Integration that saves time, work and worry

Prior to using Unum HR Connect^®, making sure employees provided evidence of insurability was a labor-intensive process. Billing reconciliation was a manual struggle for a single administrator. Now, EOI is integrated right into the church’s enrollment. Instead of chasing paper forms, HR just monitors the results in ADP Workforce Now^®. With Unum HR Connect, information is automatically synced, making hours spent on reconciliation a thing of the past.

Although Woodlands Church had worked with Unum since 2006, they did not sign on to Unum HR Connect for ADP Workforce Now until 2021, at the same time they added Vision coverage. Since then, administering Unum benefits has become much quicker and easier, according to Marian Robinson, the church’s Human Resources Director and a “one-person show.”

Robinson found that as much as she tried to make sure that she enrolled all the new hires and term employees in a timely fashion, “inevitably, there was always something that I would find — like oh, gosh, I forgot to take care of that person.” That left her with nearly a full working day each month handling the “extra steps that needed to take place,” making sure all the records were up to date. Although she can’t put her finger on the exact time all these manual steps required, she notes that with new hires, before HR Connect, she would “have to go to the Unum site and key in that data — their name, their address.” But she knew that those hours used to keep church records in sync with Unum “could easily be spent someplace else.” Now, it takes her only 45 minutes or less each month to make sure that things are accurate.

Prior to using Unum HR Connect, making sure employees provided evidence of insurability was a labor-intensive process. “For a long time we were doing paper that would get completed and then faxed, which was just ridiculous if you think about all the technology that was available.” That manual process involved several steps, multiple handoffs and checkpoints to make sure everything went through correctly.

Now, EOI is integrated right into the church’s enrollment. “ADP is going to capture all of the indicative data that we need on everyone. A new hire is entering their own elections, and the fact that it flows automatically in real time to Unum’s records is great.” Robinson noticed after open enrollment that most of the EOI applications went through instantaneously. “I was surprised that it’s very quick. I thought, ‘oh that’s going to need an EOI’ and it was already in place as a covered benefit.”

Until the full integration was put in place, Robinson had the “mind-numbing” and time-consuming task of manually reconciling invoices every month. “We were using ADP and the benefit modules, so we had that piece on our end that flowed. I was confident that payroll deductions were happening as they should. But when it came to whether or not we had the same benefit elections in place that Unum actually had — that was where the monthly reconciliation was happening.”

With Unum HR Connect, information is automatically synced, making hours spent on reconciliation a thing of the past.

Although Woodlands Church was already partnered with Unum, Unum HR Connect influenced their choice to stay, “at the highest level,” said Robinson. “It was good to know that we could take that next step with the provider that we already had in place — the idea that we could continue our partnership with Unum and have the latest in how we’re using the ADP platform and also have that translate to the insurance coverage. It was kind of a no-brainer. That’s the reason we selected the Vision plan — because it too could be integrated.” (The church now has nearly 50 percent participation in the Vision plan.)

Robinson says that overall “we’ve been very pleased. It has been going well and I do appreciate the time savings.” And she’s had so few problems with the system that she realized “it had been nearly a year and I haven’t had to call anybody, so that’s definitely an A+.”