A seamless online experience for driving best-fit employee enrollment selections.

At Workscape, we understand that controlling HR costs and optimizing corporate performance are the responsibilities of every employee. That’s why we offer a comprehensive Outsourced Benefits Administration (OBA) solution that transforms the annual benefits enrollment process from a routine transaction to a strategic business process.

This study was conducted by the Human Capital Institute and Workscape in February 2009. It is based on a survey of 308 HCI members, more than half of whom are human capital and human resources managers, directors and executives. This study was co ‐ developed and underwritten by Workscape .

In Workscape's third annual Benefits Trends Survey, see how companies are adjusting their benefits decisions during the economic recovery.

Annual enrollment… If you’re like most HR professionals, it is viewed as a time of year that is to be survived, not welcomed. The truth, however, is there is no better time of year to reinforce your commitment to employees, provide them with an opportunity to identify and select the plan that is best for their personal and financial needs and to drive participation in the plans and programs that can yield significant cost savings for employees and employer alike.  View this Webcast to learn more.

In this edition of Workscape’s Practitioner’s Webinar Series, Donna Dupre, Manager Outsourced Benefits Administration, Workscape and Diane Mulhall, Manager, Implementation Consulting, will discuss how recent healthcare changes and trends in compensation are affecting organizations, and what has worked and what hasn’t as companies have labored through 2009 and move into 2010. Veterans of dozens of compensation and benefits projects in the US and abroad, Dupree and Mulhall will share the lessons learned from their participation with dozens of companies that have been challenged and either succeeded or failed at overcoming their compensation and benefits issues.

What problems are keeping other benefits administrators up at night? What programs and incentives worked effectively over the past year to engage employees? How are other administrators dealing with costs? Find out these items as well other insights into how organizations are managing their benefits in a changing regulatory environment.

• What size organizations are twice as likely to outsource open enrollment as mid-sized or small organizations?
• What are organizations doing about Consumer-Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) or High-Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs)?
• What are firms doing to save costs?
• Are health/disease management programs becoming more prevalent?
• How are firms driving employee engagement?
• Do employers believe the new healthcare act will increase or decrease costs?
  

Cutting costs. It’s an activity that’s always in fashion for organizations of any size or industry, but it is particularly important in today’s challenging economic environment. As an HR professional, you understand that providing healthcare benefits to your employees is an area of significant expense. You also understand that healthcare benefits represent a critical – and often times emotional – component of the employee experience. During “Decision Support, Incentives & The Bottom Line” - an informative 60-minute webcast - Marc Moschetto, Director of Product Marketing for Workscape, and Colleen Murphy, President and CEO of Asparity Decision Solutions will share insights, strategies and best practices.

What's happening with benefits?  Join this webcast to hear the results from Workscape's 3rd Annual Benefit's Survey. As healthcare plan costs continue to increase, this year’s survey examined four areas: costs savings; communications; economic pressures; and political issues. A total of 868 responses were collected from individuals with benefits program knowledge; titles included benefits manager; vice president, HR; and CEO.

This large survey covers trends in practices to reduce health care costs, improve the health of employees, and handle administration issues like open enrollment. The survey also looks at how employees are reacting to stress and what organizations have done in light of the pending changes in health care legislation.

There’s no shortage of news, facts and figures detailing how current economic conditions are creating challenges for businesses and individuals alike. From a Human Resources perspective, however, there hasn’t been a comprehensive review of how the down economy is affecting this critical business function… until now.  Workscape has teamed-up with the Human Capital Institute and created a study aimed at gaining a comprehensive snapshot of how HR teams are responding to today’s unprecedented economic events. During this informative webcast, we’ll share the results with you.

Share client engagement managers’ experiences implementing HR solutions for some of the most complex organizations in the world and discuss the mistakes some made, and the techniques used that drove not only successful projects, but long term benefits. 

Take this opportunity to hear the lessons learned over years of real-world technology implementations working with some of the most sophisticated HR teams in the world.

Join Workscape for the second annual Look Back/Look Ahead webinar.  After conducting market research, having direct conversations with industry analysts and leading HR professionals and reviewing the news of the day; Moschetto and Mattson assess HR trends and events that occurred in 2009 and how they affected HR practitioners.  In addition, they will look into how the events of today and potential happenings in 2010 will drive change in the coming 12 months.  Join Workscape for a forward looking, interactive and entertaining session with these two industry thought leaders.  Moschetto and Mattson have been published in Talent Management Magazine, Workspan, The Compensation Handbook, HRO Today and EBPR.

According to experts the recession ended in June of 2009, but 2010 did not see the return of pre-recession compensation or benefits levels.  Listen as David Turetsky, Director of Talent Strategy (contributor to the Compensation Handbook), and Jessica Cote, Benefits Administration Product Manager, look back at 2010 to review the events in compensation and benefits and look forward to the future trends of 2011.

