How To Succeed In Bringing Your Innovation To Market
Rachel-Lyubovitzky. CEO of EverythingBenefits
Competition for employees in a tight job market is difficult. Attracting good talent is not just about salary but the benefits provided. “Benefits are the second largest operating expense after salary,” said Rachel Lyubovitzky, CEO of EverythingBenefits. As recently as five years ago, companies that offered medical, dental, and vision were considered top drawer. Now, top companies offer telemedicine, legal, tuition reimbursement, loan repayment, and more.
If your benefits budget hasn’t increased, it’s really tough to compete for talent against Fortune 500 companies with deep pockets. Small and midsize companies are disproportionately affected.
To be cost efficient, benefits plans need to be customized to employees’ specific needs, which differ by employee age and life stage, among other factors. Adopting technology to streamline operations helps manage the complexity of benefits while reducing administrative costs.
Maximizing your company’s benefits budget is critical. Artificial-intelligence powered technology tools can help do that, which is why the market size for benefits administration software is expected to grow to $1 billion by 2024, according to Market Study Report. Software can enroll employees, track marital status, dependents, benefits people are entitled to, and benefit usage saving companies time and money … money that can be better used on benefits
Importantly, technology also reduces human error. Whether it is enrolling a new employee or updating an employee’s benefits profile after a life-changing event, manual processes have as much as 15% chance of invoicing errors, according to Aberdeen Group. Clients of EverythingBenefits’ reported saving 85% of staff time devoted to benefits reconciliation, giving them extra bandwidth to focus on other HR initiatives.
But old habits die hard. Whenever new tech comes along, people dig in their heels and come up with all sorts of objections. You need to persuade people that the new way is better and that it is not a threat.
For EveryThingBenefits, those who needed to be convinced were benefits managers who had to be shown how technology will make them more efficient and more reliable. And assured that cost savings could be used to provide additional benefits.
Lyubovitzky’s program uses credible, relevant, and independent industry stats as well as their own data and case studies to change minds. She also developed her own industry too, a liability calculator that estimates the potential liability associated with manual benefits reconciliation.
Still, it’s never easy to make people comfortable when they think their livelihood is at stake.’t easy. How do you get people to accept your innovations? Here’s Lyubovitzky’s guidelines to success:
With this approach, she has persuaded more than 3,000 employers to use EverythingBenefits, which now includes access to payroll/human capital management platforms, benefits carriers, 401K plans, and third-party administrators. It was also was picked as a Top 10 HR Tech Startups of 2018.
How do you educate the market about your new technology tool?