Google is famous for its employee perks. Workers enjoy gourmet lunches, free massages, on-site daycare and the option to take their pet to work, in addition to other awesome incentives.
Oli Husemeyer, international benefits program manager at Google, spoke at the annual HR Technology Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas, to explain how Google uses tech to deploy its impressive offering of employee benefits — a task that involves reaching more than 48,000 Googlers around the world.
But the picture wasn’t always so rosy. As recently as 2010, Google faced the problem of having an antiquated benefits system that struggled to meet the needs of its global workforce. That’s the year Husemeyer joined Google and found plenty of challenges. She recounted several at the conference:
- Paper-based user experience: Perhaps astonishing for one of the most forward-thinking tech companies of our time, Google employees received explanation of benefits in paper form. To help fill in the gaps, Google provided specialists to help via phone and online to answer employee questions, but only during certain hours. The situation meant that there were times that the “value of benefits were left unclear to employees,” Husemeyer noted.
- Time-consuming business intelligence reporting: Instead of having software automatically calculate data, benefits administrators had to do it themselves. This made working with data in different languages particularly difficult.
- Manual payroll process: Employees faxed slips to request days off, and a team of clerks entered the information on computers. The system created a greater potential for errors and noncompliance while requiring funding to support such a staff.
Benefits in the cloud
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Husemeyer realized that Google needed a high-tech benefits administration system that could scale along with the business. The company’s emphasis on transparency and making “people-based decisions” rooted in data and science factored into its search for the right solution, she said.
Google eventually partnered with the cloud-based software company Thomsons Online Benefits, using its “Darwin” product — and gBenefits was born.
At the conference, Chris Bruce, managing director and co-founder of Thomsons, described how Darwin gives employees the power to control their benefits in their own language and currency. Thomson’s engineers developed Darwin to adapt to the rules of any HR system.
At Google, payroll, business travel and health insurance information can all be accessed through one central program, giving employees a seamless user-friendly experience. During the panel, Husemeyer shared real-time feedback from Google employees about their experience with the program. One user noted that “everything is in one place while being simple and straightforward.” Husemeyer also shared an in-house video for employees that introduces gBenefits.
With the implementation of Darwin, Google was able to provide a “scalable, self-help process connecting users directly with providers,” Husemeyer said. Today’s benefits interface helps users make informed healthcare decisions while providing a rich experience. Employees have access to benefits information on all platforms, giving them total control, she said.
With the implementation of gBenefits, Google appears to have stepped closer to fulfilling one of its ultimate missions as a company — to create the happiest and healthiest employees on the planet.
Date: December 30, 2014