A Guide to Streamlining Your Employee Benefits Management

It’s never easy to run a business, and times are especially challenging right now. Resignations are high and workplace expectations are shifting. 

One solution to consider for retention is enhancing your employee benefits. Your team members want to work somewhere that offers perks. For example, 80% of the workforce will choose a job that offers benefits over a job that offers 30% more salary but no benefits. Great support can help keep individuals at your company by enhancing their health and boosting engagement. 

As an HR professional, you have the unique task to help manage these benefits packages. This process can involve everything from selecting perks to integrating new software. Discover how employee benefits management works and tips to get you started. 

What Is Benefits Management? 

Employee benefits management is the process of creating and managing employee benefits programs. Not to mention, the process of making sure it is always up-to-date. Essentially, whoever’s in charge of employee benefits will create programs, and manage who’s enrolled in each program while making sure the programs are updated. Usually benefits management falls under the umbrella of HR or human resources. 

Types of Benefits to Manage

You have many options of perks you can offer. These are some of the most important benefits to include in your programs and to manage: 

• Health care coverage. Healthcare coverage is something employees want. You might offer it as insurance, or it could be an HSA or other health savings program. Some employers offer dental and vision plans too. 
• Paid time off. Over half of employees are feeling burned out. It’s likely time for them to get out of the office (or offline) and take a vacation. If employees are paid to take a day off now and again , they’ll have a chance to recharge. That’s why so many companies use paid time off, or PTO. Remember that giving your employees paid time off does help the whole company. You might consider offering unlimited PTO. Your team members just need to complete their work, and then they can take as much time off as needed. 
• Retirement contributions and retirement plans. At the end of a long career, employees want to be able to enjoy a new phase of their lives. They deserve it after decades of hard work. That’s why retirement contributions matter. Too many individuals let their retirement savings take the back burner, so you, as a great employer, can help prevent that. Retirement plans attract better employees and help you keep your team at your company. Employer contributions are also tax deductible. 
• Wellness programs. Wellness programs can take so many forms, but the general gist of all is that they’re focused on improving your employees’ wellbeing. These are a few program ideas that can show your employees you care: 
  • Gym passes
  • Therapy coverage
  • Team-building activities
  • Steps programs
  • Meditation classes
  • Nutrition counseling

Remember: 87% of workers say they would consider leaving a company that does not focus on employee wellbeing. Workforce wellness is foundational to modern employee retention. 

Employee Benefits Management Best Practices

Keeping track of your benefits offerings is an important part of managing your company’s perks. You need to know who has opted into which benefits and any changes. These are some best practices that can help guide you keep an eye on what’s driving results. 

Identify Which Benefits to Offer

First off, you need to decide which benefits to offer. Ultimately, you need to decide which benefits would add the most value to your company’s overall compensation strategy. You might start with some of the key benefits, mentioned earlier, like healthcare and time off. Then consider what ones would add value to the individuals at your company. No two workplaces are the same, so no two  packages should be the same either. Consider these questions as you decide which benefits to offer: 

• What packages add value for your employees?
• What packages align with organizational goals?

Remember to account for compliance requirements as well. For example, you can consult the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the government agency that publishes benefits rules that U.S. companies need to follow. 

Clearly Communicate the Value

Once you’ve selected your benefits, it’s time to communicate to your employees why you chose to offer them. You’ve carefully selected benefits that will meet goals and add value for your employees, but your employees might not see all of the value at first glance. It’s worth taking time to explain why you chose particular offerings. Then you can move into how employees can take advantage of them. 

Consider holding training events where you clearly explain what benefits employees have access to and how to enroll in the benefits. Try to keep things simple with what each employee has access to and how they can claim it. Also, make sure to clearly communicate enrollment deadlines, so every employee knows when they need to accept or waive benefits. 

Measure the Impact

After putting a benefits package in place, it’s time to analyze the effect. You want benefits to boost employee wellbeing, engagement, retention, and more.How can you tell if your programs are doing that? 

Here are a few ideas for measuring the impact of your benefits management: 

• Determine how many employees enroll in your benefits. A large amount of the success of your programs and communication goes back to how many employees are seeing the value in the benefits. Knowing how many take advantage of them can help you fine-tune your future offerings. 
• Ask your employees what they think. Your employees are the ones who experience all the benefits first-hand, so ask them what they think. An employee benefits survey can be a great way to get feedback from your team to start working on refining your plans. 

Evaluate Additional Offerings

Your workplace isn’t going to stay the same. Just ask anyone who’s had to manage benefits through the Covid-19 pandemic. Future workplace evolutions will happen, and you’ll want to stay on top of updating benefits to match your employees’ new needs. Keep evaluating your new offerings as you go to create benefits programs that keep up with your employees. 

Integrating Technology in Benefits Management

There are a lot of moving pieces in benefits management. The good news is that modern HR technology can ease the administrative burden. Some of the perks of using specialized software include: 

• Improved efficiency. Digitization puts some of the power in the hands of your employees. They’re able to take care of some tasks, like selecting coverage and submitting leave requests. Ultimately, that gives you extra time to focus on other tasks. 
• Streamlined processes. Tools can be used together to meld different tasks together. For example, you can add a benefits platform to your enterprise system to centralize all information. 
• Ease compliance strain. There are legal requirements with certain benefits. Software can notify you of employee events, so you can adjust coverage quickly. Benefits management tools make reporting easier as well. 

Ready to try management software? Here are three suggestions for integrating smoothly: 

• Assess your needs. Before choosing a tool, determine what you’re looking for in software. What are your pain points with your system right now? What are your overall benefits goals? Answering these questions can help you evaluate what your priorities are for a management system. 
• Compare options. There are quite a few choices available. Consider which ones address your biggest concerns. You might also look into which solutions integrate well with your existing systems. 
• Implement and evaluate. Once you start using a platform, try measuring effectiveness. Analyze the impacts of using technology on your benefits administration process. Consider how it affects efficiency, accuracy, compliance, and satisfaction. 

Customization and Personalization of Benefits

One-size-fits-all benefits don’t necessarily meet the needs of your team. The perks a Gen Z employee wants may differ from your Gen X employees. Your management team might want options your new-hires don’t need. Remote employees may not need commuter perks. That’s why some companies are customizing and personalizing packages. 

Customization refers to creating different plans by region, role, or level. That might involve offering employees in one country different benefits than in another. For example, you might offer employer-sponsored healthcare to your US employees but not your Canadian employees. 

Personalization takes this to another level. You can also give employees the option to choose what offerings they want. Sixty-five percent of employees said they valued choosing their own benefits, in a 2022 survey. One way to do this is to provide your teams with benefit expense cards, such as lifestyle savings accounts (LSAs). These programs allow your team members to choose exactly what they need, and your company will reimburse them. 

Supporting Employees With Wellness Benefits

Overall, employee benefits management is all about making sure your employees are getting the benefits that will serve them well and provide them with value—and then making sure everyone knows how to take advantage of them. 

One benefit to consider is wellness programs. These initiatives can have a major business impact — there’s a reason 100% of HR leaders say wellness programs are important to employee satisfaction. On top of that, 93% of workers consider their wellbeing at work to be equally important to their salary, according to a 2024 Wellhub survey.

Wellhub is ready to guide you through launching a benefits program to help employees. Talk to a Wellbeing Specialist today to get started! 

References 

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