With cafes throughout major cities in the US and UK, Blank Street Coffee has a 430-person workforce spanning part-time baristas, full-time chef leads, and corporate team members. No matter who they are or where they work, the company wants to take care of every employee with quality perks—all while controlling costs and keeping its back-office lean. 

“Given how small our HR team is, we don’t have an in-house benefits department under me,” said Gina Kim, Blank Street’s Global Senior Director of People. “We really needed to vet out a vendor that would take on this world of benefits as a true partner.”

Blank Street already used a software platform it loved for most of its HR and payroll needs: Rippling. ”It lives as a permanent tab on my screen,” Gina said, who’s in the HCM everyday to manage everything from payroll and documentation within employee profiles to pulling retention and compensation reports.

Then the coffee company approached Sequoia for help managing benefits. “They understood what we needed immediately,” Gina said, “it was a no-brainer to become a customer.” Now, Sequoia helps Blank Street find the best available benefits plans and support admins and employees alike during open enrollment. 

The best part? Rippling and Sequoia work in perfect harmony with each other, taking hours of cumbersome admin work off Blank Street’s plate.

If you’re an HR professional at our size of company growth and don’t have an in-house benefits team, the Rippling and Sequoia integration makes everything so easy… You make the decisions and leave it to the experts to figure all the details out.

Gina Kim

Global Senior Director of People at Blank Street Coffee

Gina works with Sequoia to choose benefits plans. From there, the details from the chosen package automatically sync into Rippling, which employees use to choose their individual plans during open enrollment. 

“I don’t have to go into the Rippling portal to update the benefits for open enrollment and double-check that all of those deductions and contributions are happening in payroll,” Gina said. “Someone on the Sequoia and Rippling side is doing that for me. They handle the administrative duties of not only inputting those pieces onto the platform, but also ensuring everything’s accurate and up-to-date.”

Rippling and Sequoia don’t just free Blank Street from hours of tedious manual work. The partnership also gives the company access to expert guidance whenever needed. She also leans on Sequoia’s support team for in-depth market research and transparent advice for updating plans.

Rippling and Sequoia give Blank Street’s employees access to top-notch benefits, all while helping them enroll in plans with minimal confusion or hiccups. Gina loves Rippling’s benefits preview link, which lets new hires look at contribution amounts and learn the ins and outs of their plan. “That’s a piece of the software that’s really unique,” she said, adding that employees typically don’t need to reach out with questions about benefits information. “The UX on Rippling is so good that they can find things themselves really quickly.” 

The easy process for employees instills trust in Blank Street’s HR team. “Employees feel comfortable that HR has its stuff together,” Gina said. “It gives them confidence in our brand and our company.”

And since Rippling handles so many of Blank Street’s administrative tasks, Gina can focus on the more strategic initiatives that drive the company forward.

“With Rippling, you spend less time on the screen and more time with your people.”

• Time saved: Rippling and Sequoia’s integration saves Blank Street 40 hours (a whole week!) of work every open enrollment period.
• Better benefits: Blank Street can offer quality, affordable benefits to its employees, who have an easy time enrolling in plans. 
• Staying lean: Since the company doesn’t need to hire an in-house benefits expert, it can direct resources away from paperwork and toward serving the best cups of coffee.