What Happened to Humi?

Humi was a Toronto-based HR platform that earned real loyalty from small Canadian businesses. Clean interface, solid payroll basics, and a team that understood Canadian employers. Then, in early 2025, Employment Hero, an Australian workforce management company, acquired Humi for a reported ~$100M CAD.

By September 2025, the integration was complete. Humi is now a product inside a global platform headquartered in Sydney. The Canadian-first focus is gone. If you’re a current Humi customer, you’re now an Employment Hero customer, and the value proposition has shifted accordingly.

Why Canadian Companies Are Reconsidering

The Culture and Product Shift

Humi was a Canadian company that built for Canadian employers. That’s not a marketing line. It showed up in the product: native CRA integration, bilingual support considerations, and a team in Toronto that understood provincial payroll quirks.

Under Employment Hero, the strategic direction is now global, not Canadian. The product roadmap serves Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, the UK, and Canada. Canada is one market among many. Humi’s well-known 4.5-day work week? Eliminated post-acquisition. Engineering resources have shifted offshore. Leadership priorities reflect a company headquartered in Sydney, not Toronto.

None of this means the product stopped working overnight. But if you chose Humi because it was built by Canadians for Canadians, that foundation has shifted.

Common Customer Concerns

The same problems keep coming up:

• Which product am I even on? The two-track system (“Employment Operating System” vs “Humi by Employment Hero”) creates confusion. Customers don’t know which platform they’ll end up on long-term, or whether their current features will survive the consolidation.
• Year-end payroll issues. Payroll year-end processing is high-stakes for Canadian employers. T4s, ROEs, CRA remittances. When your vendor is mid-transition, that’s a risky time to be running year-end.
• Implementation fees appeared. Employment Hero reportedly introduced implementation fees of ~$1,500 for new customers. Humi’s original appeal was low friction, low cost. That’s shifting.

Your Humi/Employment Hero Contract Terms

Cancellation Process

Good news: you’re not locked in forever. Employment Hero’s terms let you cancel at any time, provided all outstanding payments are settled. There’s a 14-day breach cure period, meaning if there’s a billing dispute, you have two weeks to resolve it before the contract can be terminated by either side.

The practical steps:

1. Contact Employment Hero support (or your account manager) and request cancellation in writing.
2. Confirm all outstanding invoices are paid.
3. Request written confirmation of your cancellation date and data retention timeline.
4. Export your data before the cancellation takes effect (more on this below).

Get everything in writing. Email, not phone. You want a paper trail that confirms your cancellation date and when your data will be deleted.

What the New Terms Mean

If you signed up with Humi before May 2025, your original terms are not automatically grandfathered. Employment Hero updated their terms of service in September 2025. If you clicked “agree” on a login prompt at any point since then, the new Employment Hero terms govern your account now.

Three things worth checking before you do anything else:

• Governing law. Humi’s original terms used Ontario law. Employment Hero’s current terms point to Australian jurisdiction. Find out which one applies to your account.
• Data handling. The updated terms carry broader data sharing provisions tied to Employment Hero’s global operations. Read them.
• Auto-renewal. Confirm whether your plan auto-renews and how much notice you need to give to cancel before the next billing cycle.

Exporting Your Data from Humi/Employment Hero

Data You Need to Collect

Before you cancel, export everything. Once your account is deactivated, getting data back becomes difficult or impossible. Here’s the checklist:

• Employee records: Full profiles including personal information, employment history, job titles, departments, compensation history, emergency contacts.
• Payroll data: Pay stubs, T4s, ROEs, remittance records, year-end summaries, tax filing history. You’re legally required to keep payroll records for at least 6 years in Canada.
• Time and attendance: Timesheet records, overtime calculations, leave balances, vacation accruals.
• Benefits enrolment: Current benefit elections, beneficiary designations, historical changes.
• Documents: Offer letters, signed policies, performance reviews, disciplinary records, anything stored in the document management module.
• Recruiting data: Active job postings, candidate records, interview notes (if applicable under your privacy policy).

Export as CSV or Excel where possible. PDFs for pay stubs and tax documents. Ask Employment Hero support specifically what export formats are available and whether there are bulk export options. Don’t assume the self-serve export covers everything.

Data Storage and Privacy

Humi historically hosted data on AWS Canada, which was a strong selling point for data sovereignty. Under Employment Hero, confirm where your data is stored now and where it may be transferred.

Canada’s PIPEDA legislation governs how your employee data must be handled. Your employees consented to their data being held by a Canadian company under Canadian law. If the data is now subject to Australian jurisdiction (through Employment Hero’s parent company), that’s a change your privacy officer or legal counsel should review.

When you cancel, ask specifically:

• How long will your data be retained after cancellation?
• Will your data be fully deleted, and can you get written confirmation?
• Is any data stored outside of Canada?

Step-by-Step: Leaving Humi/Employment Hero

Here’s the practical playbook for a clean exit. Don’t rush this. A sloppy transition creates more problems than staying on a platform you’re unhappy with.

1. Audit your current usage. List every module you’re using: HR, payroll, time tracking, benefits, recruiting. Identify which data lives only in Humi/Employment Hero and has no backup elsewhere.
2. Choose your next platform first. Don’t cancel before you have somewhere to go. Evaluate alternatives, run demos, confirm the new platform can import your data and handle your specific payroll requirements.
3. Export all data. Follow the checklist above. Do this while your account is still active and fully functional. Verify the exports are complete and readable.
4. Coordinate payroll timing. Never switch payroll providers mid-pay-period. Align your transition with a pay period boundary, ideally at a quarter-end or year-end. This keeps your CRA filings clean.
5. Run parallel payroll. For at least one pay cycle, run payroll on both your old and new system. Compare the outputs. Catch discrepancies before they become employee complaints or CRA issues.
6. Notify Employment Hero in writing. Send a formal cancellation request via email. Include your company name, account number, requested cancellation date, and a request for written confirmation. Keep this email.
7. Confirm data deletion. After cancellation, follow up in writing to confirm your data has been handled per their retention policy and your privacy obligations.

What Canadian Employers Should Look for Next

If you’re leaving Humi, don’t just pick the first alternative you find. The reason you’re leaving matters, and your next platform should solve the root problem, not just be “not Humi.”

For Canadian employers, the criteria below are non-negotiable:

Cost Comparison by Company Size

Workzoom pricing shown below is based on published rates as of March 2026. Employment Hero pricing is estimated from customer reports and may vary. Contact each vendor directly for current quotes.

Workzoom: $4/employee/month per suite. Two suites (HR + Payroll) = $8/employee/month. No setup fees. No contracts. Save 5% with annual billing. Nonprofit discount available.

Who Should Stay with Employment Hero

Honest assessment. Not everyone needs to leave.

You’re under 30 employees with simple needs. If you’re using basic HR records and straightforward payroll, and the product is working fine today, the switching cost may not be worth it. Monitor the situation, but don’t create a problem where one doesn’t exist yet.

You’re using Employment Hero’s global features. If you have employees in Australia, New Zealand, or Southeast Asia, Employment Hero’s global platform may actually serve you better than a Canada-focused tool. Their strength is multi-country coverage across the Asia-Pacific region.

Your contract has favourable terms you’d lose. If you locked in pricing or features pre-acquisition that you’d lose by switching, run the numbers first. Sometimes the best move is to stay on legacy terms until they expire.

The product genuinely works for your team. If your HR team is happy, payroll is running smoothly, and you’re not experiencing any of the issues described in this post, staying put is a perfectly rational choice. Don’t switch because of headlines. Switch because of problems.

Frequently Asked Questions