In a growth mode, Swipely in midst of hiring

CHRIS BRUBAKER, Swipely's vice president of marketing, said Swipely has been hiring for 20 positions.  / COURTESY SWIPELY
CHRIS BRUBAKER, Swipely's vice president of marketing, said Swipely has been hiring for 20 positions. / COURTESY SWIPELY

PROVIDENCE – Seven months after layoffs, Swipely is in the midst of hiring.
Swipely’s vice president of marketing, Chris Brubaker, said on Wednesday that the company, which provides retail-payment processing, marketing and analytics, has been hiring for 20 positions, mostly in marketing.
Approximately half of the positions have been filled recently, according to Alaina Restivo, vice president, talent, for Swipely.
Swipely is excited about the future, as well as customer and employee growth, Brubaker said.
Brubaker said its sales under management – how much credit card volume it processes on behalf of customers – is more than $5 billion and approaching $6 billion this year.
Most of the company’s customers are in the hospitality industry, but it serves all types of small businesses, ranging from sporting goods stores to liquor stores, he said.
The layoffs earlier this year were necessary to position the company as it goes forward, Brubaker said. Those positions were primarily in sales; an exact number has never been divulged by the company, and Brubaker declined again to discuss the number.
“We wouldn’t hire 20 people if we were going to do that again,” Brubaker said.
Although he said the layoffs were not “fun,” the company doubled-down on areas that were working. Brubaker said the changes were good for business, citing the ongoing hiring that has happened since then.
The employees who were let go, according to Restivo, were given a severance package and a letter of recommendation from Swipely’s CEO Angus Davis.

Restivo said Swipely currently has 92 employees; in 2013, it had 27. Davis founded the company in 2009.

Brubaker said Swipely’s technology goes beyond telling a restaurant owner that 18 pints of beer were sold – Swipely can help determine if a restaurant should hold trivia nights, if specials are driving business. Credit card use is one source of sales data, but it also culls information from other areas, such as online reviews and social media, even taking into account weather, to provide data, he said.
“We provide context behind the story,” Brubaker said. “We’re really about helping a small business become as operationally efficient as possible and basically be the best version of their business that they can be.”
Restivo said the company routinely measures employee engagement, and that it has risen 5 percent since the spring, to 86 percent, which is 15 percent greater than the technology industry benchmark. For the benefit of employees, she said the company also made changes to policies, implementing a more flexible (unlimited) time off policy and expanding parental leave policies to 12 paid weeks for maternity and four paid weeks for paternity.

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