Helping a growing company expand their benefits

Daxko’s tech-savvy payroll and benefits manager was looking for an API-based platform to eliminate the potential for ambiguity or user error that often makes benefits administration complex and time-consuming. Unum HR Connect^® automates open and ongoing enrollment, which saves time and trouble, especially with new hires. Billing reconciliation takes just a few minutes. Everything that’s done in ADP Workforce Now^® is reflected directly in the Unum bill in real time, so there is no need to remove charges for people whose coverage was recently dropped.

When Daxko, a relatively small software company, began growing and adding employees, they needed to find a dependable vendor to handle their benefits. According to Ann Grimes, Daxko’s Payroll and Benefits Manager, the company went in search of good pricing, versatility, offerings including long and short term disability, and better customer service. Because they planned to expand coverage, they also wanted to outsource their management of employee absences and ensure compliance with the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

Grimes had worked with Unum in the past. She chose Unum for Daxko to take advantage of the product breadth and the chance to be a pilot customer for the Unum HR Connect integration with ADP Workforce Now integration. Having to juggle many priorities and deadlines as the company’s sole leave and benefits manager, she’s found Unum HR Connect to be a game changer. “If I could use an API* for every segment of my software, that would be my number one,” she said, noting that it eliminates the potential for ambiguity or user error that often makes benefits administration complex and time-consuming.

After three years of offering Unum benefits and two years of outsourcing leave to Unum, Grimes said the experience has been “about all you could ask for.”

One of the aspects of the partnership she most appreciates is how Unum takes the end user into account. “A lot of times, companies don’t think about that side of it. It reflects in the way you built the system and the way you see the functionality on the website. I think that’s a credit to you guys.”

Grimes said she likes how Unum HR Connect automates her open and ongoing enrollment, which saves time and trouble, especially with new hires. She also appreciates the way that EOI is integrated into enrollment. Employees access their EOI online, via single-sign on (SSO) directly from their enrollment inside ADP Workforce Now. Once they complete the application, approximately 85% receive an instant coverage decision. Unum then automatically passes coverage decisions and the associated payroll deductions back to ADP Workforce Now for easy updates to payroll.

In contrast to her previous experience, she doesn’t have to deal with the cumbersome, manual process of sending paper EOI forms to the vendor for approval. “That is one thing I don’t have to mess with,” said Grimes.

With her previous vendor, “I never could get the billing right,” said Grimes. “I had to spend hours each month making adjustments.”

With Unum HR Connect, billing reconciliation now takes Grimes just a few minutes. Everything that’s done in ADP Workforce Now is reflected directly in the Unum bill in real time, so she doesn’t have to do things like remove charges for people whose coverage was recently dropped. Grimes says, “I can just go to one place in the billing and pay now and get it done. It’s very user friendly. Finance is happy and I’m happy. For me it’s a perfect world.”