UFCW Example
The UFCW & Employers Trust, LLC has been using the Platform to transform their Open Enrollment process since 2009. The Trust Fund Office administers healthcare coverage for its members throughout the U.S. and abroad. The Trust realized the need to automate their enrollment because they faced significant challenges processing over 68,000 paper enrollment forms for 150 different classifications of members.
The Trust wanted to use a paperless system for members to enroll in benefits but initially had concerns that retirees, who make up a large portion of their population, might not be comfortable with online enrollment software. Benefitfocus proved to be a perfect fit for the Trust by providing both online and telephonic enrollment.
The results of moving to a paperless system were so outstanding that the Trust again turned to Benefitfocus to manage their 2010 Open Enrollment period. The percentage of members who enrolled in the Trust’s plans increased by 4.7 percent over 2009's Open Enrollment. For the second year in a row, the Platform exceeded expectations with 100 percent system availability (no downtime). Benefitfocus continues to work with the Trust to increase the participation rates of online enrollment, resulting in a more efficient process.
Open Enrollment. Simplified.
With the BENEFITFOCUS® Platform, Open Enrollment is well-organized, simplified and easy to manage. We take the paper out of the process and put years of online enrollment and benefits management experience at your fingertips. Imagine never holding Open Enrollment meetings, manually keying in benefit elections, retroactively correcting errors or processing mountains of paper forms. The Platform simplifies Open Enrollment by allowing organizations to:
Employee Enrollment Interview
Store all information in one online system
The Benefitfocus Platform allows you to manage all your benefits in one place. Using the Platform, adminstrators can easily manage benefits for the current plan year as well as the upcoming OE plan year. All benefit and employee information is securely stored, so employees and administrators can access everything they need, when they need it by simply logging in.
HR Administrator Task List
Provide a simple user interface
Employee Self-Service makes the enrollment process simple and easy to navigate using a One-Thought-Per-Screen design. HR Administrators can take advantage of advanced features and functionality, such as task launchers, to-do lists and training programs.
Personalized HR Notes
Send targeted messages
The online application allows for targeted and concise communication between administrators and employees. For example, you can send information and messages to all part-time staff, all managers or all employees at the corporate headquarters. "HR notes" give you the ability to customize the employee experience by posting notes on specific pages in the enrollment process. These notes can vary by category and are often used to communicate special instructions or reminders to employees. Video tools can further enhance the communication process by delivering clear and concise messages.
Communicate more effectively
Open Enrollment requires effective communication between insurance carriers, benefit administrators, HR Staff and employees. With the Platform, virtually all aspects of Open Enrollment communication can be managed online, saving time, paper and resources across the organization. The Platform’s dynamic tools help to facilitate good communication during Open Enrollment and throughout the year. For example, the Platform can be configured to automatically send e-mail reminders to key stakeholders during Open Enrollment. These notifications can serve many purposes, including:
- Prompting administrators that required tasks have not been completed
- Informing employees that they can log in to make benefit elections on the first day of Open Enrollment
- Reminding employees that the Open Enrollment period is about to end
- Confirming that an administrator has finalized Open Enrollment elections and sent them to the carrier
An Open Enrollment Video can give your employees a quick overview of all the information they need to know about any changes to their benefits plan for the year. Other video tools such as the Video Library can be used year-round to keep employees engaged about various benefit and workplace-related topics.
FAQ Knowledgebase
The Frequently Asked Questions tool allows HR Administrators to create a knowledgebase from employees’ common inquiries. This saves time during Open Enrollment because employees can easily find answers to many questions in just a few clicks, rather than contacting their HR department and waiting for an answer.
When a new question is submitted, an HR Administrator can respond directly to an employee (if marked as private) or to all employees. He or she can then build out the knowledgebase of questions and answers that are available on demand through the Frequently Asked Questions tool.
Utilize time-saving management and administrative tools
The Platform streamlines complex administrative processes associated with Open Enrollment and benefits administration. The task-driven user interface makes time-consuming HR tasks easy to manage by automating activities such as approvals, reminders and reporting.
