Everything You Need to Know about Benefits Administration

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What is Benefits Administration?

In short, benefits administration is a process of developing, updating and managing benefits programs for employees. Benefits administration is a typical function of an HR team. It's a rather time-consuming and complicated task as it involves lots of calculations and data analysis. That's why many HR teams take advantage of Tabulera's employee benefits administration automated tools including teams from large companies such as GLA Collections.

Benefits administration entails a range of responsibilities. Good news is that with smart administration, it is possible to streamline most of them. Let's take a closer look at what benefits administration involves.

1. Developing a competitive benefits programme.
2. Preparing for enrollment and assisting the employees with the enrollment in the benefits program.
3. Including the newly hired employees into the benefits program.
4. Collaborating with suppliers and selecting benefits that best match employees' needs.
5. Informing employees about benefits they are eligible for.
6. Managing invoices when employees use the benefits.
7. Reviewing and updating employee and benefits information.

What are Employee Benefits?
Employee benefits, also known as fringe benefits and perks, are non-financial compensation provided to employees as part of the employment contract, over their salaries. Employee benefits fall into two main categories: those that are regulated by law (it depends on the industry and the risks it entails, and also on the laws of the country) and benefits that are voluntarily offered by employers.

Employee benefits packages may include:

• health insurance (medical, dental and vision);
• life and disability insurance;
• vacation;
• sick leave;
• overtime;
• retirement plans;
• transit benefit allowance;
• gym membership;
• phone and internet reimbursement;
• food;
• tuition and professional development reimbursement;
• flexible working hours, including options to work from home.

Why Is Efficient Benefits Administration Important for Your Company?

To start off, efficient benefits administration is a solid strategy for attracting and retaining the top talent. Many HR teams work hard to recognize employees needs and pick up the best benefits to satisfy these needs. In such companies, employees feel heard and valued by the employer, which greatly boosts motivation at work.

Secondly, people tend to apply for jobs at the organizations that provide for relevant and competitive benefits.

Finally, if you deeply analyse and assess your current benefits programmes performance and major industry trends, you'll easily spot underutilized programmes and other areas of growth and improvement. This will enable you to optimize the benefits administration processes and cut down costs.

What Are the Features of a Good Benefits Administrator?

A benefits administrator should have extensive expertise in the guidelines governing health, retirement, and other benefits. Needless to say that a benefits administrator has to be familiarized with business resources as well as employees needs. One of the key tasks of the benefits administrator is negotiating with the suppliers in order to create benefits strategies that are relevant to the employees' needs. So communication skills really matter.

Efficient benefit administrators always keep their fingers on the pulse of the cutting-edge technologies and leverage the benefits administration software solutions. With the help of AI, professional benefits administrators keep track of the data on each employee's enrollment profile, like hire date, hours worked, leave and attendance records and more. Using technology saves time for research and improving the overall employee experience of using benefits.

Best Tips on How to Improve Benefits Administration

In this section, we're sharing practices that help achieve better results in benefits administration. Let's jump right in!

1. Craft a competitive benefits program

First and foremost, the benefits program you offer to employees should meet their needs. Plus, it has to match your company's goals and reflect the overall culture of your organization. For this, you should evaluate your current employee benefits in order to spot those that are underutilized. You can eliminate them to cut down expenses and focus on the benefits that your employees find more useful.

Next, you have to consider your staff demographics to select benefits that would satisfy different categories of your workforce. You can also arrange interviews or design questionnaires to get a better understanding of your employees' needs.

2. Educate employees on benefits

Make sure that your employees understand their benefits. For this, you have to communicate with them about it, answer the questions that might arise and give advice. Alternatively, you may print out information sheets or direct your employees to an online resource.

3. Take advantage of benefits administration software

Monitoring multiple employees and their benefits packages may sometimes look like a tough job, especially during open enrollment. Still, with benefits administration software, you'll be able to streamline a range of benefits management processes, save time and costs. In addition, AI tools help avoid errors and keep you stay compliant.

Conclusions

In a nutshell, benefits administration is a complex process that demands analytical, communication and management skills. However, you can always entrust a range of benefits administration tasks to AI tools like Tabulera's solutions. Give our tips a go and make your benefits administration processes more efficient.