The Current Process
For most employers, managing an employee population & benefits program is a manual process consisting of multiple steps and phases throughout the year.
As a company grows, employee data becomes harder to manage and federal reporting requirements become mandatory. Most companies lack a sufficient database to store employee records and information. Having a system of record that stores all employee information & automates the federal filing process should be a core competent for all companies.
This is no different when it comes to administering a benefits program, having a system of record in place that stores employee elections & automates the enrollment process streamlines HR workflow. However, this is not a common benefits process for most employers.
The benefits process generally begins with the HR staff manually populating a census to receive quotes, which can be stressful and time consuming. If a company is lacking a system of record that tracks benefit related information needed for quick & timely quotes, it normally limits them from exploring their options when it comes time for renewal.
After receiving quotes & finalizing the benefit plans for the year, open enrollment begins. Employees typically fill out paper enrollment forms to enroll into desired coverages, most of the time not knowing what the benefits offered consist of, or their final per pay period price.
Once enrollment is over, the HR staff must collect all these forms, submit them to the company’s broker, and hope that everyone is enrolled properly at the carrier level. Perfect processing rarely happens, employees are often left uninsured without anyone knowing. This is followed up by relaying benefit deduction information to payroll so employee contributions can be withheld from their pay. This is very time sensitive and can be hectic, especially when dealing with a larger employee population.
The task of managing benefits for HR staff members does not stop after making it out of open enrollment. Every time an employee is hired or terminated; an extensive list of benefits-related tasks must be complete to stay compliant.
When onboarding a new hire, HR will have to help the employee elect the benefits they wish to receive. Once benefits are elected, they must take the employees demographic information & elections and manually enter the information into each carrier’s portal. Most companies offer anywhere from 5-15 lines of coverage, creating huge margins for error while entering information.
This tedious process must also take place anytime there is a mid-year termination, along with the hassle of making sure the former employee receives their COBRA notice within the federally regulated period.
With the technology available in today’s time, there is no reason any company should take on the task of manually managing their employee population or administering their employee benefits program. Not only is this taking valuable time away from the HR Department, but manually managing a benefits program tends to lead to employee confusion & unsatisfaction, uninsured employees, unprocessed terminations, unnoticed billing errors, cobra non-compliance, and questionable compliance filings.
The Solution
At AegisInsure, we pride ourselves on helping our clients advance their business & benefits processes by implementing technology such as Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) & Benefit Administration Systems (BAS).
Our software systems take the headache out of open enrollment, onboarding/termination, and communication with payroll providers & carriers.
Streamlining HR & benefit processes serve as foundation to proper employee management. It also alleviates stress and time constraints by automating processes, allowing management and HR staff more time to work on tasks that add value to their company. With a proper implementation strategy & training, a company can engage and connect with their employees for employment and benefit related purposes in as short as a week (case sensitive).
Our systems cover such a vast spectrum of workflow processes that we have decided to extend our knowledge to our peers through a series of blogs/ vlogs to keep you informed.
Please follow AegisInsure to learn more about the following topics throughout the upcoming weeks:
- Importance of an HRIS system
- Streamlining Benefit Administration & Benefits System of Record
- Carrier and Payroll Integrations
- Employee Self Service Portal
- Consistent Compliance
We look forward to providing informational content to our clients and followers. Stay connected with our social media pages and website to learn more about AegisInsure and what we can do for your organization.