At a point in an employee’s career, active work ends, and retirement begins. The active employees observe with keen interest because their future is tied to this moment. If they suspect any foul play in the way the organization handles the matter, they begin to consider jumping ship. The last thing an organization needs is a group of disloyal employees. Loyal employees are golden.
THE NEED FOR A BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION
Organizations want to keep their employees loyal and happy which is why Benefits Administration are created. They oversee all the benefits due to employees such as: vacation benefit; individual retirement accounts; sick leave; pension funds; medical benefit; and maternity leave. Their primary duty is to initiate an employee’s benefit, maintain it, and manage it.
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SOFTWARE
Benefits administration need a lot of help to be able to manage all these benefits. Considering the number of staff involved, it is obvious that ERP is needed to track every single benefit entitled to an employee from the day of employment up to retirement day. Benefits administration in ERP is essential. It must be able to balance the needs of both the employer and the employee.
FEATURES OF BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION IN ERP
There are features which an ERP Software should have in order to make the benefits administration efficient in discharging their duties. These features are:
– STAFF PROFILE: Upon employment, a staff profile should be created. This will contain every information about the staff; beginning from the date of employment. Other information to be included are attendance; marital status; number of children; number of hours worked; resignation; termination among others.
– OFF-DUTY RECORD: The employee does not receive payments only when working. There are times when an employee is not contributing directly to the bottom line of the organization. These occasions should also be recorded. Some of those situations include vacation time; sick leave; and maternity leave. This feature is quite necessary so as to help the organization track and monitor an employee who applies for any of these benefits.
– COMPLIANT: For the fact that benefits administration deals with the benefits of employees, it has a higher chance of being exposed to those outside the organization. Take the issue of tax for instance, the Tax Authorities may demand for the list of every employee within an organization, their payrolls; their allowances; and any other information they deem fit.
For this reason, one of the features of the benefit administration in erp is to be compliant enough to serve the organization as well as be understood by any Authority that requires an information.
– INVESTMENT AND RETIREMENT: There should exist a feature which enables the investment and retirement plan of each employee to be recorded and monitored. From the date of employment of an employee, the organization should begin preparing for the employee’s retirement.
It will be very difficult to fully discharge the retirement plan of an employee if the process does not begin early. This is benefit administration in ERP is necessary. The same applies for any kind of investment plan an organization has for its employees.
The investment plan and retirement plan which an organization provides for its employees is a way of keeping the employee loyal to them. These benefits given to employees are quite a burden on the organization. This is why it is necessary to have this feature. This feature should be effective and yet be open to allow for change in plan; investments; and how much contributions are made by the employee and organization.
– PAYROLLS: Processing names of employees to be paid is not an easy task. There is need for benefits administration in ERP. The payroll system designed for the organization should be able to be integrated into the ERP Software so as to promote efficiency in handling payroll matters. If well integrated, this feature will save the much needed time and prevents the occurrence of entering a data twice.
There are numerous benefits which organizations owe employees. Most of them require monitoring and tracking if the organization is to be able to discharge its duties to its employees. Benefits administration in ERP is designed to address the issue as well as provide solutions. To keep employees loyal, these are the things an organization needs to do.