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As HR teams struggle to recruit top tech talent, Colorado startup Bundl has devised a way for companies to offer more desirable employee benefits without spending more money.
The HR platform allows employees to reallocate their employer’s perks without increasing the company’s budget. If an employee drives to work, for example, they wouldn’t need a bus pass. If they already have a gym membership, they don’t need another one. With Bundl, those benefits can be redistributed toward an employee’s salary or work-from-home stipend.
Bundl co-founder Brad Brochocki came up with the idea during a performance review when he was offered equity and a commuter pass. He tried to counter-offer by asking for a raise that was worth less than the equity offering, but he was denied.
“We’re now living in this world of customization and personalization, but that doesn’t really exist on the total rewards level,” Brochocki said.
With Bundl, companies start by typing in the name of their perk, a description and its value — however the company chooses to quantify it, whether that is dollars, percentages, shares or days off. On the back end, Bundl calculates the monetary value of each specific perk or benefit.
With all of its benefits and perks monetized, prospective and existing employees have a more comprehensive view of their total compensation package and can adjust their perks to match their lifestyle needs.
Not all benefits can be modified, though. Companies cannot legally contribute different percentages to employees under a 401K safe harbor program, for example. On Bundl, companies can still display the value of their 401k contribution, but it would not allow the employee to adjust that figure.
Companies already know the value of an employee’s total compensation for accounting purposes, Brochocki said. But employees don’t often realize how much their employer is contributing toward their benefits, which is often 20 to 50 percent above an employee’s base salary, according to Brochocki.
The platform also allows HR teams to distinguish which types of benefits are available to different types of employees. If a company only offers equity to managers, for example, that benefit will only show up for employees in a management position.
“We basically built the platform to be as customized as possible, like an open sandbox where employers can build it and customize it how they want for their end user,” Brochocki said.
Bundl also provides companies with a dashboard view of which employees favor which types of benefits. HR teams can toggle between roles and departments to learn that sales representatives, for example, might prioritize salary and PTO, while engineers may favor more equity and a work-from-home stipend.
Bundl eventually hopes to offer insights broken down by industry and geography, allowing HR teams to see which perks are valued by the employees they are recruiting.
Brochocki, who has a background in product marketing, co-founded the company with Justin Hundley, who previously launched Sendtric, an email countdown timer used by marketers.
The Bundl platform launched at the beginning of August after a beta period. All six of the customers from the beta trial have decided to continue on as paying customers, Brochocki said.
Brochocki said he believes Bundl is the first in the market to offer a platform that allows individual employees to adjust and personalize their benefits package, so he believes companies will see it as a competitive edge in a tight talent market.
“The ability to customize your rewards should not be an exception,” Brochocki said. “Whether you’re applying for a job, staying for a job or being promoted to another job, your ability to pick and choose what you need at that certain time of your life [is important].”
