5 Reasons to Outsource Benefits Administration Tasks

Employee benefits administration outsourcing is becoming a large and growing part of an employer’s overall business strategy.  Turning benefits administration from a back office function over to a trusted administrator can promote efficiency, increase compliance, and improve overall employee satisfaction.  If not done well, employees may feel the company doesn’t care about them and that can put a company at risk.

The following are 5 important reasons to outsource benefit administration responsibilities:

1. Right-sizes your staff. Outsourcing benefits administration can free up HR resources.  Existing HR personnel can now focus on more strategic activities, such as shortening response time for employee concerns, increasing employee engagement and retention, and recruiting top talent. 

2. Makes expertise affordable. A benefits outsourcing company can give you access to a superior level of talent and knowledge without taking on the expense of an in-house benefits expert.  Hiring in-house benefits expertise doesn’t come cheap and is often out of reach for small to medium sized businesses. 

3. Boosts efficiency. A great employee benefits administration outsourcing company can help employers streamline their processes and find ways to reduce over and underpayment of premiums for insurance plans and other programs. They can also help employers create effective employee benefit communications. 

4. Reduces exposure. Outsourcing benefits administration can reduce liability in the case of mistakes.  It also protects companies by implementing ‘objective checks and balances’ between management and those who make the day to day decisions about terminations.

5. Upgrading technology. Working with an outsourcing company gives organizations the opportunity to upgrade their technology without incurring big investments in IT infrastructure.  Consumer attitudes toward technology have become far more sophisticated in recent years, and those expectations extend to how workplace benefits are administered.  Employees expect well-designed online benefit enrollment systems that they can access from anywhere, 24/7.  Building such a site internally -- with the security headaches involved when managing sensitive healthcare data -- is a massive undertaking.  A benefits administration company has already done that work in advance.  The best companies can even tailor the site with your branding and messages.

Health and welfare benefits is one of the largest and fastest growing expenses incurred by organizations today.  From open enrollments, onboarding new benefited employees, managing payroll benefits deductions up to and including COBRA; outsourcing benefit administration tasks is increasingly becoming a compelling and viable strategy.

For more information regarding MosaicHR’s benefits administration outsourcing, contact us at (303) 645-4270 or visit www.mosaices.com.

Time and Attendance – What’s the ROI?

As we continue to hear questions regarding time and attendance return on investment (ROI), we started to think to ourselves “What is the ROI of time and attendance – Does everyone really know?

With payroll typically taking up 50-60 percent of businesses’ operating expenses, companies want to ensure that payroll dollars aren’t being wasted and that the highest return possible is achieved from that investment. This is where automated time and attendance applications, also known as time and labor management applications, come into play… But how do companies quantify the ROI of their on-premise or SaaS-based software purchase?

That’s a great question – thanks to all of you who have brought that up!

There are three core areas in which time and attendance applications return much more than what is paid for them:

1. Control and reduce labor costs

In order to achieve this, the first step is getting insight into exactly where payroll dollars are being invested. Companies need to see which employees are in and out of work – they need visibility into who’s coming or leaving early and late, or who’s absent entirely.

There are several areas of workforce management that can be improved in order to manage labor costs accordingly – here are a few big ones:

• Absence – According to Mercer, the direct and indirect costs of absence alone can make up 34.2 percent of payroll expenses. From planned absences like vacation to unplanned absences like sick time, managing absence in an automated fashion allows companies to track accrued time off accurately and make staffing adjustments to cover for absent employees.
• Overtime – Unplanned overtime can be a huge, and often unforeseen, payroll cost. By keeping tabs on employees’ timesheets and getting alerts for employees who approach overtime, companies can easily reduce this cost by finding alternative coverage for the position.
• Accuracy – There are tons of companies out there that simply pay employees for the time they’re scheduled to work. However, what if they’re continuously coming in late and/or leaving early? How about if they continuously take long lunches? They’re still being paid for that time they are not working, which is a cost that’s easily controlled. By simply automating the collection of time worked, companies can ensure employees are getting paid accurately for the time they actually work – no more, no less.
• Demand – By having the ability to manage a workforce in real-time, companies gain the ability to make staffing adjustments based on the external factors of that business – either proactively or as they happen. For example, companies should be able to plan for historically slow or extremely busy shopping days in retail. And if the forecast calls for inclement weather, and shopping is typically reduced in these instances, schedules can be adjusted accordingly.

