Configuring benefits

Introduction

As a platform admin, you can set up benefits for the employees in your organization. Benefits can include allowances that are part of salaries, reimbursable expenses, or offers that employees can avail.

To configure and make a benefit available for employees, you must configure the following components:

• Benefit type
• Delivery channel
• Delivery type
• Benefit package

You can configure benefit components in your business settings. Configuring these components enables you to define the details of the benefit and how they are provided to employees. For a deeper understanding about each of these components, see Understanding how to configure benefits.

This tutorial describes the end-to-end procedure of creating, configuring, and delivering a benefit to a group of employees in your organization.

Objective

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create the following benefit and assign it only to members of the Operations team in your organization:

An education allowance that is:

• Accrued by employees on a monthly basis.

• Delivered through Payroll.

• Eligible for rollover. Up to 50% of any unused amount remaining at the end of the year can be carried over to the next year.

• Visible to employees who receive it.

Prerequisites

• An audience (assignee group) that includes all members of the Operation team (i.e. the employees to whom you want to assign the benefit)
• An appropriately configured pay category that sets up the payout of the benefit amount through the Payroll feature.

Optional requirements

• A benefits policy that defines the rules based on the benefit amount is assigned to different employees.
• A data container that defines how the details of the benefit need to be displayed.

Procedure

To configure benefits, do the following:

1. Create and configure a delivery channel

2. Create and configure a delivery type

3. Create and configure a benefit type

4. Create and configure a package

Step 1: Creating and configuring a delivery channel

A delivery channel enables you to establish how the benefit is delivered to employees. To understand more about how to configure a benefit channel, see Delivery channels.

To create and configure a delivery channel, do the following:

1. In the sidebar, in the Business section, click Settings.

   

2. Go to Benefits > Delivery Channels.

3. Click + Add benefit delivery channel.

   

4. Enter the following details:

   1. Enter a Name for the delivery channel.

   2. (Optional) Enter a Description to add details or notes about this delivery channel for future reference.

   3. As you want to display information about this benefit to the employees who are receiving it, clear the Hide for Employees checkbox.

   

5. Click Save Benefit Delivery Channel.

   Your new delivery channel is saved and added to the list on the page.

   

Step 2: Creating and configuring a delivery type

A delivery type enables you to set up the schedule of delivering the benefit to your employees. To understand more about how to configure a benefit type, see Delivery types.

To create and configure a delivery type, do the following:

1. In your business settings, go to Benefits > Delivery Types.

2. Click + Add benefit delivery type.

   

3. Enter the following details:

   1. Enter a Name for the delivery type.

   2. (Optional) Enter a Description to add details or notes about this delivery type for future reference.

   3. In the Accrual Frequency drop-down menu, select Monthly to set up monthly accrual of the benefit amount.

   4. In the Delivery Channel drop-down menu, select the delivery channel you created in Step 1.

   5. In Rollover Frequency, select Yearly to enable yearly rollover.

   6. As you want to set up rollover of only 50% of the total allowance (if unused), in Rollover Percentage, enter 50%.

   

4. Click Save Benefit Delivery Type.

   Your new delivery type is saved and added to the list on the page.

   

Step 3: Creating and configuring a benefit type

A benefit type enables you to define the details of the benefit, including the policy that governs it, when employees receive their benefit amounts, and what employees see if they try to view the details of the benefit.

To understand more about how to configure a benefit type, see Benefit types.

To create and configure a delivery type, do the following:

1. In your business settings, go to Benefits > Benefit types.

   The Benefits page, which lists all available benefit types, is displayed.

2. In the upper-right corner, click + Add Benefit.

   

   The Add/Edit Benefit dialogue is displayed.

3. Enter the following details:

   1. Enter a Name for the benefit type.

   2. In the Delivery Type drop-down menu, select the delivery type you created in Step 2.

   3. Do one of the following:

      • To configure the benefit policy in basic mode:

        1. Disable the Advanced mode toggle button.

        2. In the Policy Selection drop-down menu, select the policy you want to use.

           A benefits policy that defines this benefit is a prerequisite for this step. For more information, see Creating a policy.

      • To configure the benefit policy in advanced mode:

        1. Enable the Advanced mode toggle button.

        2. In the Calculate Script field, enter your policy script.

   4. (Optional) Enter a Description to add details or notes about this benefit type for future reference.

   5. (Optional) In the Data Container drop-down menu, select the data container you want to use to present information about this benefit to employees in a custom manner.

      A data container that defines how this benefit is displayed is a prerequisite for this step. For more information, see Creating a local data container.

   6. As you want to configure this benefit for employees (and not their dependents), clear the Dependent Benefit checkbox.

   

4. Click Save Benefit.

   

   Your new benefit type is saved and added to the list on the Benefits page.

Step 4: Creating and configuring a package

A package provides you with a medium to deliver the benefit to your employees. To understand more about how to define and configure a package, see Packages.

To create and configure a benefit package, do the following:

1. In your business settings, go to Benefits > Package Definitions.

   The Benefit Packages page, which lists all available benefit packages, is displayed.

2. In the upper-right corner, click + Create Package.

   

   The New Package page is displayed.

3. Enter the following details:

   1. Enter a Name for the benefit package.

   2. In the Assignee Groups drop-down menu, select the audience to whom you want to assign this benefit package.

      A previously-configured audience (assignee group) that includes all employees to whom you want to assign this benefit is a prerequisite for this step. For more information, see Creating an audience. In this case, your audience must include the entire Operations team.

   3. In Effective Date, select the start date for providing this benefit to the selected audience.

   4. (Optional) In Expiry Date, select the end date for providing this benefit to the selected audience.

   5. (Optional) Enter a Description to add details or notes about this benefit package for future reference.

   

4. Click Create Package.

   Your new package is saved as a draft and added to the list on the Benefit Packages page.

   

   Note that in this case, although you have created the benefit package, you still need to include the benefits that you want to provide in it.

   Alternatively, you can include benefits in the package even when creating it.

5. In the Benefit Packages, click your new package.

   The currently-available details of the package are displayed in the Package Details page.

6. Scroll to the Benefits section at the bottom of the page and in the right corner, click Add Benefit.

   

   The Select Benefits dialogue is displayed.

7. Select the benefit type that you created in Step 3 and click + Add Selected Rows.

   

   The benefit type is listed in the Benefits section.

   

8. To make the package available for the selected audience from the configured start date, click Finish Package Setup.

   

The benefit package is activated and selected audience of employees can avail of the benefit.