This article is designed to give you a feel for what is involved in a typical implementation with us. Obviously each project is different but usually the same sorts of issues occur and there are always one or two last minute changes that need to be accommodated.
Introduction
The first thing to appreciate is that we are implementing a business process change. As such it is not something that Mazars Employee Benefits or HR do alone but rather it involves a number of groups working together to a common goal and plan. Our timescales are likely to be around 3 months:
- the first month is about understanding the "rules" of the benefit scheme that is to be implemented, the individual benefits and who is going to be responsible for administering what
- the second month captures the understanding gained into our administration platform in the form of a prototype and defining how data is going to flow between HR, payroll and the benefit providers
- the third month is about communicating the new scheme to the employees, fine tuning and testing the new process
Benefit Rules
One of the key aims of any project is to improve administration quality and efficiency. To do this requires the automation of a large part of the benefits administration process which in turn means that the benefit scheme rules have to be defined unambiguously. By benefit scheme rules we mean both the rules surrounding individual benefits and the scheme as a whole.
This is not as easy as it might first appear. For example consider a holiday benefit where "an employee is entitled to an extra day per year's service" . How is a year's service measured? is it at the start of the benefit year, calendar year or tax year? If calendar year what happens to the employee who started on 2nd January? is it service attained before a specified date or will be attained before a specified date?
Probably the majority of time spent implementing involves getting the rules accurate and checking that they represent what actually happens rather than what people think happens. We believe it is very difficult to read a formal specification and say whether something is right or not so we adopt a "living", iterative approach.
Soon after the implementation process kicks off we will produce the first iteration of your benefits administration site which will be very incomplete but by using it as a basis for discussion it will help to crystallise the rules and potential issues. Thereafter we will probably go through a further two iterations before we wind up with the final rule set. And despite what I initially said about written specifications at any time the (prototype) administration system can generate a specification based on the rules programmed in.
Software or IT Impact
Although there is inevitably some impact on IT it is wrong to think of an implementation as a software project. IT are likely to have been involved before the project as part of a general supplier qualification process, desktop impact is minimal but during the implementation they may need to be involved with data interfacing between any existing systems.
Access to the administration application is across the Internet using standard desktop devices running any modern browser. Hosting, domain names and maintenance are all done by Mazars Employee Benefits. The programming of the application is via the benefit rules (which are actually XML text files) which is again performed by us.
Data interfacing, in particular where does employee data come from, might cause some debate within the implementation team. The employee data within Select Benefits can come (at least in part) from an HR system, payroll or some other source and its usually practical constraints that end up determining the best option. Data coming out of the system needs to be fed into the payroll system or bureau. With payroll a decision will be made on what is to be shown on a payslip, which in turn will lead to what is needed from the benefits administration system.
In all cases we will set up the system to produce data in the required formats.
Employee Engagement
It is all too easy to get caught up in the details of benefit rules, exceptions for specific groups of employees and neglect one of the primary purposes of doing the project in the first place - employee engagement.
So throughout the project we will be encouraging you to focus on employee communication. It starts with the visual appearance of your specific site, continues with the scheme and benefit information and finishes with the internal marketing and training to employees. This area of an implementation is mainly down to you: what is your company culture, how much are you going to spend, what media are you going to use.
We have been involved with beer mats, posters, presentations, road-shows and most recently, videos so the scope can be quite wide. The key for success is to plan enough time for physical production such as printing which can easily end up on the critical path to internal launch.
Administration Process
How can I put it? HR are not typically the most process-oriented group in an organisation! Yet the key to long-term success in terms of cost and effectiveness is to set up the right administration processes, with defined roles and responsibilities and then be disciplined and stick to them.
In any implementation the administration of the scheme is considered at two levels:
- monthly administration cycle - this occurs every month and concerns joiner, leavers, changes and payroll reporting
- individual benefits cycle - this is what happens on someone joining, leaving or changing an individual benefit
For the monthly administration cycle there are a number of key dates that the team have to decide on and specify. Some will already be fixed, such as the payroll cut-off. Events such as these are immutable and any administration process has to be designed around them. Others, such as benefit submission cut-off, have some flexibility and can be designed around. Putting in the effort to get this right and obtaining a commitment from all involved in its operation is probably the single most important implementation area.
When the implementation is up and running typical indicators of a broken process include unscheduled changes, the need to run a payroll report more than once etc.
The process of administration of individual benefits is mainly defined by the supplier of those benefits. Some suppliers are easier to work with than others and although, due to existing agreements, we have to be prepared to work with anyone we will not hesitate to warn of problems that we and our other customers have experienced.
As part of overall implementation the monthly and individual benefit administration is documented, in summary form, within the System.
Conclusion
Its a business process that we are improving and a multi-department implementation team needs to be created, get involved and be committed to the project's success.
Due to the iterative nature of our implementation risk is well managed and progress is visibly made - its not a question of crossing fingers to wait and see if anything comes out at the end.
To ensure ongoing efficiency and effectiveness a rigorous administration process has to be designed and then subsequently operated in a disciplined way.
