Charlton Consulting Group Reduces BNP Paribas' Open Enrollment Administration From Two Weeks To 30 Minutes
- The Challenge:
Move Open Enrollment from Paper to the Web Within a Month
Three years ago The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) was just starting to aggressively promote Web-based, automated benefits enrollment as the next big trend in human resources. Yet at the New York office of BNP Paribas, a global leader in banking and financial services, it could not afford to take a wait-and-see attitude in terms of whether or not automated benefits enrollment was the way to go.
At the time, BNP Paribas' HR department was preparing for the annual employee benefits ritual of open enrollment. Administering the open enrollment process for some 2,500 U.S.-based and outbound expatriate employees had become a drain on the department's resources.
"BNP Paribas offers a comprehensive set of benefits for its employees, so the process was overwhelming for employees and administratively stifling for the HR department," said the head of benefits at BNP Paribas at the time. "Open enrollment had become very resource intensive due to the manual, paper-based process we used for both the employee and HR sides of the equation."
With a fairly computer-literate group of employees and an HR staff of tech-savvy professionals, BNP Paribas decided the time was right to take a new approach to better manage the process by moving the company's open enrollment from paper to the Web.
The company wanted to make the process simple for employees and hassle free for HR. With that in mind, the focus turned to finding a solution that was both practical and efficient.
However, with a November deployment deadline looming a little more than a month away, the biggest challenge in finding a suitable online benefits enrollment solution was time.
- The Answer:
A Customized Online Benefits Enrollment Solution from Charlton Consulting Group
During the search to find an appropriate online benefits enrollment solution, BNP Paribas evaluated four vendors, including Charlton Consulting Group, a Maryland-based team of benefits communications experts that had been providing total compensation statements for other departments of the company.
The vendors' solutions were all thoroughly evaluated based on pre-defined criteria that included the ability to meet BNP Paribas' functional needs in terms of decreasing HR's administrative burden, and making it easier for employees to enroll in their benefits. But, the company was also looking for a solution that addressed these key factors:
- Deployable within a short timeframe;
- Adaptable and flexible; and
- Cost-effective.
Charlton Consulting Group was the one vendor that met all of BNP Paribas' needs.
"In addition to having an online benefits enrollment solution that could be customized to address our specific needs, Charlton Consulting Group seemed to have an exceptional relationship with its clients which provided a high level of comfort in terms of service and support," said a benefits executive.
Developing a streamlined solution that could be deployed very quickly, the team at Charlton Consulting Group rolled out an online benefits enrollment system in four weeks (a demo within the first two weeks).
Charlton Consulting Group uploaded the necessary benefits information into the system from existing files, built a series of business rules based on BNP Paribas' operational needs, and integrated the system with various databases and the company's HRIS system.
According to BNP Paribas, the project was on time and on budget.
"Charlton adapted well at every level and to every last-minute change BNP Paribas had. The integration with the HRIS system went extremely well. With any new solutions, when you first upload the data to the HRIS system, there's that moment where you hold your breath and hope for the best. There were absolutely no problems with Charlton."
- The Result:
Clean, Simple and Efficient Technology Pays Big Dividends
Since deploying Charlton Consulting Group's solution three years ago, BNP Paribas continues to see the advantages clean, simple and efficient technology can bring to the online benefits enrollment process.
With a totally automated system now, the HR department has seen a dramatic decrease in the time associated with administering the process and a definite improvement in the quality of the data.
"The department has gone from a two-week process that monopolized the attention of two full-time HR personnel to a 30-minute process," said a representative from HR. "Additionally, employees receive automated confirmation statements so they can quickly check their own enrollment selections for inadvertent errors before the system is closed out."
The HR department also gave high marks to the solution's reporting features.
"Having access to data immediately is something we never had in the past. The ability to create on-the-spot reports gives the HR department real-time access to enrollment statistics and employee selection that helps it quickly gauge and better understand the level of participation, both during and after enrollment."
The feedback coming from employees and spouses (who are often key in the benefits decision-making process) has been nothing but positive.
"We had very few questions about the online benefits enrollment system. The queries we receive now are from employees seeking advice and information about specific benefits."
About BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas is a European leader in banking and financial services, with a significant and growing presence in the United States and leading positions in Asia. The Group has one of the largest international banking networks, a presence in over 85 countries and 172,300 employees including: 131,100 in Europe - among whom 19,300 in Italy and 63,600 in France and in the Overseas Departments; 15,000 in North America and 9,400 in Asia.
For more information on Charlton Consulting Group's benefits enrollment solutions, contact us.
