“The leadership team really wanted to understand what the market competition was in the Bay Area, given that they are headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. They wanted to know how our offering compared to other Bay Area companies, looking specifically at compensation and equity, benefits, and the total rewards package.”

Lily knew that the leadership team was most interested in numbers. What were employees enrolling in most often, what was the gender split, and most importantly, how did Sage quantitatively compare to the market?

“For example, maybe our compensation was at the 50th percentile, but we were leading the market with our benefits offering. I needed to get the numbers that supported every claim we made,” Lily said.

“Without Sequoia and HRX, I have no idea how I would have pulled everything I needed to provide a complete report to the leadership team. Not only does HRX have the internal information of who is enrolled and where, and insights to our demographics, but we also get to see the broader market data whenever we need it. It’s so much faster and more accurate than anything I could get on my own.”

I really don’t think I would have been as successful in my role or able to help our employees as effectively without my partnership with Sequoia.

Continuing a close partnership

Now an HR Generalist, Lily is feeling much more confident as she moves through daily tasks and projects. Still, she works closely with Sequoia to make sure the operations are running smoothly to support Sage Intacct’s 1,000+ employees, especially now that the company is primarily remote.

“I really don’t think I would have been as successful in my role or able to help our employees as effectively without my partnership with Sequoia. Anything we need to help us make our decisions faster and help us run more efficiently as an organization, they’re always there.”

*At the time of this interview, Lily Nguyen was Sage Intacct’s Human Resources Generalist. In March 2021, Lily left Sage Intacct and is now Human Resources Generalist at Aeva, Inc.