Delivering phenomenal employee experiences with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits

Benefits costs continue to rise.  In fact, employee benefits made up one-third of an organizations total compensation costs in 2018. As such, benefits are under scrutiny from the C-suite.  So, it comes as no surprise to see benefits leaders continue to be in the hot seat to manage benefits costs.

Benefits are a powerful tool for an organization to attract and retain top talent and can save the company a significant amount of money in turnover costs when done well.  A recent survey found that organizations that take a strategic approach to benefits programs achieve 58% better company performance, are 19% more effective in recruitment and 28% more effective in retention compared with organizations that do not.

However, designing benefits packages and effectively communicating those benefits to employees are not enough for organizations to stay competitive in a tight labor market.  In today’s experience economy, employees expect engaging and individualized experiences at work, and they expect this from their benefits experience too.

Employee experience is critical to business success. Organizations that deliver exceptional employee experiences achieve better business results and outperform the competition – they realize 17% higher productivity, 3x revenue per employee, and 40% lower turnover.  (Gallup, 2018)

Recent technology innovations have enabled simplicity, flexibility, convenience and personalization for consumers.  It is critical that companies mirror these consumer experiences in the workplace to meet employee expectations with regards to benefits.

For example, employees expect a personalized, simple benefits enrollment experience and that’s just what they get with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits.  The benefits enrollment page features step-by-step instructions, easy access to policy documents, benefits dependency rules so employees enroll in the right plans, and a shopping cart view to review benefits elections prior to enrollment.

Image 1:Benefits enrollment

Employees have also come to expect, and even demand mobile access.  Did you know that mobile is so pervasive in society that more people in the world own a cell phone than own a toothbrush?!  Mobile access can make benefits engagement much easier with anywhere, anytime access.  SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits offers employees the option to view and complete benefits tasks such as submit a claim using the SAP SuccessFactors Mobile app for iOS and Android devices.

Image 2: Benefits on mobile

Simplicity, convenience and flexibility are key drivers of employee satisfaction and engagement in the workplace.  Self-service tools help organizations deliver engaging experiences by empowering employees to complete tasks on their own without having to rely on HR shared services teams.  Let’s take a look at a specific use case to illustrate this point.

Benefits reimbursement programs often vary from country to country.  For example, benefits reimbursements programs may span multiple years, restrict the number of claims that can be submitted in a certain period of time, or have a fiscal year that does not match the calendar year.  All these configurations require that the benefits technology solution be flexible enough to handle these requirements while providing employees with a simple user experience that provides visibility into their complete claims history (not limited to the current calendar year). Many benefits solutions are unable to handle these variations, and this results in manual processes, reliance on HR, and a poor employee experience.

With SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits employee self-service tools, such as the claims history page (available on People Profile 3), employees get a complete view of all historical claims so they can easily see what benefits they have already claimed. This is useful in cases where employees are only allowed to file one claim in a defined time period such as monthly claims for mobile reimbursements or home office connectivity.  From this view, employees can see all claims for a given period of time and can check the status of those claims.  Sorting, filtering and search functionality makes it easy for employees to locate past claims and audit or compare claims.  Additionally, the claims history can be exported for further analysis.

Image 3:Benefits claim history

To learn more about SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Global Benefits, please see the following relevant blog posts:

The benefits of giving employees instant access to their benefits information

New Employee Central Global Benefits pattern to support U.S. savings plans

I’d love to hear from you – feel free to leave questions in the comments section below!