A benefit manager shares strategies for alleviating admin burdens

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Benefit leaders are becoming increasingly bogged down by the benefit administration process, and it's keeping them from some of the more meaningful aspects of their jobs. 

HR and benefit managers currently spend 12 hours on average — more than a fourth of their work week — on payroll and benefit-related administrative tasks, according to a recent employee benefits report from benefit management platform Payroll Integrations. Twenty-seven percent admit to spending 20 hours or more on these tasks. As a result, benefit leaders are stretched thin and struggling to keep up with the rest of their responsibilities. 

"The whole idea of the benefit administration process [being challenging] is not really new to any of us," says Leslie Bostic, SVP of HR at Amalgamated Life Insurance Company. "We are in a very highly regulated industry and with everything we do, we're thinking about how it's related to each other. It can be trying and taxing."

HR and benefit leaders are expected to handle a number of other benefit administration responsibilities that take time away from people management, Bostic says. This includes navigating compliance requirements, preparing for audits and ensuring that the organization is properly registered and compliant in every state where employees are hired — a task made especially challenging in a remote and hybrid-first workforce. They also track payroll tax obligations, understand state-specific employment and termination rules and keep systems up to date.

Many of these responsibilities are relatively new to the HR and benefit space, Bostic says, and Payroll Integrations' report found that this recent increase of administrative work is keeping leaders from educating employees on their company benefits. Aside from being a core function of a benefits team, 73% of employees say they're looking for more of that support, making it imperative to find a better balance. 

Bostic shares how she's cutting through some of the noise with her own team, the current complexity of the benefits landscape, and how organizations can move forward in the future. 

Why has the nature of the HR and benefits leader role changed so much?

Keeping people engaged in the organization and helping individuals with their career goals and aspirations is a [beloved part] of the job and we can't spend as much time on it because we're running thin. The administration and compliance issues that we are responsible for are considered way more time sensitive than our other responsibilities so they need to be addressed first. 

Most people on my team would like to spend a little more time handling the more strategic aspects of their job, like talking to employees, figuring out how to retain people and discovering new ways to enhance the benefits that we currently offer. For example, we have a different 401(k) structure than most and tuition reimbursement plans and development training programs, so they'd like to spend time educating people on what that means. 

What are some of the consequences for benefit teams, and the organization as a whole?

We get so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what needs to get done that sometimes we miss details. For example, within our organization one of our businesses has a 24-hour schedule, so they get differential pay for different times. However, certain states are required to pay people within a certain number of days, and so that becomes a juggling act where it's easy to make mistakes. The fear itself of making mistakes is pervasive in a benefit administrator and manager's mind, and it's taxing on them and impacts their focus even though they're doing the very best they can. 

Overall morale within the organization also takes a hit. For employees, seemingly little things like appreciation efforts such as holiday incentives and reward programs get sacrificed because HR leaders don't have the time to oversee them and that affects their productivity.  For HR teams themselves, it affects the way they see themselves in their role and it stunts their ability to connect with employees the way they need to. 

Are there any solutions organizations can leverage?

The obvious answer is for organizations to approach their staffing strategy differently and look at specific roles that may need more support. In our payroll department we have two people, but because we deal with employees who are not exempt from overtime, we need one complete person to just track time instead of splitting the responsibility with other low priority tasks because it's necessary. To solve that, we've considered adding a more junior HR person to help with some of the more employee engagement activities that aren't necessarily at a super high strategic level — like activities and education opportunities — to free up the senior manager's time. 

The other thing, of course, is that organizations could do a better job of taking advantage of what AI and technology can do to help us identify and address some of the more tactical pieces of our jobs. 

Why is it so important to prioritize the continued support of benefit teams?

They're critical to an organization's success. We need to focus on their needs, their health and well-being and how they feel they're progressing in their career — not only how they're helping everybody else do that. That's what will not only make them more engaged and happy in their role that they're in, it will make them more successful and effective in it. Sometimes these employees are in the same role for a very long time because we need them to be experienced and be skilled in the tasks we need. But to do that, organizations have to find ways to keep their jobs interesting, or they'll need to find someone else.

Source: EBN