Client Profile: Julien Gagnier, Founder and CEO of Tablise

Business leaders know that their most critical asset is their employees. Keeping them happy, engaged, and productive has become a major market for SaaS software companies. Thousands of tools are available for human resources (HR) and people leaders, from managing one-on-one reviews to performance evaluations.

While almost every function seemed to have a suite of tools available, one significant gap caught Julien Gagnier's attention. An experienced people operations and HR leader, Gagnier noticed that he and his peers were managing HR compliance using Excel spreadsheets and sticky notes.

The risks and costs of non-compliance can be massive. According to a 2020 survey conducted by ADP, 40% of business owners surveyed reported experiencing unplanned expenses due to non-compliance with a government regulation.

Gagnier knew the risks were real and decided to do something about them by launching Tablise. The startup has developed a platform that simplifies and automates HR compliance management for businesses of any size in almost any industry.

Understanding HR compliance risks

With over a decade of experience in HR, Gagnier says many organizations relied on external consultants or web searches to identify new regulations or reporting requirements. Understanding what gaps an organization had was already daunting. The risks can grow exponentially when you add in the additional requirements of having employees in multiple provinces or states.

“If you have an office in Ontario, you have to know Ontario laws. That's the end of it. But the light bulb moment was my previous job. It was in an all-remote environment and we needed to figure out the employment laws of each province we were hiring people. That’s a lot of pressure on HR teams to know all this information,” Gagnier says.

Businesses can hire employment lawyers to identify compliance gaps, costing hundreds to thousands of dollars. Gagnier says that, like many of his colleagues, he had to be self-sufficient and do much of the research himself.

“Many HR professionals simply don’t have the time, so you find them being very reactive. Suddenly, there’s a looming deadline or they see people posting about a new requirement on LinkedIn—and they have to rush to make sure they’re compliant. It’s not great risk management,” he says.

Creating a compliance solution

Gagnier knew that HR professionals lacked the tools necessary to manage compliance effectively. At the time, he was managing compliance for Canada and the US, and he says no tool was available that could provide an overall solution.

“There needed to be a one-stop-shop because you were getting information from lawyers, from trade publications, from government notices—but all too often, it was learning about a new regulation too late,” Gaginer says.

The answer for him was a tool that combined HR compliance information and project management in one place.

“Getting information is messy, and there’s no tool that lets you easily implement new regulations or requirements. HR compliance needs a project management approach so organizations know who needs to be involved, what is required, and what the status is,” he says.

Tablise provides industry and geography-specific HR compliance information in one portal. HR professionals can then select which task they need to implement, and Tablise creates a project plan similar to how a project manager would set up a software development project.

“I've used Asana in the past, and I thought we could do something similar to keep track of HR compliance. When does your project start? Who's involved? Is it completed? What's your percentage completion? You can log in and find a task. Some may take two minutes. Others may take two weeks. But now you can see what you need to do and when, and plan it out so it gets done right,” Gagnier says.

Getting the job done right with help from the Acclerator Centre

Tablise is Gagnier’s first startup, but he says he has wanted to build something since taking entrepreneurship courses during his MBA at the Schulich School of Business at York University.

“It was the back of my head. Maybe I could start something, but I just never found the right problem until it clicked on my last job. Compliance management is a huge headache, and I knew other people felt the same,” he says.

Gagnier incorporated the startup in June 2024 and began building a business plan. His first step was finding an incubator to help him refine his idea and plan out his next steps.

“As a working parent with two young children, I wanted to find a reputable incubator that offered the flexibility to participate remotely while balancing parent life with two young children (3 years and 8 months). The Accelerator Centre and the AC:Incubate program fit the bill exactly. I spoke with the team at the AC, and they told me I should apply. The next thing I knew, I was accepted—and that was the validation I needed,” Gagnier says.

The AC:Incubate program provides startup founders with access to mentors, programming, and other support. Gagnier says it has been invaluable to speak with people who have been there and done it.

“Talking with mentors gives you a step by step approach in terms of getting from A to B, whether that’s product development or sales. They also can see traps or gaps I may have missed, including getting validation before building out a feature,” he says.

Gagnier and his team are building the launch version of Tablise and plan to launch to customers in the summer of 2025. He says it is critical that they get feedback from potential customers to bring the right set of features to meet their requirements.

“HR compliance is not the sexiest subject. It’s just something that needs to get done. In HR, we’re used to seeing all the best and latest tools being implemented elsewhere in the business, like sales or marketing. HR usually does not have any of that. Once I go out there and say, ‘This is tech just for you guys to make your lives easier,’ you see their eyes light up. That’s what excites me,” Gagnier says.

Visit www.tablise.co to learn more about how they simplify and make HR compliance more effective.