Clicking Into Benefits.

By linking employees with employers and benefits providers, the Internet is the key to customer satisfaction.

The Internet has the potential to be a critical enabler of employee satisfaction in the benefits arena. This is supported by the results of MetLife's 2001 national study of Employee Benefits Trends. According to the study--in addition to expected concerns with cost containment, employee retention and work/life balance--employers are most concerned with:

* implementing employee self-service on the Internet (38%). Among large employers--those with 5,000 or more employees--the percentage soars to 63%;

* developing and expanding benefits Web sites (30% overall, 48% among large employers). The percentage of employers using Web sites for employee benefits is expected to nearly double over the next 18 months; and

* giving all employees access to the Internet (19% overall, 44% among large employers).

In other words, more than one-third of all survey respondents-and nearly two-thirds of responding large employers--say they want to improve how they use the Internet to help their employees get the most out of their benefits programs.

What Employees Want

Employees think about their benefit plans only when they need to. They go to their benefits provider's Web site only to get something done; when they are online, they want to get in, do what they came to do and get out. The critical benefit is time. Good execution on the Internet helps employees save time by making their benefits interactions easier, faster, more streamlined and more efficient.

What kind of help do employees want when dealing with their benefits? MetLife's research shows that they want guidance and support for enrollment decisions, they want to involve the family in benefits decisions and they value simple, clear benefits information and a positive user experience. Knowing this, a benefits provider can design its online presence to meet these needs, including:

* availability in the office and at home;

* easy access to clear, brief benefits information;

* supporting material that helps users make decisions;

* "smart" functionality that recognizes users from information already provided; and

* ease of use, requiring as few clicks as possible.

Again, the idea is to use knowledge of employee needs to design a benefit experience that empowers employees to get things done.

Linking All Players

The Internet provides the ability to easily link all the players in the chain of providing the best service to employees. Consider a new employee who has to be enrolled in a dental plan. The employer's benefits administrator can do that enrollment online--and in real time--via an online-administration tool. The employee then can go online to find a dentist in the network.

The only physical interaction, therefore, is the actual dental work.

The dentist can take care of formerly burdensome administrative work online, such as verifying eligibility, checking plan benefits, filing the claim, monitoring the details of the claims process, receiving payment of the claim and so on. If the employee chooses to do so, he can view the details of the claim online and be notified via e-mail that the claim has been processed.

Benefits in the Future

Throughout the next few decades, the employee pool in the United States is going to grow even more diverse than it is today, causing the benefits needs of employees to change in many ways. These shifts in employee makeup will be temporal (on average, people will spend only three to five years at a job); spatial (as telecommuting and globalization gather steam); generational (by 2020, Generation X will be moving toward retirement and Generation Y into management); and multicultural (as America becomes more and more diverse).

How can employers deal with the changing benefits needs of such a diverse workplace? How will businesses drive employee satisfaction through employee self-service? With the definition of "employee" encompassing more and different individuals every day, defining "self" and "service" will get more complex. It'll be necessary to provide "service" no matter what, where or when to "selves," each of whom wants a different, personalized customer experience. Soon, we'll be seeing customizable Internet portals that will put the information chosen by the employee front and center. "One size fits all" is no longer necessary with the flexibility that technology provides.

Even more important, technology--above all, the Internet--will be part of the glue that holds the employer-employee relationship together. The Internet provides essential connectivity among employer, employee and service provider. An integrated capability, connecting all stakeholders, including third parties, is needed to provide customers with a total benefit experience.

Quantifying the Benefit

James V. Gemus is vice president of e-Business and Banking for MetLife's Institutional Business.

Employers and employees have much to gain from a knowledgeable, holistic use of the Internet in the benefits sphere. Employers put a lot of money into their benefit plans, and the more value delivered to employees, the higher the level of employee satisfaction. In addition, the more administrative functionality employers can put online, the more time and resources they free up for their human-resources personnel to deal with value-added strategy services, such as employee development and retention. In fact, for employers and employees alike, the true value of the Internet will be its ability to maximize the ultimate benefit: time.

Benefits on the Web

The precentage of employers using Web sites for employee benefits will
nearly double in the next 18 months.


                                               Will Add in
                                            Next 18 Months [*]
Total                                              27%
Small Companies. (500-999 employees)               22%
Midsize Companies. (1,000-4,999 employees)         31%
Large Companies. (5,000+ employees)                32%


                                            Offers Now

Total                                          30%      57%
Small Companies. (500-999 employees)           18%      40%
Midsize Companies. (1,000-4,999 employees)     39%      70%
Large Companies. (5,000+ employees)            47%      79%

(*)Estimate

Source: 2001 MetLife Study of Employee Benefits Trends

Note: Table made from bar graph