Professional athletes rely on experts for their training, nutrition, endorsements — basically everything. Equipping your HR team with the right software makes them experts at benefits administration, too.
And athletes aren’t the only piece of a successful pro sports organization. Coaches, admins, managers, stadium staff and other more specialized roles support your operations, too. All need to be on top of their game to ensure a stellar fan experience and grow your business. Quality benefits help keep them engaged, satisfied and invested in your continued success.
Offering top-notch coverage is one thing; effective benefits management is another challenge altogether. For example, your HR team manages and tracks different offerings for each employee status, like:
- full-time
- part-time
- seasonal (and recurring seasonal)
- contracted
- unionized
These organizations also need to notify employees about eligibility and offboard workers when they no longer qualify. (Employers could be stuck with unpaid balances if they fail to end coverage in time.)
If that weren’t enough, complex compliance requirements like the ACA and COBRA can leave your organization on the hook for steep penalties if mishandled.
In fact, the IRS applies a nondeductible tax penalty of $100 per day per violation ($200 for two or more affected family members). The Employee Retirement Income Security Act adds an extra $110 daily penalty for failing to notify employees about COBRA coverage.
How do pro sports organizations prevent noncompliance and offer a benefits experience suited for a world-class team? Time to meet the lineup of six ways Paycom’s single software helps do just that.
1. Easy enrollment
Whether in the bleachers or traveling to an away game, you have a dispersed workforce. Unfortunately, you still need to ensure every employee understands their benefits and how their choices impact their pay.
Paycom’s benefits administration software brings priceless clarity to your people anytime, anywhere. It guides them through enrollment with ease, letting them review plan documents and test how deductions will affect their take-home pay before they finalize their selections.
After all, retroactively changing benefits can lead to disgruntled staff and unchecked profit leaks. And if employees can’t fully understand their benefits, a lack of coverage could open the door to unnecessary compliance risks.
Once they enroll, payroll automatically updates. Meanwhile, your HR pros don’t have to re-enter data or explain benefits info in painstaking detail.
2. Simplified COBRA compliance
Like any law, COBRA presents a possible misstep for every requirement. If that weren’t enough, certain states have their own COBRA rules — or “mini-COBRA” laws — that add a hurdle.
A combination of negligence and mistiming, errors can arise from:
- failing to offer COBRA
- late or missed notices
- charging an incorrect premium
- misunderstanding how Medicare affects COBRA
- mistreating or miscommunicating with COBRA recipients
Who’s liable for those violations? Your business, not the insurance providers.
Your success is our success. That’s why our COBRA administration software automates notifications for qualifying events and retains all employee changes in a single system of record. Plus, this tool lets you easily:
- generate customizable reports
- view where participants are in enrollment
- set COBRA rates by benefit plan or on a case-by-case basis
- include approved benefit plans in an employee’s election notice
We’ll even collect COBRA premium payments on your behalf. Once we receive them, Paycom records the payment and issues you a reimbursement check for the amount already paid to the insurance company.
We also understand COBRA is an evolving piece of legislation. Paycom’s legal experts constantly monitor relevant updates to incorporate them into our software. Likewise, we enhance our trainings and communication to help keep your pro sports organization aware of COBRA-related developments.
3. Seamless setup
HR has to keep the plates of benefits management spinning to avoid violations. Missing the mark on the front end spurs a series of unnecessary headaches.
We know frustration begets burnout for HR pros, which is why we build our software with ease of use and flexibility in mind. That makes it easy to define plans with:
- deduction amounts
- enrollment dates
- new hire waiting periods
- and more
Got a new group of temp workers to help clean your facility? No problem. We make it easy to set future premium and deduction amounts. You can batch-update those amounts with policies, carrier links and every piece of info your employees need.
4. Automated carrier communication
With so many moving parts in your organization, multiple spreadsheets and databases set your team up for failure. Paycom offers a tool to eliminate disparate data and give HR a direct, secure line straight to the relevant career.
No need for third-party apps or integration with unfamiliar tech. Our single-software approach ensures transferring data is as seamless as it is secure. Data needs to be keyed into Paycom once and only once for it to update multiple carriers. This includes:
- deduction amounts
- address changes
- qualifying events (birth, marriage, divorce, etc.)
- termination
- and more
5. Customized reporting
Between your multifaceted staff and compliance risks, it’s not hard for something to slip through the cracks. Our auditing and reporting tools help you avoid overpaying for benefits or missing an important deadline.
You easily can track which employees are approaching COBRA-related and other deadlines or study the most popular benefits among employees. It even helps you conduct self-audits to identify and resolve blind spots in your benefits compliance strategy.
6. Dedicated benefits coordinators
We know our clients can’t afford to drop the ball on compliance. Every fine, penalty and violation chips away at your dynasty’s bottom line. And we never discredit the power of a human touch.
To give your HR team room to breathe, we offer dedicated benefits coordinators to:
- facilitate third-party conversations
- set up plans and features in Paycom
- reconcile enrollment and deductions
These coordinators complete your administrative roster with vital backup. They’re committed to supporting your benefits administration and acing a new plan year, leaving you to focus on games, fans and growth — not endless headaches.
Schedule a demo to learn how Paycom helps your pro sports organization win at compliance, benefits administration and more.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided herein does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional legal, tax, accounting or other professional advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation and for your particular state(s) of operation.