2. Improve productivity

Another area companies can track where payroll dollars are being invested is what employees actually work on, and how much work they do. By tracking the departments, jobs, and tasks of employees, companies can get a great understanding of what’s actually being invested in with their payroll dollars. Perhaps they’ll gain insight that sales people are spending more time on administrative functions then they are on actual sales, and be able to address it accordingly from there.

Alternatively, in a manufacturing business, management should be able to track the piece work of each employee (i.e. how many widgets they can produce), which will give them insight into the most effective and productive employees they have. On the flipside, they’ll also see who the least effective employees are and can invest in training for these employees and/or open up new job requisitions to find better talent.

Time and attendance solutions also provide a great avenue to make management and administrators more productive, allowing them to spend less time on manual processes like creating schedules, approving time off, monitoring employee time, etc.

3. Minimize risk of noncompliance

There are virtually endless pieces of legislation that companies must comply with from the FLSA to the FMLA to the ACA. And if there’s one thing that can be said about non-compliance, it’s that non-compliance costs big bucks! The Department of Labor (DOL) has people employed in the agency that are solely responsible for finding non-compliant companies. If accused of non-compliance for the FMLA, for instance, the cost for a company can range from $78,000 to $150,000, and that’s just to get to trial! And then let’s say that company loses the trial, additional fees can include:

• Employee reimbursement for any monetary loss incurred
• Equitable relief
• Attorney’s fees
• Expert witness fees
• Court costs
• Liquid damages

When you think about the cost for automated time and attendance, it seems pretty nominal when you start thinking about the potential ROI. At Mosaic, we also provide an automated system that helps our clients comply with ACA requirements and reporting. Check out our video highlighting all of the capabilities that our ACA Manager can do for your business here. 

Looking for more details on this topic? Hear it from the experts and give Mosaic a call at 303-645-4270 or visit our website at www.mosaices.com

4 Reasons Businesses Need to Be Outsourcing Workforce Management to a Local Service Provider

No matter the size, all businesses are required to manage their workforce in one way or another. Whether that’s through processing payroll, recording employee work hours, or even performing HR functions. It’s an ongoing process that has to be done promptly and more importantly, it has to be done right.

For small to mid-sized businesses, dealing with the everyday challenges of maintaining a successful operation can be stressful enough, let alone adding back office tasks to the mix. The one way for businesses to eliminate these often mundane and time-consuming tasks is to automate and outsource them to you, a trusted service provider. By offering your services and expertise in combination with an automated workforce management platform, businesses can finally get back to focusing on what they do best.

As you may know, the benefits of outsourcing workforce management functions are plentiful. However, we have included the top four reasons why outsourcing is beneficial (if not essential) to the success of small to midsized businesses.

1. Lowers business expenses by reducing labor costs.

Automating and outsourcing workforce management processes results in fewer responsibilities for a business to have to worry about. This eliminates the need for unnecessary labor, such as bookkeeping or administration and allows the business to invest their money where it really counts.

2. Helps businesses to minimize liabilities.

With constant changes in labor laws and regulations, and the intricacies of processes like tax filing, it becomes nearly impossible for smaller businesses to stay abreast of every detail involved. Noncompliance can become a huge problem for businesses, costing them thousands of dollars in penalties and legal fees. However, businesses who outsource these processes can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their service providers stay well-informed with all current laws and regulations to help them remain in compliance.

3. Increases overall workforce productivity.

Outsourcing workforce management processes enables staff to concentrate on the core of their business’s success by freeing up their time from unnecessary tasks. With increased flexibility, a business can worry less about making sure things like payroll are processed on time and focus more on strategic initiatives that can improve their bottom line.

4. Allows businesses to take advantage of service providers’ expertise and knowledge.

There are no better experts in the workforce management field than skilled, regional service providers. Equipped with tools and other valuable resources, they serve as local specialists to their clients. Automated workforce management platforms provide a great solution for routine tasks but service providers offer an extra advantage by giving professional insight and tailoring solutions to the specific needs of a business.

It’s hard to imagine businesses not seeing the value of outsourcing and automating workforce management functions. It’s cost-effective, reliable and better yet, it’s stress-free. 

To get further insight from experts on the benefits of outsourcing, give us a call at 303-645-4270, visit us at mosaices.com or email us at info@mosaices.com. We are excited for the opportunity to talk with you and see if there are ways to help your company thrive.