We opened Eclipse 2018 in true style with our signature ‘Shots of Success’ event. This year’s panel consisted of seven PlanSource partners that shared their recent success stories. See firsthand how our clients and partners have overcome some serious HR and benefits challenges and help us celebrate their wins! And, don’t forget to snag your tickets to our 2019 event in Park City, Utah. 

Employees Own Their Experience

The journey of a Fortune 60 high-tech trailblazer

Mark Stelzner, Founder/Managing Principal | IA HR 

The Company: Silicon Valley tech leader, $200B market cap, 80,000+ employees, 96 countries

The Challenge: Harmonizing 400+ benefits offerings, personalizing the HR experience, creating unique and easily consumed benefits communications

Solution: An integrated benefits program

When this Silicon Valley tech leader came to IA HR, they had several complex human resources challenges to overcome. The company currently operates in almost 100 countries across the globe and was struggling to personalize the HR experience. Additionally, streamlining the 400+ benefits offerings and creating simple, consumable benefits collateral that employees actually wanted to use was a challenge.

The HR transformation began with a transparent overhaul to achieve the lofty goal of connecting everything, innovating everywhere and benefiting everyone. They began to focus on ‘moments that matter’ in the employee experience on a micro level versus focusing solely on the macro. The company also utilized an integrated benefits system to seamlessly offer an intuitive enrollment process with dedicated decision support tools. Additionally, the benefits solution offered 24/7 support via online chat features, a full call center and more.

The HR and benefits changes implemented by IA HR increased employee engagement, improved administrative efficiencies, and created a more connected and cohesive employee and HR experience.

The Benefits of Outsourcing

How Learning Care Group transformed employee benefits

Jamie Higdon, Director of Compensation Benefits | Learning Care Group 

The Company: 900+ schools across several states, 130,000+ children served, 7 individual brands

The Challenge: Distributed workforce, lean HR team, 98% female, no corporate email addresses, 1,000+ new hires per month, 70% Millennials

Solution: Benefits Outsourcing

Learning Care Group partnered with PlanSource for a full benefits outsourcing solution in 2011. The lean internal HR team was struggling to manage the day-to-day demands of a growing organization and they needed to find a streamlined, efficient solution. The goal of outsourcing was to spend less time on administrative HR tasks and to shift focus on more strategic initiatives.

The Learning Care Group outsourcing solution included an employee contact center, benefits billing, COBRA administration, employee communications and dependent verification. Jamie noted that outsourcing benefits administration did indeed allow her team to focus on more strategic initiatives, the entire benefits administration process is more convenient and efficient, and the dependent verification sourced major savings opportunities by identifying ineligible plan participants.

You can learn more about how Learning Care Group leveraged benefits outsourcing in this free webinar.

A Spoonful of Planning Goes a Long Way for Tressenoire’s Workforce

Janine Truitt, Chief Innovations Officer | Talent Think Innovations 

The Company: Tressenoire

The Challenge: Plans for rapid expansion, no workforce strategy, independent contractor employees

Solution: TAAR Method (Talent, Action, Accountability, Resources)

Tressenoire, a mobile haircare service for natural hair, launched with a noble mission – to help busy, on-the-go moms manage their hair care through a convenient, on-demand service model. The launch was well received and Tressenoire had an aggressive growth plan, though they faced several critical obstacles in the process. Their expansion plans were floundering due primarily to a lack of a cohesive workforce strategy and poor management of their employee base that consists exclusively of independent contractors.

With the help of Janine’s signature TAAR method (talent, action, accountability, resources), Tressenoire was able to reduce the time between application submission to hire by 50% and they increased the overall volume of job applicants by 25%. To achieve these impressive results, Janine worked with Tressenoire to redefine critical roles within the organization, identify new roles to support rapid growth and develop a realistic model for scaling the business.

Creative Financing for BrandSafway

Using voluntary benefits to offset the cost of technology

Mark Rieder, Senior Vice President | NFP

The Company: BrandSafway

The Challenge: Large company merger

Solution: System integration with Ultimate Software, creative financing through PlanSource Advantage program

NFP faced several unique challenges with one of their key clients, BrandSafway. Created from the merge of two companies, the new brand had over 25,000 total employees. After the restructuring, the new brand needed a benefits and human resources solution that could handle their complicated employee base, that would provide exceptional service and that could handle complex data integrations and report.

