Xeris Pharmaceuticals is headquartered in Chicago and is a specialty pharmaceutical company leveraging novel formulation technology platforms to develop and commercialize ready-to-use, liquid-stable injectables. 

We sat down with Jennifer Bozarth, Manager, Compensation & Payroll at Xeris Pharmaceuticals about her team’s experience with SimplyMerit.

“With a size of just 20-25 employees, we were getting away with using spreadsheets internally and everything was done in-house. When we started growing, and knew we were going to continue to grow, that is when the decision was to look into something external. “

“One thing spreadsheets are not good for is emailing back and forth. ‘Okay, this manager approved it, this second manager approved it…oh wait this is the old version.’ It can just be a nightmare.” 

Xeris Pharmaceuticals was experiencing substantial growth year over year, as well as changes in payroll, benefits, equity distribution, and the relocation of a Xeris Lab. They needed an intuitive comp planning solution that is simple to implement and would not create any “noise” from the company internally. 

“When the decision was made to look into an external compensation planning and merit solution, SimplyMerit really called to us because of how focused it is, and how easy it is to use from both the management perspective and from the admin perspective. Spreadsheets can just be a nightmare, so having everything all in one place where you can see the approval chain is really helpful.” 

SimplyMerit allowed Xeris to streamline and save time for all employees involved with the compensation planning and annual merit process.

“The time spent on getting managers comfortable with a new system is so much lower with this solution, as it is aptly named SimplyMerit.

We even had one employee that was asked ‘Do you have any questions about using SimplyMerit?’ She said, ‘I can’t imagine anyone would, it’s easy to just find your way in there and get all the information needed to make our decisions/approvals.'”

“During a time when it’s so busy and the timelines are a quick turnaround, everything is so rushed, and to not spend a lot of time to show managers how to navigate the tool, SimplyMerit is a lifesaver.

We usually provide the guidelines ahead of time for what we recommend, but typically the decisions about the merit increase take the most time. Now, it’s just a matter of clicking the link, going into SimplyMerit, making the entries, and the process is done. Our managers get into SimplyMerit quickly and get out, it is perfect for what it is.”