“It’ll literally change your life”

According to Becca Edwards, Benefits Supervisor at Nine Energy Service, integrating Unum benefits into ADP Workforce Now using Unum HR Connect allows for a self-service, online enrollment experience that has been “wonderful.” The system does away with manual entry and helps employees see exactly what benefits they have selected. “All the information is there for them,” Edwards said. “Everything just feeds over to Unum with all the correct data, taking less time and with no paperwork for the employees.” 

The old way of providing evidence of insurability (EOI) — health information required for certain levels of coverage — was to fill out an application form, mail it in and wait for a response. “Nobody’s got time for this,” said Edwards.

With online EOI embedded into the enrollment process on ADP Workforce Now, Nine Energy Service employees get a much faster and easier experience. For one thing, employee information in the system is pre-loaded, so requesting EOI is simple and quick. Employees only have to answer a few health questions and hit submit. Then, for most employees, a decision comes back within minutes, instead of weeks. “It’s super simple for employees,” said Edwards. “It’s so much quicker.”

When it comes to managing leave, “Unum Total Leave has completely changed how effective the HR team is,” Edwards said. “As a professional myself on the HR side of things, Total Leave makes a huge difference. It’s made everyone’s job so much more seamless and easier.”

Edwards said she values the ease of use of the Unum Total Leave HR portal. “It’s self-service, “ she said. “You’re able to go on to the Total Leave website and get all the information you need. You’re able to pull forms and reports. You can see what claims are out there, what’s open, what’s closed, what’s pending.”

“And if an employee calls about a specific claim and has any questions, you’re able to go in there and try to find some of the information yourself. Maybe there’s some missing documents. Maybe they need access to their documents. You’re able to find all of those things,” Edwards said.

“Also, with intermittent leave,” she said, “the employer is able to go in there and submit those hours for those employees themselves. And it just makes things so much easier.”

Unum Total Leave improves the employee experience, too, Edwards said. “When they need to file a claim, I give them the information they need to go in and file it through Total Leave and they’re able to have access to everything at their fingertips.”

According to Edwards, “the billing process with HR Connect and ADP Workforce Now has changed things tremendously.”

“Prior to using HR Connect through ADP Workforce Now, billing was just a time-consuming process for me,” Edwards said. “I would have to run several different reports through ADP — looking at that stuff myself and moving the data over into different spreadsheets. There’s room for error there.”

With HR Connect, she said, “a report is produced automatically and an invoice brought up and you know all the information is accurate because it’s coming straight from your ADP software. There’s less room for error. It used to take me hours and now it just takes a couple of minutes.”

Edwards said the Unum HR Connect integration with ADP Workforce Now has “changed my life forever.”

“I could never see myself going back to the old manual way of processing things,” she said. “It has made my job, which makes my life, so much easier through every part of this whole process.”

“I would tell any of my professional colleagues if they were looking for a new platform for their leave process that Total Leave and HR Connect have worked amazing for me. It’ll literally change your life,” Edwards said. “Employees understand their benefits much better,” she said,” and your team is with you 100% all the way through the entire process.”

“We would never go back to any other carrier,” said Edwards. “We had Unum previously and then switched to another carrier and that didn’t work out. We are back with Unum and we’re not switching again.”