Breaking the Paper Chain

When it comes to managing, administering, and communicating employee benefits programs, paper forms and handbooks might soon become a thing of the past. Traditionally, managing and communicating employee benefit plans required numerous staff-lead meetings, reams of paper forms, and relentless follow-up on the part of a company’s human resources department. 

Today, however, for some companies technology innovations such as password-protected Web portals where employees can access individualized information have all but eliminated paper handbooks or thick, but seldom-used, directories of health care providers.

As more employers embrace consumer-driven employee benefit models such as health savings accounts, technology is also supplanting old management models with innovations such as open-enrollment periods facilitated via the Web; robust intranet sites that allow employees to model how their choices affect their paychecks, and even online Webcasts from CEOs explaining changes to company benefits. Companies are also working with audio and video as a way to communicate more effectively with employees about their benefits, and a few are even experimenting with the idea of downloadable mp3 messages. But while the landscape is definitely changing when it comes to how employers use technology to interact with employees about their benefits, the rate of that change and adoption varies widely depending on both industry and company size.

Enrolling the Future

As with most innovations, larger companies are leading the way in aggressive and creative technology use. “The shift to consumerism is definitely having a significant impact downriver for employees,” says Josh Trent, leader of the technology and administration practice at the Minneapolis office of Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm specializing in employee benefit issues.

A December 2006 survey on annual benefits enrollment, conducted by Watson Wyatt, questioned senior-level human resources managers at 67 companies about their employee benefits administration practices. The companies represented were generally large, with 39 percent managing more than 10,000 employees; 28 percent representing 5,000 to 10,000 employees, and 39 percent with fewer than 5,000 employees.

One key area surveyed was the number of companies who use technology, such as the Internet, to enroll employees in various benefit plans during the annual open-enrollment period—by far the most complex use of technology in the employee benefits arena.