Best Benefits Administration Solutions

When you begin looking at your different benefits administration software solution choices, take the following into consideration:

• Automated workflows
• Integrations and flexibility
• Elimination or reduction of manual processes
• Reporting and compliance monitoring

Some of the biggest advantages of having benefit administration software include the following:

• Easier enrollment process: Finding the right benefits package to match their unique needs can be complicated for employees. By using benefits administration software, you can alleviate stress and make the benefits enrollment process more manageable, since the software helps guide them through the process.

• Automated workflows: Most benefits administration softwares include automated workflows. With automated workflows, tedious admin work is eliminated, and your organization can optimize the new hire/rehire process through the use of automated alerts and reminders.

• Easy to use: When you choose a good benefits administration software solution, make sure to select one that is easy to use. When it is intuitive, the setup is easy, the interface makes it easy to navigate, and enrollment becomes a much smoother process.

• Self-help: By implementing a benefits administration software solution, you enable your employees to help themselves. Employees can adjust profiles for life events and demographic changes, etc. on their own.

• Saves a significant amount of time: One of the biggest benefits of having the software is that HR administrators can shift their focus to other high-priority tasks because they don’t have to spend their time printing out benefits documentation, distributing it by hand to employees, checking completed forms for accuracy, entering information into a carrier site, and manually entering deductions into payroll.

• Reduced paperwork: Benefits administration software offers alerts and reminders to automate common processes. With the software, you don’t have to rely on spreadsheets and enter data by hand during open enrollment, which can be risky.

• Increased visibility: Benefits administration software solutions provide insight into how much you’re spending as well as into employee adoption. Often, solutions will include features like benefits dashboards and/or reports to help contain costs.

• Fewer errors: Because benefits administration software automates data entry, it drastically reduces the likelihood of mistakes being made when reading forms and completing other manual processes. Most commonly, the data collection process is integrated with insurance carriers, which also decreases the opportunity for error significantly.

• Convenient: Benefits administration software solutions are convenient because it allows employers and employees to access benefits plan information from anywhere, at any time.

• Better branding: When you implement a benefits administration software solution, it can strengthen your brand by directly affecting recruitment and employee retention.

When researching different benefit administration software, here are some features to look out for:

• Built-in integration to payroll: Look for a solution with a built-in integration to payroll. With this feature, you can boost administrative efficiencies, saving you hours of time and reducing the number of resources used to support it. Systems integrated together transfer the flow of data in real time. With the movement of information shared between them automatically, it removes the need to have a human input any information.

• ESS portal: Your benefits administration software should have an employee self service (ESS) portal so your employees can search and register for benefit plans during their open enrollment on their own.

• Event management workflows: The process of managing benefits can become very complicated. Event management workflow features are important because they support greater organizational communication and transparency and increase company-wide productivity.

• Compliance management: Make sure the provider you employ can guarantee that if any compliance issues arise with your technology, they will ensure that they can fix it and will pay for any fees that may arise due to a mistake on their part.

• Administrative toolkit: Choose benefits administration software that offers a sophisticated toolkit to help you create greater administrative efficiencies for employees in the HR department. The goal is to make time-consuming operations faster, more efficient, and more accurate, with automated functions implemented.

• Scalability: It is also important to consider scalability features. Look for a solution that can integrate with your current technology, as well as any external products you may need in the future.

Here are some tips on how to make the right purchasing decision when choosing a benefits administration software solution:

• Priorities: Determine what is most important to your company and evaluate what organizational needs are driving the need to implement the software.

• Compile a list: Identify your options and criteria, and then compile a list of different vendors that seem to fulfill your criteria. Try to limit your list to 3 or 4 vendors at most.

• Do a product comparison: Once you have narrowed down which solutions you think will be best suited for your organization, review their different features, customer support, pricing, training, and scalability offers.

• Product Demos: It is a good idea to request product demos and ask a lot of questions.

• Evaluate your budget: When you have narrowed down your selections, make sure the solution fits your budget requirements.