Benefits portals and the technology behind them have become invaluable for benefits teams and employees alike. Benefits strategies have evolved over the decades, and today, employers offer a wide range of benefits to attract and retain employees while meeting their health care and financial wellness needs – and everything in between. And while benefits and their administration become more complex, it becomes more important for employees to navigate their benefits with ease and convenience.
With benefits technology, companies can streamline the process, helping employees get the most value from their benefits and allowing the benefits team to work more efficiently. Here, we’ll closely examine benefits portals, why they’re a crucial component for today’s employers and the elements that make up a next-generation solution.
What is a Benefits Portal?
Benefits portals are the entryway to a connected benefits experience and serve as the “hub” of all employee benefits-related activity. Also known as benefits administration and engagement solutions, these hubs are where employees come for benefits access and enrollment, as well as education and decision-making. Benefits portals also have an administrator interface where benefits teams come to manage their programs, access data and insights, and drive employee engagement with communications tools.
No matter who’s using it, a benefits portal delivers a fully connected, integrated experience where personalization is a premium. Of course, in this digital world, a benefits portal is centered around a sound approach to data.
The Importance of a Benefits Portal
Investing in the right benefits portal can translate to a company’s ability to deliver on its business objectives, many of which are people-centric, like attracting and retaining talent and supporting a healthy and productive workforce.
Amongst its many advantages, benefits portals help your HR and benefits team seamlessly execute its benefits strategy, connecting to current and future talent. When used properly, benefits portals can also help you to:
Increase efficiency and focus on benefits strategy.
The traditional approach to benefits often leaves benefits teams mired in purely administrative or tactical tasks. Time-consuming processes like manual enrollment, eligibility verification and ensuring employees’ premium shares were deducted from their take-home pay limit HR and benefits teams to necessary but routine activities.
With benefits portals, you can easily offload these manual tasks with automation to improve efficiency and productivity. Your team is free to think — and act — more strategically. For instance, rather than spending time manually enrolling employees in their benefits, your team can identify potential gaps in care that may be driving high claims costs and make the necessary adjustments.
Deliver an optimal employee experience.
Employee expectations continue to grow and evolve. In a digital world, they not only seek but expect modern technologies to help them live and work. Convoluted, antiquated systems not only frustrate employees but can result in a less-than-optimal employee experience, where they may underutilize and undervalue the benefits programs companies work so hard to create.
Instead, benefits portals provide the modern, familiar digital experience employees expect – and even enjoy. Employees can access exactly what they need when they need it without burdening the benefits team. As such, the barriers preventing employees from choosing and using their benefits are largely removed, lighting a connected path to making optimized benefits decisions that have the potential to lead to better outcomes.
Help employees thrive.
Different employees come to their benefits with different levels of need and understanding. So, while employee benefits may not be simple or intuitive, a benefits portal can make the experience of understanding and choosing those benefits one that meets employees where they are with the information and tools they need, precisely when they need them. When that happens, employes may experience higher levels of benefits and employer satisfaction and potentially better health and financial outcomes.
The Elements of a Next-Generation Benefits Portal
Today, employees need a great end-to-end experience that guides them through to their next best decision, so a next-gen benefits portal solution will offer:
Benefits in one place. A centralized, online benefits portal serves as a single, personalized source to access integrated account balances, total compensation and pre-enrollment communication, education and resources, and more. Importantly, the portal will guide employees through an intuitive enrollment experience based on the enforcement of business and eligibility rules that present employees with only the information and tasks that apply to them. Plus, a modern solution will offer access through a mobile app for year-round access to benefits information and communications.
Guided decision support tool. The complexity of employee benefits can make it hard for employees to connect the dots, not only between their needs and company-sponsored benefits, but also between health care costs, risk tolerance, financial well-being goals and more. Guided decision support tools included in a benefits portal factors in all those elements to deliver unbiased guidance so employees can understand their benefit offerings and make confident decisions.
Care navigation and access to point solutions. It’s not enough to build in personalized guidance only within the context of enrollment. Employees use benefits throughout the year and need help making smart decisions and accessing personalized resources that can result in better outcomes for the employee and the organization. Modern benefits portals are the personalized hub where employees can access all their benefits and care navigation services to help them find quality care at the best cost. For instance, rather than simply heading to the hospital, they can be directed to an outpatient clinic providing services for a fraction of the cost.
The Impact of a Benefits Portal on the Employee Experience
The importance of benefits portals is clear, but it’s also valuable to understand how that translates to the employee experience.
- Happier, healthier employees. Employees can't be expected to become benefits experts, no matter how hard benefits teams try to educate them on all their program has to offer. Benefits are often perceived as too complex and too overwhelming. On the other hand, when employees have self-service tools combined with a personalized experience, they never have to feel that frustration or run up against barriers that result in unoptimized benefits. They can experience the potential of your benefits program, keeping them healthy and happy in the long run.
- Connections across health and wealth. Most employees are spending too much and saving too little. Making the connection between benefits and health care costs can feel like doing quantum physics for the layperson. Plus, with health care, retirement and savings often operating (and thought about!) in silos, it may seem impossible for employees to feel confident in their decisions without the right level of support. A benefits portal ties it all together in a holistic experience so employees can quickly see how health and wealth interact, their interdependencies, and how they can make the best decisions that balance what they need today and what they will require tomorrow.
- Valuing benefits = valuing employer. An optimal employee experience means utilizing their benefits in a way that helps them make the most of their plan. They don’t have to figure out as much for themselves because they’re directed to the next best action. They avoid bad decisions and realize better health outcomes. Ultimately, they appreciate the value of their benefits (and they value their employer) because you’re providing a benefits portal that serves up the best choices in a timely, relevant way.
3 Tips to Choosing a Benefits Portal Partner
Selecting the right benefits automation and engagement solution – with the benefits portal at its heart – includes considering factors unique to your team like budget and company size. It's also critical to find a vendor who acts as a true partner and enabler of success. Here are a few differentiators to keep in mind:
- Industry expertise and automation. When it comes to a benefits technology and service partner, you want one that brings deep domain expertise across all areas of the organization. Consider the team and the processes they bring to both operations and the technology. You want to be confident that your partner can effectively take on any administrative challenges, no matter how complex.
- Innovative approach to data. Data is foundational, and if your partner can’t get your data working for you, then you’re not getting the most out of the partnership. The solution you choose should be able to help you get the insight you need to optimize your benefits program performance, driving accuracy, timeliness, accessibility and usability. Look for a platform that uses a truly centralized data model that will make your data a strategic accelerator and keep you innovation-ready with emerging technology.
- Service delivery. Service excellence is a top priority. And any benefits partner you select should be one with a shared passion to deliver for clients and transform the industry. Identify the service levels across their client base to determine if you’re making the right partner selection. They should have high levels of service support, starting with implementation and extending to how they support customers throughout the journey.
Setting Your Benefits Team Up for Success
Adopting a benefits portal can translate to radical simplification of the entire benefits process, one where benefits administrators can cut out administrative noise and tap into big picture strategy and where employees can maximize the impact of their benefits.
