How Juniper Square saves 30 hours a month on employee leave administration

Juniper Square is a fund administrator whose integrated investment management platform supports private equity, venture capital, and commercial real estate firms of all sizes. Founded in 2014, Juniper Square’s vision is to expand opportunities for investment and participation in private markets worldwide.

Their purpose-built solutions streamline every aspect of the private investment lifecycle—from fundraising and onboarding to investor management and fund administration—making it easy for GPs and LPs to communicate and collaborate at every stage of their partnership.

Juniper Square is trusted by leading firms across the private markets. Their solution supports more than 2,000 GPs, 600,000 investor accounts, and 38,000 investment entities.

Behind these impressive numbers are Juniper Square’s 550+ globally distributed employees—the technologists, private market enthusiasts, and critical thinkers making everything possible.

Giving employees white glove support

Juniper Square knows their employees—nicknamed “Junies”—are their greatest asset. That’s why they’ve worked hard to create a workplace culture where everyone can thrive and take pride in contributing their best work.

Creating that culture starts with giving employees autonomy over how and where they work. Whether they prefer to be 100% remote or hybrid, working from one of their offices in San Francisco or Bengaluru, Juniper Square provides Junies with a range of thoughtful benefits to support their diverse needs.

Beyond comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for Junies and their families, Juniper Square also offers flexible vacation, professional development stipends, home office and productivity stipends, and retirement plans.

“We like to offer as much variety in benefit programming as we can,” said Courtney Moreau, People Operations Manager at Juniper Square.

Plus, Juniper Square provides generous paid parental and family leave, along with resources to support new parents.

“We also offer family-forming services through Carrot and mental health support through Headspace Care,” Moreau added.

“Not only do we want to give employees the care they need,” said Moreau, “we also want to provide white glove assistance wherever we can—and Sparrow helps with that.”

Streamlining Leave Management: Tackling Complexity with Sparrow

Before teaming up with Sparrow, Juniper Square managed the leave process in-house. “We did everything: calculating payroll, ensuring compliance from state to state, meeting with employees to explain their options, following up with written communications, formalizing their leave plan, letting them know whether or not they were covered by FMLA or other state protections, and making ourselves available for questions as employees moved through the application process,” Moreau explained.

One of the team’s biggest pain points was payroll calculations. “We had a very complex spreadsheet, and we’d spend two hours every other week just trying to figure everything out,” said Danielle Polachini, Senior People Operations Manager at Juniper Square.

Despite Moreau providing one-on-one support to Junies taking leave, many still found the application process tedious and confusing. There were a lot of steps to coordinate, and Moreau and her team couldn’t apply for benefits on their employees’ behalf. “We worked hand in hand with folks, but managing paid family leave and disability claims was still a major source of frustration for our employees,” she said.

“That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to engage Sparrow—to be able to directly assist our employees with the most complicated parts of the leave process.”

The solution: Using a high-touch leave vendor

When Juniper Square was evaluating leave vendors, they were looking for two things: additional administrative support and excellent employee care.

Sparrow takes care of Junies with the same personalized attention that Juniper Square’s benefits team does. Sparrow meets one-on-one with employees taking leave to break down the leave process, explain which state and company benefits employees are eligible for, and answer questions.

Sparrow Leave Specialists then fill out paperwork and file for benefits for Juniper Square employees. That hands-on support means Junies don’t have to navigate complex application processes themselves or call state agency representatives for answers and updates on their claims.

“We see positive reviews from our employees about the leave process,” said Moreau, “especially from folks who have taken multiple leaves with Juniper Square, folks who’ve had to do all of the claims themselves with their first leave versus getting Sparrow’s help for their second or third leave.”

On the administrative side, Sparrow has significantly reduced the benefits team’s workload. “Sparrow has been a very valuable time save for us,” Moreau said.

“Before, I would typically have anywhere from one to four meetings with each person taking a leave, answering any questions that they had and walking them through the process. Then I would memorialize all of that in writing for the employee as well. Then respond to inbound forms from disability providers and paid family leave, and log onto all of the other websites across different states.” Now, Sparrow tracks state filing deadlines, handles all internal paperwork, and keeps Moreau in the loop on employee leave statuses and changes.

“I love Sparrow’s dashboard,” Polachini added. The dashboard breaks down which employees are on what types of leaves, their leave start and end dates, and their compensation. “Being able to see everything nicely organized in one central place has been really helpful for our team.”

After introducing employees to their Sparrow Leave Specialists, Moreau is able to focus on supporting employees with other benefits and initiatives that enhance the overall employee experience.

“For me, the payroll calculation is hands down the best part of working with Sparrow,” said Polachini. “It’s such a time-saver for our team.” In addition to setting up automatic payroll calculations for Juniper Square, Sparrow also runs custom payroll reports.

All in all, Moreau said Sparrow has saved her team about 30 hours a month on leave-related administration and more than $200,000 in wage costs in 2023, freeing them up to focus on growth and programming.

“Our headcount has grown considerably, and we’ve expanded globally into India,” she explained. “So I’ve had more time to devote to that and expand all of our benefits programming.”

The result: Consistent, high-quality care for employees

Bringing Sparrow into the fold has saved Juniper Square’s benefits team time and stress.

“The backend support is really valuable to us, but Sparrow’s expertise also gives us peace of mind that our payroll calculations are correct and that we’re compliant in every state,” Moreau explained.

However, the quality Juniper Square appreciates most about Sparrow is their devoted customer service. “Under Sparrow, our employees are still receiving the kind of white-glove assistance our team prides itself on,” she said. “I see the emails coming in from our Leave Specialists, talking with folks. And I know our employees are getting the same type of care during their leave that we were providing in-house.”

Give your employees a seamless leave experience with Sparrow. Explore our offerings or book a demo today.