Since the start of the pandemic, company benefits have played an increasingly important role in helping organizations protect the safety, wellness, and health of their employees. This is increasingly the case, not only for physical wellness, but organizations now have greater awareness of mental health and financial wellness impacts on their staff given recent challenges and mass res[...]

  Part 1 by Pete Tiliakos & Liz Rennie This is Part 1 of a 2-part blog presenting an analysis of key trends from NelsonHall's HR Technology & Services team. Part 1 looks at the key outsourcing trends around core HR functions, including cloud HR transformation, payroll, and benefits administration services. Cloud HR Transformation Services The drive to digital has k[...]

    The recent OnePlace2020 digital conference was an opportunity for Benefitfocus to launch its 2020 strategy and to increase awareness of the benefits marketplace. Its vision is to improve lives with benefits, timely in light of the current global pandemic. Ray August, President and CEO, shed light on the fact that health care costs per employee have grown faster than wa[...]

  Last week I attended the Benefitfocus Seller Place 2020 conference. Benefitfocus has repositioned itself from a software company to a benefits platform provider with solutions focused on engaging and improving the user experience while helping employers and employees make more informed decisions and reduce cost. Benefitfocus has 25m consumers, serving 150k employers with 15.5m emp[...]

  With the digital economy pushing businesses to pivot and reimagine the way they operate, HR is under considerable pressure to support new business models and shifts in strategic direction.  Further, the workplace and the way we work is rapidly evolving, adding to the complexities and challenges HR must navigate to compete for today's top talent. As a result, organizations of[...]

  NelsonHall’s recently published global BPS market forecast reveals that the overall HR services market will grow at 5.8% in 2018. Here I look at how each of the key HRS sub-service lines have performed in H1 2018. In order of number of contracts announced (highest to lowest), this covers Benefits Administration, Multi-Process HRS, Learning, Payroll, and Recruitment. I also prov[...]

  At ADP’s annual Meeting of the Minds client event this past week, what caught my attention most were the initiatives geared towards improving employee engagement/satisfaction and retention. Clearly, ADP has identified these areas as key, with its own research institute finding that ~2/3 of all turnover is voluntary – i.e. employees are leaving because they have not been g[...]

  Last week I attended ADP’s 14th annual ReThink multi-national client event in Monte Carlo, where the theme was ‘Transform the Way the World Works’. The lineup of guest speakers included journalist and media figure Tina Brown, who shared themes from Davos (including the importance of restoring trust and gender equality in the workplace), former British Prime Minister[...]

  It has been 10 months since the announcement that Aon was divesting the businesses within its Outsourcing segment to private equity firm Blackstone, and 6 months since Alight was formally launched as a new company, which makes it an ideal time to review its progress and where it is headed in 2018. By all accounts, it was a smooth transition, with client retention remaining high.&n[...]

  In my last blog, I laid out 2018 predictions for two areas of talent management: recruiting and learning (see here). This blog looks at what to expect over the next year for payroll services and benefits administration. Trending topics in these areas over the last year included cloud, compliance, configuration, and consumerization. Payroll The payroll landscape has shifted away[...]

Relative to other HR services, the application of intelligent automation in benefits administration is lagging, but is slowly making progress.  With respect to RPA, Conduent and Alight are among the first movers, with both using bots for manual calculations in pension administration. In addition, Alight has deployed bots for low-level transactional work that is typically offshored, and in[...]

  Over the last few years, developments around the participant experience for benefits administration services have been focused on helping employees become more effective consumers as they make their benefit selections (the “consumerization” era). In 2016, the next stage of evolution of the participant experience emerged as suppliers shifted their focus to utilization (the[...]

    For many organizations today, technology, and more specifically the internet, has changed the way business is conducted, and having the agility to pivot with the change is critical to remaining competitive and surviving. While the introduction of next generation technology has created a critical inflection point for many businesses, it is also providing HR leaders with n[...]

The gig economy has been a recent trending topic. While the concept of gig workers is nothing new, the attention being paid to it is, especially since this is an area whose growth has been facilitated by the digital marketplace. Here, I take a quick look at the challenges gig workers present for HR. Gig workers present a challenge on several fronts, especially when it comes to managing[...]

NelsonHall’s latest Multi-Process HR Services NEAT vendor evaluation included customer interviews to ascertain current satisfaction levels and future expectations across a range of criteria. Below is a selection of the findings from our interviews with multi-process HR services customers.  Principal issues & operational priorities The main issues and operational priorities cit[...]

  This is the second of two articles on the multi-process HR BPS market. NelsonHall’s latest market analysis report on the multi-process HR BPS market recognizes two types of strategies adopted by vendors taking a modern approach to multi-process HR services: intelligent technologies and cloud-based HR services. Here, I take a quick look at both strategies. Intelligent technol[...]

  The multi-process HR services market has evolved significantly over the years. The traditional approach, characterized by comprehensive end-to-end HR BPS services over a long term (often 7-10 years) leveraged on-premise solutions that were heavily customized. This gave way to the transitional approach, best characterized by hybrid technology solutions where core HR and payroll is on-[...]

  As H1 2017 comes to a close, it’s a good time to reflect on recent key activity and where the market is headed for the rest of the year and beyond. Here, I round up what’s trending now in payroll, benefits administration, recruitment, and learning. Payroll The most common theme in the payroll market is global and multi-country activity. NelsonHall estimates tha[...]

  Initiatives around incorporating intelligent technologies to automate and create efficiencies across different HR processes is a top priority for many vendors. To date, RPA has made the most headway, e.g. in payroll for forms management, in benefits for pension calculations, in recruiting for scheduling a candidate’s interview or resume scanning, and in learning for proces[...]

  Equifax Workforce Solutions’ 2017 client forum was themed “Expanding Horizons”, and here I take a quick look at three areas in which Equifax is expanding its HR solutions.  Expanding Verifications Business Equifax’s verification services business is expanding beyond the U.S., launching first in Canada, followed by the U.K., and then Australia. Curre[...]