HRMS Benefits: Ripe For Self-Service Picking

Many companies offer a variety of benefit options from traditional offerings such as medical, dental, life and health spending account (HSA) plans to the more “a la carte” selections such as pet insurance and cancer insurance. How does HRMS self-service fit into all of these benefit offerings? Should self-service be used for HRMS benefits management?

If you are enabled for employee self-service in HR areas such as name and address changes, adding skills and competencies, or payroll options such as updating direct deposit details, then using self-service for benefits should be an easy cultural and technical fit. It is only a matter of defining what parts of HRMS benefits can be enabled for self-service. Usual options include adding dependents and beneficiaries or updating contact details for those groups.

Many companies also use self-service for HRMS benefits enrollment purposes. If you are able to provide access to the data via your HRMS or interface HRMS data to a third party vendor who controls the online administration, either way self-service will offer efficiency gains over manual HR.

The Complexities

But are there any benefits self-service complexities? If a plan’s rules require that HR manually view some form of identification or if a paper copy is needed for the files--for example a health plan may require proof of age and student status to provide health coverage for dependents over 18—then your HRMS process needs to incorporate this ‘gatekeeper’ role into the process. Preferably, if only a paper copy is required, then self-service should allow for the uploading of the copy online into the transaction rather than a disconnected email thread outside of the HRMS. The process also needs to be designed so a transaction can be held in a staging zone until that copy or proof is received before enabling the benefit to be active.

For most companies, benefits self-service should be a slam dunk. Employees are used to doing a variety of transactions online in their personal as well as professional lives, so benefits self-service should be one more instance that provides 24/7 access to view critical data. If your HRMS is already self-service enabled, then to add benefits self-service is only a matter of extending your current self-service roadmap to incorporate additional transactions. Ready to take the next step? Check out the HRMS Software Guide for more details about HRMS products and functionality available in the market today.