Benefits are a critical aspect of employee satisfaction and company success. So it’s no surprise that the second question a candidate asks is usually about benefits. The first being the salary package, of course.

The point is that benefits help to attract and retain employees and increase their engagement and motivation. And, let’s face it, these are all essential factors in driving sales and increasing revenue.

However, there’s a problem. Benefits management can be quite challenging. There are no set rules, and the regulations keep changing. You may have a slew of offerings to attract and retain employees. If your human resources department, however, is unable to manage the process simply and effectively every day, those benefits will not have as huge a positive impact as they should.

That’s why we’ve put together three actionable steps to help you better manage your employee benefits.

Go Simple by Incorporating Tools

It’s easy to think of a simple benefits administration plan as a sub-par approach, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you’re overwhelmed by manual data management, you may want to start gearing towards streamlining. For a process like benefits administration, where things can change quickly, a simplified approach is essential for accuracy.

An excellent way to do this is to incorporate employee benefits software to automate various tasks and ease information accessibility and retrieval. The right HR tools can positively impact your company’s culture. Many robust human capital management (HCM) tools perform a wide range of services, including performance, recruiting and succession planning, in addition to benefits administration. There’s more to using tools, though.

You can easily leverage the right tools to get better demographic and enrollment insights into your population trends. As an added benefit, the effective use of tools can help employees better understand and appreciate your benefits packages.

The bottom line is this: whether your company acquires a new business or you are responsible for managing multiple benefit programs, always aim to simplify by using tools. After all, the right software can accommodate some of the most complex rules to easily allow you to keep track of employees and their positions, even when they change roles.

Gain and Make Decisions Through Critical Insights

Every business is moving towards a data-driven approach, and it’s not hard to see why. A benefits tool that provides easy information access will further streamline your process by allowing you to spot problems early and make informed decisions.

Think of it this way: would you rather keep track of employees’ progress in benefits signup by manually checking through piles of paperwork, or would you simply acquire a tool that shows how many employees have enrolled at a glance? Even for those who haven’t registered, some tools can show you where they are in the process, allowing you to determine if you should offer additional help or a simple reminder.

Speaking of employee signup progress, you could even go for a platform that provides you and your employees with highly relevant information. This could be in the form of enrollment assistance to help employees select the best benefits options for themselves and the company’s wallets.

Integrate with Other Platforms to Get Complete Visibility

It’s one thing to get a robust human capital management (HCM) tool, and it’s another to integrate it with your existing HR software.

Signing in and out of different systems to pull data is cumbersome. It is the opposite of what you’re trying to do, which is to simplify your processes. Because let’s face it, if your benefits platform is functionally separate from other aspects of human resources, you would find it difficult to understand your entire employee picture. A benefits solution that you can integrate with other HR functions can further improve your processes.

For example, say an employee has a benefits change, rather than adjusting other HR systems separately, an integrated platform will automatically reflect the change in payroll configurations and other necessary areas of the employee’s record. As a result, you would always have accurate, up-to-date information whether you’re looking at benefits, performance, payroll or any other aspect of the employee’s history.

Implement These Three Actionable Steps to Simply Your Employee Benefits Process

Managing employee benefits can be tasking, especially when done manually. That’s why the first step to simplifying the process is to use a platform that streamlines your employees’ data, highlights the most relevant information and coordinates with existing platforms to give you the complete picture of your workforce.