INSIGHTS

March 02, 2018

by srodriguez

• Benefits Administration

The 3 Essential Traits of Best-in-Class Benefits Administration Technology

Employee benefits can be a demanding part of your daily business – but this doesn’t have to be the case. A best-in-class benefits administration partner will give your team the boost needed to make the most out of each day. But what should you expect from a premier provider?

Many Human Resources departments stretch their limited staff and budgets – making high internal efficiency absolutely critical.

Without the proper structure and processes in place, however, departments can quickly find themselves caught in a reactionary response cycle. In this cycle, HR’s ability to strategically guide their organization and demonstrate expertise to stakeholders is diminished, hindered by tactical inefficiencies, errors, added work, and stress.

Bringing true value to your business requires relevant experience, insightful thinking, and the right tools, including employee benefits technology to help you proactively and strategically keep pace. Identifying and leveraging the right technology will help your team achieve optimal results.

Empyrean’s latest At-A-Glance Guide explores the three essential aspects of a best-in-class benefits administration partnership.  Keeping these traits in mind will help you evaluate and identify the solutions that will drive results and elevate your impact across your business.

Here, we take a quick look at these crucial parts of your overall solution’s success.

1. Data Management
   Data management processes are the foundation of your entire solution, and are one of the most critical factors determining benefits administration success. Without correct and reliable data, your benefits strategy will become unreliable and prone to failure.Each provider’s platform manages data differently. Employee benefit errors can erode participant and stakeholder confidence, drive up costs, and lead to serious compliance risks around Affordable Care Act (ACA), COBRA, and other requirements.

   Instead of struggling with poor data management practices, identify a benefits administration partner that is singularly focused on developing and delivering technology that meets your organization’s total needs and maintains data integrity.

2. Solution Scalability
   To remain viable over time, your benefits administration technology must scale with your business as it shifts and evolves. Employers can encounter extreme difficulties once their business outgrows a limited solution: HR teams can suddenly be overwhelmed by errors and burdened by the rework required by their failing system.

   It’s understandably difficult to predict the turns your business or industry may take, but when signing a contract with a service provider it’s important to consider both your current and potential needs. If your team is contending with difficulties after a recent business or regulatory change, your current vendor may not have the scalability in place to continue managing your needs.

   In addition to addressing technological scalability, also review how a provider will ensure scalability from a service perspective. A best-in-class benefits administration partner will dedicate a team to act as an extension of your internal benefits department to best serve you and your employees.

3. User Experience
   Your solution’s user interface should be intuitive for both employees and administrators to use. The entire benefits administration experience does not end at a user’s computer monitor. Rather, the user experience encompasses everything from the design of the user interface to the stability of its back-end processes, all the way to the service capabilities that rely on human expertise and understanding to fulfill.If your benefits technology vendor is slow to address concerns or repeatedly leaves issues unresolved, you aren’t being supported by a best-in-class provider – and they are putting your entire strategy at risk.

   A top-tier partner will make it their business to provide continuous support and open communication to you and your team, enabled by a client-dedicated service team. This team should develop a thorough understanding of your priorities, initiatives, and challenges to deliver expert insights and offer best-practice solutions for an exceptional experience.

Employee benefits can be a demanding part of your daily business – but this doesn’t have to be the case. A best-in-class benefits administration partner will give your team the boost needed to make the most out of each day.

For more, download Empyrean’s latest At-A-Glance Guide, which takes explores these three aspects in more detail. With proper support, you’ll have more opportunities to focus on what really matters to you, your employees, and the bottom line of your business.

As you read, we’d love to get your thoughts. Feel free to contact us with questions or comments at info@goempyrean.com.