Topics include:

• Techniques to effectively leverage smaller compensation budgets
• Advancements in wellness and wellness programs during 2010
• Methods to retain top performers in a rebounding job market
• Strategies to communicate benefits value to your employees

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, health care premiums have gone up about 130% since 1999. Not 30%. One hundred thirty percent. At the same time, the cost of milk has only risen 33%, and even the federal minimum wage has only gone up 41%. And, chances are, benefits professionals are just keeping pace with what was being delivered in years past. Or they may even be delivering less than what was previously afforded. Either way, the cost of medical coverage is now more than $10,000 per year for employee-plus-one healthcare coverage, or more than $15,000 for a family—and that’s money an organization can now no longer spend to build the business and develop its’ employees.

As an employer, you understand that the benefits you provide represent a very personal - very critical - part of the employee experience. You also understand that, given today's volatile economic climate, you're being tasked to contribute to the company's overall cost reduction goals and healthcare in particular is under the microscope. Outsourcing the benefits administration process can deliver significant, measurable cost savings for employer and employee alike, but many organizations are apprehensive. The word "outsourcing" itself tends to trigger strong emotions and, as a result, there are some myths which have cropped-up which sometimes cloud the facts. View this Webcast to separate outsourcing fact from fiction.

What do the numbers 17, 300 and 16,000 have in common? In research by Gallup, they found:

• 17% of the workforce is actively disengaged.
• The impact of this disengagement is approximately $300b in lost productivity per year.
• The cost of an actively disengaged employee is $16,000 per year.

Businessweek recently released a study that showed the number of disengaged employees increased by 45% in the past year.  What if we could help you deliver world class benefits that help you turn unhappy, disengaged employees into active, engaged workers?  Please join us for a 1 hour webinar that discusses the impact of disengaged employees and what a firm can do about them to become a world class organization.

As a benefits leader, it is imperative for you to be able to provide business insight and perspective on the proposed health care changes to your organization. The new plan proposal directly impacts how you provide and deliver benefits to your employees. For an up-to-the-minute perspective on the challenges you are expected to face and the issues you’ll need to address, join us for a briefing on the 2009 Affordable Health Choices Act -- Its impact to HR and Benefit Professionals, their employers and employees. This discussion is lead by Marie Armenio, SPHR. Marie is a former Chief Human Resources Officer and has worked in the benefits arena for a number of years. She has guided organizations through the maze of benefit legislation and regulation and her business perspective and common sense approach will leave you with things to consider as you prepare your organization for the significant changes to come.

Justifying the expense to change a HR process or implement a system can be more challenging than the actual implementation of that change.  How can change be quantified to the point where you can point to both the hard dollar benefits and quality improvements?  In this webinar Robert Mattson, Senior Manager of Product Marketing, will walk through the quantifiable advantages of outsourcing benefits and how those benefits can be presented effectively to a CFO.

What ever happen to the paperless office? Benefits administration would appear to be a good area to move towards paperless but it has not materialized on a wide scale basis. Is your organization thinking about going electronic for your participant communications? It may be the right choice for you and your organization, but it’s not always the best fit for each situation. Margaret Powers, Benefits Communications Manager has created and managed creative HR communication programs for dozens of companies as the head of the communications team at Workscape.

Margaret answers the questions about all aspects of communications programs and how they can impact your organization in a number of different ways

Employers are continually looking for methods to manage rising benefits costs. One area that is gaining increased acceptance is the use of incentives to drive more cost effective benefits choices.

In this webinar archive we discuss:

• What types of incentives employers are using
• How the use of incentives are increasing across all business sizes 
• How you can use technology to track the use of incentives.

Your organization may outsource benefits administration to reduce healthcare costs and provide a better employee experience – yet there’s more to employee satisfaction than Web-based tools.  When the rubber meets the road during enrollments, what often matters most to employees is who they can reach when they have questions.  Selecting an HR service center (call center) means entrusting that center at a critical part of your employees’ experience – selecting healthcare options for themselves and their families.

Perhaps the riskiest parts of an M&A event lie in retaining the talent in the acquired or divested company as uncertainty causes fear and flight. From a benefits perspective, you want all the changes to be executed seamlessly for the affected employees to minimize the impact of the sudden change. This paper covers some of the many benefits administration issues you’ll need to address as the M&A transaction proceeds.

As an objective third-party, the CFO has a wider scope of considerations for the justification of any expense. The most important being is the project saving the company money and hence paying for itself. While things like saved time and making life better for employees are important, and may carry some weight, they are secondary to those projects with hard dollars savings when competing against others for a piece of the corporate budget. So, there are two steps to building your business case for outsourcing benefits administra-tion; first quantify the benefits, and second, assemble your points in a way that will have maximum impact from the CFO’s point of view.

Given today’s economy, HR teams are being asked to reduce expenses and do more with less. With healthcare costs receiving greater scrutiny, there’s no better time to consider outsourcing benefits administration… but first, download this whitepaper and separate outsourcing fact from fiction.

With employees shouldering greater out-of-pocket costs and higher co-pays, costconscious consumers need more information to understand the nuances of plan options so they can make the most appropriate decisions. This requires a mindset shift among employers and employees, alike. To encourage employees to think like health care consumers, employers need to think like health care retailers.

Workscape and Workforce Magazine have teamed-up to conduct the 2nd Annual Employee Benefits Trends report.