Employee Benefits
5 ways Microsoft is using technology to transform global benefits
19-08-2024
Samantha Sergent, Director of International Benefits at Microsoft recently joined Businessolver’s Benefits Pulse podcast, alongside Adam Mason, EVP Global Benefits at Benefex, and Mark Stelzner, Founder and Managing Principal at IA. Samantha shared how her team is using global benefits technology to transform Microsoft’s benefits strategy – from banishing spreadsheets and admin to delivering the exceptional experiences employees expect.
Microsoft has partnered with Benefex and Businessolver to roll out benefits tech globally.
Here are 5 outcomes Microsoft is driving with global benefits tech
1. Overcoming the administration burden
Samantha shared that Microsoft has been on a journey with international benefits for over five years, “before that, our benefits programs were managed in-country. All of the administration and the strategy and design was done at a country level. And at Microsoft, that includes a lot of different countries; we support 100 countries outside of the U.S with roughly 80,000 employees covered, and over 300,000 lives of family members covered, across nearly 800 unique benefits.”
“One of the things that we found very early in our knowledge-building process was that so much of the infrastructure that was holding up our administration was built off archaic ways of working. Whether that’s housing Excel files or SharePoint and emails – there was pretty lackluster infrastructure there.”
“When we figured out the files being used to enroll employees into their benefits, we were looking at roughly 12,000 Excel files annually with over a million manually keyed data points on an annual basis. And that’s a lot of people doing that work.”
As a result of automating processes through the platform, not only has Microsoft significantly reduced compliance risk, but the team also has more time for strategic thinking: “It’s been a pretty remarkable journey. We started with just a list of what purchase orders we had to do, and now we have a team of people really thinking strategically about the design of the benefits programme.”
2. Creating a globally consistent programme that also meets local needs
Samantha shared that she’s “most excited about some of the captive work we’ve done in our global areas, as well as bringing in global minimum standards, which we haven’t had before. And we’ve been thinking through the branding and the employee experience.”
“The team we have here, which is 17 full-time employees and a group of contingent staff helping support us, is focused on making sure what we’re offering is globally relevant, but also culturally relevant for those local employees.”
“We looked at the local benefits to compare across the market and figure out how we’re doing in those countries. Do we meet the philosophy that Microsoft wants to be known for when it comes to benefits? And then how do we start to bring the bigger picture together? This [strategy] has been built off this baseline of automation, digitization and enabling employees to see the whole benefits package in one view.”
“Just in this last year with bringing in global minimum standards, we managed close to 70 benefits design changes, while leading with the wider approach of ‘here’s the Microsoft deal – and this is what it means in the big picture’.”
As Adam Mason, EVP Global at Benefex pointed out, a consistent benefits experience is especially important for organisations like Microsoft that have a lot of employee mobility across regions, “If that experience falls away when they move location, employees can become disengaged from their benefits, struggle to understand their new offering, and even miss out on making important selections.”
This is one of the features of their new global platform Microsoft are particularly excited about. Samantha: “Mobility is a big piece of work here at Microsoft; you get to work from different countries if your job allows it. We want people to log into that benefits system and think, ‘I work for Microsoft. This is the same approach and enrollment as I had in my old country. It’s consistent, I know how to do this.’”
3. Aligning global benefits with corporate strategy
The question the Microsoft team asked when developing their strategy and looking for a global platform, explains Samantha, was “Are we aligning benefits with our philosophy as Microsoft?”
Being one of the biggest tech companies in the world, the employee experience needed to reflect this. “We had to spend a lot of time looking at the data, a lot of time looking at the ROI to try to figure out how best can we use technology – being a technology company – to help our employees through these benefits selection processes.”
“We want to be known as a tech company. We also want to enable our employees to spend time doing what they’re here to do, and not spend time trying to track down suppliers, or send in forms, or fill out an Excel file. So, there was a piece around how do we build capability? How do we give time back to our employees? How do we give visibility to benefits?”
“It’s about getting consistent, making sure that you’re aligned with the philosophy, aligned with the big picture, and able to tell that story or narrative as you mean for it to happen.”
4. Delivering the exceptional tech experiences employees expect
The number one reason organisations implement employee benefits is to retain existing employees, build loyalty and attract better candidates. However, the way benefits are delivered has a huge impact on engagement – if employees have to spend hours hunting through an intranet for information, filling in heaps of forms, or contacting the HR team, they’re likely to end up feeling frustrated and disengaged. This is why a self-serve platform that brings all benefits together in one place is so important.
Samantha explained that the Microsoft team is focused on creating those “moments that matter”, and are using benefits articles and the tech experience to build excitement about benefits throughout the employee journey so that they’re engaging candidates right through to alumni.
“We are really thinking about levelling up on the employee experience and helping our employees understand what their benefit programs are, why we’re offering them, how do you think those benefits fit within the whole deal we’re offering employees?”
The panel also discussed the need to offer more personalised benefits experiences for employees. As Adam highlighted, organisations are looking to use tech to “create an audience-of-one approach to benefits – trying to find ways so that people are only seeing content that is relevant to them in their market because those are the choices and options available to them.” Having the right tech in place enables employers to deliver on this.
5. Introducing choice and flexibility in benefits
Samantha explained that the old benefits infrastructure at Microsoft “didn’t lend itself to providing an employee experience that included choice of benefits.”
Managing benefits processes manually significantly hinders the ability to scale programmes, as Adam highlighted: “When you don’t have that scalability, there’s always a restriction around what you can do. That limits employers’ abilities to make benefits more flexible and offer more choice. If you’re administering benefits through an Excel spreadsheet that means that somebody is manually receiving that information and populating it in Excel.”
“What we’re doing with technology, is increasing the opportunity for choice and flexibility wherever possible.”
Watch the conversation
Watch the full Benefits Pulse episode to find out more about how Microsoft is delivering a digital, people-first benefits experience globally.
19-08-2024
