Simpler processes help company face challenging times

COVID-19 caused dramatic fluctuations in Booster’s staffing levels — at one point, the organization downsized by 83%; later, they ended up rehiring almost 600 people. The company needed a sustainable solution to manage their benefits. Since both the HR and finance teams remained small, integrating Unum HR Connect^® with Workday^® Human Capital Management helped the company increase head count while keeping control of their data. It streamlined billing too because they can pay all their Unum bills online with the touch of a button.

Although Booster had transitioned through a few different HR systems, the company had struggled with having all their employee data in two different places. Four years ago, they made the decision to “go all in on one platform that could do everything. Workday became the best option at that point,” said Emily Phelps, Booster’s Senior Human Resources Analyst. Then, two years ago, they chose Unum as their employee benefits provider and reaped the benefits of Unum’s HR Connect integration with Workday.

HR Connect’s process simplification and automation have been especially useful in handling the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. “At one point we downsized our organization by 83%,” Phelps said, but then they ended up rehiring almost 600 people. Additionally, Phelps noted, they’ve had many new parents who need to use their benefits, which is both fun and challenging: “COVID babies were real.”

Since both the HR and the finance teams remained small, the automation and available systems helped them increase head count while keeping control of their data. “It really has been good. We’ve gradually started to build our teams back up, but we wanted to make sure that we had our processes in place, instead of having Band-Aid solutions for the long term.” Phelps said that their process improvements have “allowed us to focus on what is really important.”

Billing simplification has been a major improvement, according to Phelps. “I almost feel like we don’t even have to think about billing when it comes to Unum because of the way that HR Connect works for us.” Now they get fewer notices about unpaid bills because everything happens almost automatically. “It makes our processes more streamlined.”

As Booster continues its partnership with Unum, the company has gradually added more plans “because Unum offers so many options.” That “makes it easy” for Phelps, who can now get all her benefits needs in one place instead of many different ones. For the future, Phelps is looking forward to even more streamlined and improved HR integrations and technologies. “I’d say we’re a pretty innovative, forward-thinking company, so we always want the next big thing. We always love to be a part of that. I think things are definitely going well. We’re coming back and setting bigger goals than we ever have before.”