Breaking the Paper Chain

Slavney says effectively using technology requires more than simply slapping together a static Web site and uploading the employee handbook to it. “It’s about the ability of people to do transactions—update an address, make a change in their enrollment benefits. The piece that I think is missing is . . . that transactional piece, which is absolutely where my cost savings are, where my opportunity is to get the HR organization out of running the day to day—and how do we give [employees] more tools to in fact make them more engaged? It’s about man-aging benefits, managing their health, managing their retirement. It’s about beginning to put a front door on it that’s more content oriented, more userfriendly, more organized, and more navigable.”

Slavney says companies are beginning to use Web portals to allow employees to download enrollment guides as PDFs or to view Webcasts on line. “There has been a trend for the last three years or so where you can’t really get a [printed provider] directory anymore,” he says. “For one thing, they don’t print them because the minute they print them, they’re out of date. And they’re obviously expensive to print and deliver. People want up-to-date information, and they want to be able to search by zip code, or any other criteria,” which the Web is uniquely equipped to provide.

In addition to driving information to the Web, Slavney says he also sees clients using CDs and DVDs containing benefits presentations that employees can take home and view as needed. He’s seen a few employers experimenting with interactive presentations on the Web and downloadable mp3 messages to convey employee benefit information. However, he also notes that some industries are still somewhat reluctant to embrace these technology innovations—at least for the time being.

“If I’m getting in a truck every day, or working on a manufacturing line, I don’t have access to quick online transactions,” Slavney says. “In those organizations, HR people are much more involved in helping people do basic stuff. [Employees will ask], ‘Betty, will you take care of this?’ And then if you tell them, ‘Sorry, Betty’s not going to do that anymore,’ that transition sometimes gets a little dicey because people think you’re pushing them off. It’s a transition between a paternalistic program.”

“Organizations are sort of being bombarded by what’s happening in the marketplace,” Slavney says. “I was with a client the other day that is going to need to hire a significant number of employees over the next 10 years. And we were talking about how their lack of these [technology] systems could actually put them at risk because the people they’re going to be recruiting are the people who grew up with that technology. We’re saying, ‘Look, you really don’t have a choice about this anymore. You’re going to have to adopt this and figure it out as you go along.’”