NFP looked to PlanSource as the benefits administration partner to help tackle some of the unique challenges. A few deciding factors that helped set PlanSource apart included the strong relationship and integration with Ultimate Software, a customer-first service model, and saving opportunities provided through the signature PlanSource Advantage program. With this exclusive program, select carriers provide employers credits that can be used to offset the cost of technology, a win/win for all parties. NFP was able to reduce the base client fees for BrandSafway by 50%!

Showcasing our Investment in Employees at Johns Hopkins Health Systems

Tami Wlajntiz, Program Manager | Johns Hopkins Health Care LLC

The Company: Johns Hopkins Health Care

The Challenge: Rapid growth and expansion, offering competitive, cost-effective benefit packages

Solution: Total compensation statements

Johns Hopkins Health Care was experiencing rapid growth and expansion and needed an innovative new way to showcase benefits and compensation packages for recruiting and retention efforts. Johns Hopkins launched digital total compensation statements in 2016 to collect and combine various benefits offerings to better demonstrate the full value of employee benefit packages. The custom solution offers an appealing and agnostic user interface that easily integrates with multiple data sources and serves as a venue for employee feedback. The phased launch was completed within 12 weeks and 34% of employees have viewed their statements. The feedback from HR managers and senior executives has been extremely positive across the board.

You can learn more about total compensation statements in this free webinar.

How a Large Hospital System Saved $1.2 Million by Switching Technology

Kate Taylor, Vice President | Benefits Technology Resources 

The Company: Hospital with 1,200 EE’s, “all-inclusive” TPA

The Challenge: System and data challenges, open enrollment inefficiencies, ACA reporting

Solution: PlanSource benefits administration & ACA solution

Benefits Technology Resources knew they had their hands full when they partnered with a new hospital client that had 1,200 EE’s under an all-inclusive TPA. The TPA in question only stored core benefits; everything else was managed via paper and manual tracking. There were several processes that required customer service requests. Employees were generally unaware of the generous company contributions, employee benefit elections were often manual and admins couldn’t make benefit changes on their own. Instead, managers and to contact TPA in order to complete enrollment on EE’s behalf. The solution offered no ACA reporting and employees had to digitally access 1095 forms.

By implementing a modern benefits administration system, the client increased efficiency, simplified processes and unbundled benefits, which led to $1.2 million in savings in the first year after implementation!

Admins now have real-time reporting at their fingertips and more control over their data and processes as a whole. The entire open enrollment process was overhauled and admins have been very pleased with the changes. Additionally, admins are now able to track and confirm the 900+ employees in the system and maintain coverage compliance.

The Fear of Ruining Everything Forever

How doubt disrupts decision-making

Amanda Lanners, Chief Executive Officer | Jellyvision 

The Company: Principal

The Challenge: Retirement Savings Contributions

Solution: ALEX, by Jellyvision (Decision Support)

Benefits are complicated, and most education initiatives and decision support tools fall short of the needs of the modern employee base. Enter ALEX, a witty, engaging decision support solution by Jellyvision. Alex’s conversational tone uses layman’s terms and behavioral science to guide employees through a personalized benefits shopping experience.

Principal, a financial management firm, partnered with Jellyvision to better educate employees on retirement savings opportunities and strategies. The custom solution allowed employees to lock in their 401(k) deferral option immediately after ALEX made a deferral recommendation, eliminating the gap between education and action.

The results? Principal clients using ALEX saw 3% higher contributions on average versus clients using traditional methods. 31% of ALEX users elected the annual auto-increase option compared to only 5% of the clients not using ALEX. And, 31% of employees contributed 10% or more of their annual pay compared to only 7% of non-ALEX users.

Learn more about PlanSource’s partnership with Jellyvision.

Cheers! View The Full Shots of Success Presentation

Kick back with your favorite beverage and celebrate these amazing HR transformations.