City of Kalamazoo
How they saved 4 weeks’ worth of HR
time at open enrollment
As a Kronos partner, City of Kalamazoo was excited to partner with PlanSource and implement their first benefits administration software. Despite being a small HR team of 5, their PlanSource project manager made implementation a breeze and they were able to launch in time for open enrollment. With PlanSource, the City of Kalamazoo revolutionized their enrollment process for both HR and employees.
Kalamazoo, MI
Public Sector
670
City of Kalamazoo
How did our OE compare to last year? There’s no comparison! I could literally sit here and watch as people were enrolling. And there was no paper. There was no shuffling, no losing documents, it was heaven!
SHELLEY DUSEK
Director of Human Resources, Labor Relations, City of Kalamazoo
The majority of the City of Kalamazoo’s workforce are union workers. Since they didn’t have a prior system in place, and each union group had its own set of benefits, the HR team had to manually key in employee information for each union website. Additionally, each open enrollment brought a lot of paperwork and documentation that would get shuffled or lost since none of it was done online. City of Kalamazoo’s HR team needed a solution that provided automation and organization to solve these challenges. Enter PlanSource.
- For each new hire, HR had to manually enter the information into the system and each of the individual benefits sites
- The City of Kalamazoo has a complex benefits structure with 12-15 different plans depending on the different union groups
- Without having prior software, HR dealt with a lot of paperwork that would get lost or cause data inconsistencies
Implementation began in June of 2020 with a go-live date of October 2020. While the HR team felt some stress related to navigating a project this large, the PlanSource project managers kept everyone on track and made the process as easy as possible.
HR was able to watch the system be built as well as review platform demos to learn how to use it. Additionally, they were provided with training materials to help them find different necessary resources. They appreciated this dual training opportunity as different HR members learned differently. They also greatly valued their project manager who was always available to answer questions and help troubleshoot.
For the first time, City of Kalamazoo’s HR team was able to sit back and watch an automated open enrollment happen before their eyes. Not only were they able to go paperless, but they got to watch employee enrollment progress via the platform dashboard and use the communications feature to make sure everyone enrolled on time.
The employee response was overwhelmingly positive. Many were able to easily answer questions and learn more about their benefits on their own by using the PlanSource educational content. HR saw an increased level of employee understanding, participation and satisfaction with their benefits.
- The communication feature made it easier to onboard new hires
- Reporting features allow HR to easily track who chose HSA and where they need to contribute funds
- Platform automatically applies the specific union eligibility rules that apply to each individual employee
1.5 hours
of admin effort saved per new hire
data accuracy in reporting
4 weeks
worth of HR time saved during Open Enrollment
Increased
employee participation and satisfaction
