People Operations

CHAPTER 9Step 4: Automate Health Insurance Benefits

Getting benefits right is a huge driver to your business's success.

Benefits are any additional advantage an employer gives to its employees, including both monetary and nonmonetary perks such as health insurance, paid vacation, equity, flexible work arrangements, life insurance, commuter benefits, remote work stipends, and more.

Roughly 30 percent of total employee compensation is paid out through benefits, and businesses use them as a key way to attract new talent and retain top staff (Gonzalez 2020). Most benefits options are not required by law, but one is: health insurance. Health insurance benefits, aka healthcare, include a combination of medical, dental, and vision insurance. Employers with 50 (100 for California, Colorado, Vermont, and New York) full‐time employees (FTEs) or full‐time‐equivalent employees are required by law to provide medical coverage to at least 95 percent of eligible staff. Offering health benefits at companies with fewer than 50 full‐time employees is optional, but most employers recognize the need in order to compete with larger businesses in the war on talent.

Managing health benefits is a complicated process with many stakeholders, deadlines, approvals, and processes. It also happens to be the number‐one benefit employees seek from their employers (Zenefits 2020). And 50 percent of small business employees say it's the primary reason they stay at their job (Curry 2020a). So, the stakes to get ...