What is benefit administration?

Benefits administration involves creating and managing employee benefits, as well as providing a means for employees to be trained to understand how benefits work and what types of standards employees must meet to qualify for benefits. Benefits administration usually takes place within the Human Resources department of a larger company, although smaller companies may assign the benefits administration role to other areas or individuals. Here's some information on what an effective manager does on a daily basis.

Much of the administrator's work is spent coordinating a benefit plan currently in place. Benefits administration involves spending much of your day making sure your benefit plans are running smoothly. This usually includes reviewing the accrual of personal days, vacation days, and sick days. The administrator will ensure that the process of adding days off to an employee's account is done in accordance with the process defined by the company. In addition, the administrator will work with the payroll department to ensure that the employee is paid for the approved days and that those days are deducted from the appropriate resource.

Next, benefit administration usually involves monitoring health insurance coverage for qualified employees. This means ensuring that payments are made to the insurance provider in a timely manner, as well as ensuring that all eligible employees who wish to be included in group coverage are processed properly. The administrator will also be responsible for implementing a benefit plan for new employees who complete the trial period required by many companies before they are eligible to accumulate paid leave and health coverage.

When the employee benefit program includes an investment or retirement program, the benefits administration team will also oversee the day-to-day operation of those programs. This may involve ensuring that payroll deductions are in place to help fund any contributions made by the employee, as well as ensuring that corresponding funds promised by the employer are applied in a timely manner. This puts the manager in direct contact with the company's CFOs, who will work with the management team for the good of all the company's employees, both hourly and salary.

Part of benefit administration also involves interacting with the employee. At any time, an employee should be able to meet with an administrator and obtain the latest information on the status of their benefits. From this perspective, the administrator is a means of communication between the company and the employee. This can be by allowing employees to ask whenever they want and providing regular updates to each employee on the status of their benefits.

It is important to recognize that benefits administration is involved not only in looking out for the well-being of the employee, but also for the well-being of the company. To that end, effective benefits administration means developing benefit programs that are good for the employee but do not put undue pressure on the company to meet these benefit commitments. For this reason, administrators often look for new benefit options, trying to find programs that provide at least as many employees as possible while keeping the cost to employers as low as possible.