Employee benefits administration is... a lot. From finding insurance carriers and setting up benefit plans to collecting eligible employee enrollment data and updating payroll deductions to new hire enrollments and benefit terminations.
Administering employee benefits can include traditional health insurance and all sorts of other of supplemental insurance or ancillary benefits, such as dental insurance, vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance (short-term and long-term), and retirement plans or 401(k)s — to name a few.
Not to mention the more modern employee benefits and new comers like remote work, student loan repayment plans, pet insurance, unlimited time off, and all the other "perks" employees are provided with for working at a particular employer or company like yours.
You may have to set up, configure, modify, and manage multiple benefit plans that differ across employee status or type.
Maintaining administration can be a complex and time-consuming process, certainly during a employers open enrollment period, but also throughout the year.
This is especially true if employers are experiencing a lot of new hire enrollments, life change events, or even benefit terminations.
Employers may also need to comply with labor laws, like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), or even the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), depending on how a company defines its benefits package.
Non-compliance with benefits-related labor laws and employee protections can result in penalties or fines and can greatly increase the risk of employee lawsuits or lawsuits from their dependents.
Therefore, rules-based employee benefits processes, tools, systems, and / or software that can help eliminate benefits errors, streamline administration, and keep premium costs as low as possible — all while keeping employees happy — are imperative.
Customizable employee benefits tools or software, especially those with self-service can help empower employees and administrators to do everything from selecting benefit plans when hired or during an annual open enrollment period to changing plans when life changes.
That's because when life change events happen in the employee benefits world like moving, finding a new job, getting married, having a baby, kids aging out of a plan, or getting divorced... and even dying, all of these can impact employee benefits and result in changes for employees and / or their dependents.
With the exception of death, and in most cases with a divorce, employee benefits software should help increase employee engagement and reduce the administrative workload for employee benefits.
Find a provider with truly great benefits administration software and processes are implemented across the employee lifecycle from new hires to COBRA administration... and everything in-between.
Benefits administration software features or solutions may include any one, combination of, or potentially all of the following advantages or key benefits:
