Marketing
Ensuring seamless employee experience with outsourced retirement solutions
Managing employee retirement is an integral part of benefits administration that enhances business efficiency. By administering retirement benefits programs such as 401(k) and pension plans, you attract high-quality talent and elevate workplace satisfaction.
To keep up with the changing labour market regulations and to achieve greater efficiency, 54% of organisations currently outsource employee benefits administration. It helps companies streamline HR operations, enhance accuracy, lower administrative burden, and ensure adequate benefits support.
This article discusses the employee lifecycle stages, best practices for seamless employee retirement, and outsourcing retirement solutions.
Employee lifecycle stages
This is the typical journey of an employee from the time they connect with your brand until they leave the organisation. Understanding the employee lifecycle is crucial for designing an effective retirement plan and benefits –
Attraction
An employee's experience starts well before the first day at work. It begins with them reading the job posting online, on social media, or in print media. One must ensure an accurate job and benefits description (including retirement), inclusive language, and a multi-channel advertising strategy.
Application
Once you have the potential candidate’s attention, they need to apply for the open position. This process has several stages, starting with candidate screening, skills assessment, interview, background and reference checks, and the decision to offer the job.
During the negotiation, both parties negotiate salaries and employee benefits including the ones for retirement and exit. If you already have a robust retirement benefits plan, it becomes easier to attract the right talent.
Onboarding
New employees are excited to begin work, and this is the right time to introduce them to the company’s values and mission. A robust retirement plan makes the employees feel secure and taken care of, which directly impacts their onboarding and work performance.
Growth
According to research, 73% of employees consider growth one of the most critical drivers at work. By creating comprehensive employee training and development programs, you can ensure employee growth and retention.
Performance and retention management
A survey of U.S. workers showed that 92% want feedback more than once a year. Timely feedback and performance reviews reduce employees' frustration and lower the risk of turnover. By using technology to give timely feedback, you ensure employee retention and job satisfaction.
Exit or retirement
Whether the employee exits by resigning or retiring, how you handle the journey after this may have serious repercussions. It can be a mistake to consider that after retirement, an employee’s journey no longer matters. A retiring employee may become a client, provide references, or be a knowledge partner as an external consultant.
Before retirement, HR must explain the process of availing of the benefits and ensure that it is smooth. Negative online reviews by outgoing employees can have a severe impact on new applicants.
Best practices for a seamless employee retirement
Retirement is an essential phase of life for an employee and the company. Effective retirement HR strategies ensure a smooth life transition –
Understanding the exit process
Offboarding must start well before the employee’s retirement date and should include document updates and transfer of responsibilities and knowledge. A positive and supportive offboarding experience ensures the employees leave on a high note.
An offboarding checklist that includes notifying stakeholders, conducting knowledge transfer, updating records, and organising farewell is helpful for both the company and the employee. A well-structured exit process makes employees feel valued.
Developing effective transition plans
A transition plan includes steps necessary to hand over the responsibility to a successor. It minimises knowledge gaps and ensures that the company continues to operate smoothly. The insights of outgoing employees are valuable while developing a transition plan to identify risks and challenges that require attention.
Conducting exit interviews
Exit interviews are an opportunity to gain insights, feedback, and suggestions. This helps the organisation improve and enhance the experience of future employees. HR managers can focus on open-ended questions, including achievements, challenges, suggestions for improvement, and advice for the successor.
Continuous improvement of retirement strategies
Retirement strategies should evolve with time and be based on feedback from outgoing employees. By conducting surveys or using focus groups, you can understand the strengths and weaknesses and tweak the retirement strategy to meet the challenges. The HR team must study industry standards and trends to improve the strategy further.
Making data-driven decisions
By leveraging HR information systems and analytics tools, you can analyse trends from retirement data. This data includes retirement rates, reasons, and post-retirement outcomes. If a department experiences a higher-than-average retirement or exit rate, HR can investigate and address the underlying issues.
Retaining employee knowledge
When experienced employees retire, their knowledge and expertise leave with them, leaving a gap in the company. Organisations must have strategies to capture, preserve, and transfer knowledge from outgoing employees to their successors. Creating interactive knowledge repositories can be one of the solutions.
How can Infosys BPM help?
By outsourcing benefits administration, including retirement, organisations can access expertise and knowledge, administrative efficiency, scalability, and flexibility, and improve employee experience. Infosys McCamish is an end-to-end marketing support, plan design, documentation, and administrative services solution for 409A retirement plans.
Read more about the retirement outsourcing solutions at Infosys BPM.
