Back in September 2021, Jeremy Johnson, senior vice president of finance at Ceridian (now Dayforce), decided that it was time to test his mettle—a step that would lead him to returning from a long personal journey with a leadership perspective somewhat different from what he had expected might be the case. Determined to challenge himself and expand his horizons, Johnson left the familiarity of Ceridian—where he had steadily advanced his career for the previous nine-and-a-half years, to accept a CFO position with SmartRecruiters.
Johnson’s test, however, was about to grow exponentially. At SmartRecruiters, circumstances propelled him into an even more demanding role, that of interim CEO. This unexpected turn of events was not just a mere career stint but a transformational experience—one that has has influenced his approach to finance leadership by infusing it with broader strategic insights and a nuanced understanding of the business.
Read MoreWith his return to Dayforce as CFO, it felt like the narrative was coming full-circle. “This return signifies more than just coming back—it represents the culmination of my growth, my meeting of challenges, and the broader leadership perspective that I’ve gained,” Johnson remarks. He reports that this journey, including the unforeseen stint as CEO, has endowed him with experiences and a visionary approach to the finance leadership role.
The early days: Johnson tells us that the beginning of his career was significantly shaped by his experiences at Capella University, where he built a relationship with CFO Lois Martin—who became a critical mentor. His responsibilities in SEC reporting and managing disclosure committees provided a strong foundation in financial reporting and regulatory compliance. –Jack Sweeney jb
Made Possible By
CFOTL: Tell us about Dayforce … what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Johnson: Dayforce is a global leader in technology for human capital management, or we what we call HCM. Our flagship product—which is also called Dayforce—provides our users with a full HCM suite, including functionality for human resources, payroll, benefits, workforce management, and talent intelligence. Last year, we had $1.5 billion in revenue—which was up around 21.5% year-over-year—along with $133 million in operating profit and an EBITDA-adjusted margin of around 27% margin. We have approximately 6,400 customers and had more than 6.8 million employees around the globe using the platform as of the end of last year. We have a very sticky product, with gross retention rates consistently over 97% for the past 3 years. We’re well recognized by third parties like Gartner, which for 4 straight years has named us as a leader in their Magic Quadrant for cloud HCM suites for firms with 1,000+ employees.
Read MoreDayforce the product was launched in 2013, with Dayforce and Ceridian coming together at that time. We IPO’d on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. Just this past February, we evolved the brand further by bringing the whole company under one united brand—Dayforce—which we believe can amplify our promise to make work life better.
Permit me to get into a couple of key differentiators in who we are and what we do. We have one that is key, which is called “continuous calculation of net pay.” Look at it this way: Most payroll companies were built as payroll companies. Then they added things like workforce management—things about time clocks and time sheets and rules around shifts and overtime. More recent add-ons might be things like HCM recruiting, compensation management, and performance management. But because all of these functions were built on separate systems, you ended up with a problem around workflow and user experience.
The workflow piece meant that payroll couldn’t start running until the end of the pay period—you needed to get all of your time sheets in before you could start doing your job. You were often left with a really short amount of time in which to run payroll. A survey that we did back in 2011–12 showed that companies were running payroll when they ran out of time, not when it was ready to be run. Another challenge with this was that you frequently were creating user experience problems by requiring the user to enter their information two or three different times across different systems if it needed to change. If you had HR do it for them, you were generating manual workflows.
Consequently, at Dayforce, we built everything into one platform. It’s a single system with one record for every user that cuts across all modules—recruiting, payroll, workforce management, benefits, and on and on—the entire employee life cycle from hire to retire. Whenever a critical aspect of an employee’s record changes, the net pay is automatically changed in real time. So, if I move to a different state or local region—even just move across state lines—my net pay is automatically adjusted immediately to reflect any tax changes. If I had a child and added a dependent, my net pay would change. If this affected my withholding or 401(k) or other benefits, my net pay would adjust.
This capability allows us to do some pretty disruptive things. We have an innovative product called Dayforce Wall that enables a user to open up an app that’s separate from the payroll app to see how much money they’ve actually earned during the active pay period at any given point in time. They can see their gross-to-net calculation live. Then they can take this and maybe say, “I’d like to add $100 to my wallet.”
We also run a full payroll behind the scenes. We treat any day like it’s a paid day. We get the proper tax forms for the proper jurisdictions and can provide a fully compliant mid–pay cycle report, essentially. As I said, we also enable a pretty unique user experience through which users can change their own information in the system. In one location, it’s reflected across the entire product. These are the simple things that make a difference to an employee and allow them to focus on their jobs and not on management and the administration of their compensation. We focus on delivering quantifiable value with a true ROI, or return on investment, which has caused countless firms to switch to Dayforce. Being able to have a single solution, single database, and single continuous calculation engine helps our customers to achieve the efficiencies that they need in productivity and compliance. We call it “simplicity at scale.” jb
“It’s easy to think about the CFO position as ‘just a finance role,’ but don’t limit yourself to just finance-related activities. Without question, first and foremost, make sure that your finance backyard is in order. Beyond this, though, you have the opportunity to be very strategic and impactful across the entire organization. Use the visibility that you have—across people, GTM, operations, legal, privacy, security, risk, and product/technology—to share your insights with the entire company. Don’t be afraid or nervous about about speaking your opinion—because your perspective will have a meaningful impact on the business.” –Jeremy Johnson, CFO, Dayforce
Dayforce | www.dayforce.com | Minneapolis, MN