UK Specifics 

Flexible Benefits for Great Britain (PA-BN-FB-GB)

Purpose

Organisations in Great Britain are introducing flexible benefits at an ever-increasing rate and “flex schemes” are continuing to move from being the benefits package of the future to the preferred choice of organisations and employees today.

Effective and meaningful benefits packages must be flexible and reflect your employees own tolerance of risk, allowing them to determine what is best suited to their own individual circumstances. The ‘leading edge’ approach for benefits administration is to ‘monetise’ all of the quantifiable elements of employees’ packages and give them the freedom to select whichever components they desire, from a range of flexible benefits you as an organisation offer.

Employees enrol their Flexible Benefits choices during the benefits enrolment period. For more information, see the section Features, below.

Flexible Benefits for Great Britain (GB FlexBens) incorporates all of the features described above and is designed not only to increase the range and flexibility of benefits options for existing employees, but also to increase the competitiveness and attractiveness of your organisation from an external, market perspective.

This new solution for the UK market enhances existing functions delivered with the International Benefits component. It provides you with a wide range of functions to implement your chosen Flexible Benefits scheme and enable your employees to enrol in benefits plans.

 

The SAP Library for Flexible Benefits for Great Britain is divided into the following sections:

   GB Flexible Benefits Funding Schemes

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Enrollment Administration

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Health Plans

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Insurance Plans

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Miscellaneous Plans

 

   National Insurance Cost Neutrality

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Payroll Integration

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Reporting

 

   GB Flexible Benefits Business Add-Ins

 

The Release Note for Flexible Benefits for Great Britain contains a more comprehensive summary of the functionality delivered with this new component.

 

Integration

Flexible Benefits for Great Britain is fully integrated with payroll processing and supports Employee Self-Service (ESS).

 

Features

Benefits Plans

A central concept within Flexible Benefits for Great Britain is that the benefit plans offered to your employees are firstly organised by plan category. GB FlexBens uses four distinct benefit plan categories:

·        Health Plan

·        Insurance Plan

·        Credit Plan

·        Miscellaneous Plan

These categories are predefined in GB FlexBens and can be further configured into specific plan types designed to meet the needs of each individual organisation and its employees. Each plan category is processed differently by the system, with a separate benefits infotype maintained to record employee participation in individual benefit plans. For each plan, you can define multiple plan options, allowing your employees to choose between different benefit levels. In addition, some Great Britain-specific master data records (for example, Pension, National Insurance (NI), and Company Car), are integrated into GB FlexBens functionality.

An example of the types of benefits plans you can implement using Flexible Benefits for Great Britain is as follows:

GB Flexible Benefits Plan	Flexible Benefits Plan Category
Private Medical Insurance	Health Plan
Dental Care	Health Plan
Life Insurance	Insurance Plan
Personal Accident Insurance	Insurance Plan
Critical Illness Insurance	Insurance Plan
Holiday Buying / Selling	Miscellaneous Plan
Company Car	Miscellaneous Plan
Personal Pension	Miscellaneous Plan
Health Screening	Health Plan
Travel Insurance	Insurance Plan
Child Care Vouchers	Miscellaneous Plan
Personal Computer	Miscellaneous Plan

You assign a plan eligibility rule to each benefit plan, ensuring that when participating in benefits enrolment, only eligible employees will be able to enrol in any given benefit plan. Flexible Benefits for Great Britain also includes a new GB-specific enrolment framework.

Benefits Enrolment using Employee Self Service

Flexible Benefits for Great Britain is fully integrated with the SAP Employee Self-Service (ESS) functionality. Enrolment in GB FlexBens is currently based on Internet Transaction Server Technology. You can use these ESS functions to administer an annual (open) enrolment period for your employees, enabling them to enrol their Flexible Benefits choices via your organisation’s intranet.

You can also customise life event changes such as marriage, birth or adoption to allow your employee’s to make amendments (using ESS) to selected benefits choices as a result of significant lifestyle changes.

Using the GB FlexBens enrolment ESS, your employees can also:

·         View the total cost of their planned benefits choices

·         View the gross effects of the choices on their salary

·         Display data on their Pre-Flex Salary and Post-Flex Salary

·         Generate a simulated remuneration statement reflecting their proposed benefits choices and the estimated effect on their net salary *

*This option must be customised by you.

Thus, ESS for GB FlexBens allows your employees to choose their preferred benefits options, generate data on their proposed selections and enrol the plans they desire.

Your employees can also, at any time, use a separate Participation Overview ESS option to display their currently enroled benefits plans.

 

Example

The following two examples provide a first introduction to the Flexible Benefits administration process, as follows:

1.   Generalised Administration Process for the Organisation

2.   Generalised Administration Process for the Individual Employee

Example 1: Process for the Organisation

                        ...

       1.      A number of months prior to the new Flexible Benefits year, the organisation reviews the rules of the scheme and the list of benefits offered and makes any changes as applicable. Also at this time, the price and/or availability of each flexible benefit is negotiated with each respective benefits provider.

       2.      Once the new benefits scheme rules and/or benefits (if applicable) have been agreed, the benefits system is updated to reflect these, and the internal communication process with the employees commences.

       3.      If an Additional Funding Scheme or a Total Package Funding Scheme is in place, then the value of the fund/package is normally reviewed at the same time as the annual salary review.

       4.      In the case of the Total Package Scheme, the value of the package is the basis of the salary review process.

However, for an Additional Funding Scheme, the flex fund could be administered as a completely separate process if the flex fund amount allocated to the employee as part of this scheme is not, or is no longer, a percentage of the basic salary.

Example 2: Process for the Employee

...

       1.      Open enrolment period commences. Employee logs on to Employee Self Service after communication from organisation.

       2.      Employee chooses the annual (open) enrolment option.

       3.      Employee chooses preferred benefits plans/plan options and accepts his or her benefits selections.

       4.      Employee views the summary of costs for the benefit plans selected, and makes any necessary amendments.

Employees may also be able to generate a payslip from ESS, simulating the effect of their Flexible Benefits choices on their remuneration.

       5.      Employee submits his or her benefits selection using ESS and accepts the changes to his or her conditions of employment.

       6.      GB FlexBens system and GB Payroll component updated with employee’s benefits choices.

       7.      Employee receives confirmation of his or her benefits plan/options choices from the Benefits Administrator (optional).

       8.      Annual (open) Enrolment period closes.

       9.      Employee is issued with a total compensation and benefits statement in a printed or electronic format.