SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits

I have been planning to write a blog on Global Benefits for quite sometime and finally decided to write today .  Let’s look at one of the promising feature of Employee Central – Global Benefits.

Benefits : Benefits are either monetary or non-monetary components paid to an employee .  In general there are some mandatory benefits by law and which may vary from country to country ( for example superannuation in Australia and Provident Fund in India etc..) .

Apart from mandatory benefits there are other benefits  which may vary again from company to company or industry to industry  (for example car allowance, company house, food allowance, fuel allowance , health insurance , life insurance , gift vouchers, service anniversary vouchers etc.).

In EC , Benefits are classified into below categories.

1)Reimbursements and Allowance   :  These are benefits where an employee incurs expense, and submits a claim,  or the benefit is provided as an allowance directly in the salary. Some examples are Medical Bills , Fuel Allowance,Special Allowance etc.

2)Pension   :   It is a retirement benefit that an employee is entitled to at the time of retirement. This amount is to be paid regularly to an employee, following his/her retirement from service. To enable enough payment at the time of retirement, many employers offer this as a benefit where they contribute a certain percentage or amount to an employee’s chosen retirement fund. Employee also contributes to this. Pension, for example, provident fund, super, and pension fund.

3)Insurance : Insurance plans provide the protection to the policy holder and its dependents from life’s uncertainties or medical emergencies.

4)Benefits-in-kind:  These are the non-monetary benefits. Benefits-in-kind benefits are compensation given in a transaction which does not involve cash. Some examples are Company Housing, Company Car, Driver allowance, Long Service awards, Birthday Gifts, Child Birth.

Configuration settings required to use Benefits :    Below are the configuration settings required to use Global Benefits.

1. Make sure that Global Benefits is enabled in provisioning

     2.    Add  Global Benefits tab in succession data model  and import the data model

    3.Enable Employee Benefits view in  Configure Employee Files ( It is part of Admin Tools )

     4.Grant permission to employees to view Employee Benefits page.

  5.Import Standard Configuration file using Import and Export Data. Standard zip file contains the standard configuration related to global benefits and

   it can  be imported from Success Store directly. Select the Benefits and import it.

7.Create required picklist entries . Create Picklist entries such as Payment Option, Car Model etc.

8.Create Eligibility Rules : Eligibility rules define who is eligible for a particular benefit and how much is the eligible  entitlement amount for a benefit. Eligibility rules can be simple or complex and it is purely based on business requirements.

Employee Job information data can also be used as a decision parameters to determine the eligibility and entitlement amount.

For example :    Director level employees are eligible for Car allowance and entitlement   amount is 500 USD for month.

                         Manager level employees are eligible for Car allowance and entitlement amount is 300 USD for month.

Below is the simple business rule to define the eligibility amount based on legal entity and benefit type. If there are multiple parameters involved in determining the eligibility amount then defining lookup table and querying that in business rule is an ideal option.

Key objects to be created to make it work

Below key objects must be created by administrator.

                          1)Benefit : Benefit is the main object in Global Benefits and it comprises of below components  .

Benefit Type :  It defines  the type of benefit, for example  Reimbursement , Allowance , Pension, or Insurance.

Payroll Integration : If payroll integration is enabled,  record is created in compensation information automatically  once the claim is approved or enrollment is approved .

Eligibility Rule : This rule defines who is eligible for the benefit and how much is the entitlement amount .

Enrollment Required : It defines whether enrollment is required or not. If enrollment is not required , then the benefit would be displayed in the current benefit section of all eligible employees automatically.

Enrollment and Claim workflows : It defines the workflow to be triggered during enrollment and claims.

Benefit Schedule : It defines the dates such as enrollment valid dates, claim start and end dates.

Payment Options : It defines how the benefit amount is paid to an employee.

2)Benefit Program (Optional)  : Benefit program clubs related benefits together . For example  Life Insurance and Health Insurance can be clubbed under Benefit Program.

3)Benefit Schedule : It defines the dates such as enrollment valid dates, claim start and end dates and when enrollment starts and ends.

Benefits Overview Page

Employee Benefits page can be accessed through Employee Benefits  view under Employee Files.

Enrolled benefit would be displayed in Current Benefits Tile once enrollment is approved.

Life Event / System Triggered Benefits

The employee need not claim or enroll for these benefits specifically. Instead, the system automatically triggers benefit claim for all eligible employees.

Depending on the chosen trigger date, the benefit created causes the system to trigger the benefit on the occurrence of a life event of an employee during the course of employment. These events are as follows:

Occurrence of a Life Event (Marriage and Child Birth)

When an employee alters his or her marriage status to “married” or adds” Child” as a new dependent, the system triggers the creation of claim. Since these life events have no fixed frequency and occur only a specific number of times, system triggers the claim when there is a change to the Personal Information.

Job Based Trigger (Service Anniversaries and Birthday)

There are some benefits such as service anniversaries and birthdays that are based on the events occurring on a fixed frequency, (for example yearly, 3 years and so on). You must configure job-based schedule, for the system to automatically trigger claim for all eligible employees.

Note:  Trigger event must be specified for Triggered Benefits and no need to specify Benefit Schedule for these benefits.

Summary

1) Global Benefits is  MDF based feature and gives greater flexibility to configure benefits through UI.

2) Documents can also be attached as proofs during the claim process, so that claims can only be approved once proofs are verified.

3) Standard reports are available to check  enrollment and claim details.

4) It is not possible for anyone other than employe to enroll  for a benefit or benefit program .  If HR Admin wants to enroll an employee for a benefit,  he/she must use Proxy Now feature.

I hope this blog may help community to get some initial understanding about EC Global Benefits.

Previous Blogs:

SuccessFactors Employee Central Time Sheet and Time Valuation

SuccessFactors Employee Central and Compensation Integration