By Karen Krebsbach
Best-of-breed online benefits enrollment solutions generate greater return-on-investment for employers than those based on a human resources management system (HRMS) tied to an existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system such as Peoplesoft, SAP or Oracle, according to research from the Gantry Group, a market analysis firm based in Concord, Mass.
The company interviewed 450 human resource executives at U.S. firms with 5,000 or more employees. Among those using a best-of-breed solution, Workscape was the preferred application for more than 90% of employers, while HRMS/ERP systems varied.
Just 2.2% of employees at firms using Workscape insisted on using paper forms to enroll for benefits, while 18.7% of ERP users did so. Workscape users enrolled via the Web 64.6% of the time, compared with 49.8% of ERP users. These findings, among others, suggest best-of-breed solutions yield higher and quicker ROI for employers by driving down paper-based administrative processes and questions to benefit managers.
"Ease-of-use seemed to prevail much more dominantly in best-of-breed solutions, so the adoption rate was higher," observes Dale Troppito, managing partner of the Gantry Group. Employers who bought the HRMS component of their ERP admitted lower expectations for ROI, but felt compelled to buy the systems anyway.
"They were willing to settle," says Troppito, who urges employers to look for systems that will best encourage employee usage, rather than simply buying a matching set of ERP products.