For independent and charter schools, employee benefits are essential in attracting and retaining top talent. However, managing benefits administration can be a complex and time-consuming task for school administrators. From diverse workforce needs to compliance and regulatory requirements, schools face numerous challenges in ensuring that their employees receive the benefits they deserve.
Challenges in Benefits Administration for Schools
A strong benefits package is important for independent and charter schools competing for top talent in a competitive education landscape, helping them stand out amidst the ongoing teacher shortage. But juggling the diverse needs of different employee groups, complying with complex regulations, and managing benefits day-to-day poses challenges for school administrators.
One significant challenge is catering to the diverse needs of school employees. Teachers, administrators, support staff, and auxiliary personnel have varying benefit priorities and preferences. For instance, teachers may prioritize health insurance and retirement savings, while support staff might prefer flexible work arrangements and tuition reimbursement. Striking a balance that meets the needs of all employee groups requires a comprehensive and flexible benefits package.
Another challenge is administering fringe benefits, which are non-cash compensation provided in addition to regular wages. Fringe benefits like housing, transportation, or meal subsidies make a compensation package more attractive; however, managing these benefits adds an extra layer of complexity to administration, including tracking eligibility, calculating costs, and ensuring compliance with tax regulations for non-exempt offerings.
In the current tight labor market, schools also face the challenge of retaining their teachers. Schools need to go beyond the basics and offer innovative and comprehensive benefits packages to retain high-quality educators. This can include creative strategies such as student loan assistance, professional development opportunities, wellness programs, or earned wage access (EWA) benefits. Effectively managing these challenges is crucial for schools to remain competitive in the education sector and secure the talent they need to provide quality education to students.
Aligning with carriers and brokers to build a robust benefits package is important, and the next milestone is finding the right partner and system to manage those benefits day-to-day, year-over-year.
A myriad of challenges can plague benefits administration: manual processes, compliance complexities, reporting challenges, customer service roadblocks, and data inaccuracy. Overcoming these challenges benefits school employees and administrators.
Compliance Challenges
Schools face unique compliance hurdles, navigating a complex web of federal, state, and local regulations. Depending on school type, staying compliant with employee benefits, taxation, or non-profit status can be challenging, especially for smaller HR and finance teams. The consequences of non-compliance include fines, penalties, reputational damage, and difficulties in recruiting and retention.
Reporting Roadblocks
Difficult-to-use systems and poor customer service make it challenging to generate custom reports or comply with government regulations like ACA. Without the right support, avoidance of issues becomes difficult and can lead to inefficiencies and non-compliance.
Data Accuracy Concerns
Benefit inaccuracies impact both employees and the organization. Without a flexible system to manage all offerings, including fringe benefits, schools may have to rely on manual processes or multiple systems which can lead to errors.
How PayBridge Can Help
In addition to managing payroll and HR functions on a single platform, partnering with PayBridge simplifies benefit compliance, enhances reporting, and offers customization to seamlessly manage all benefits.
Simplify Compliance – with dedicated support teams, schools can navigate complex mandates with ease. Additionally, PayBridge simplifies ACA and annual reporting processes by automating data collection.
Enhanced Reporting – access over 600 standard reports or utilize user-friendly, ad-hoc tools to create customized reports for specific needs.
Customization – Create and maintain benefits packages based on employee preferences and ensure that fringe benefits are managed accurately.
The high cost of inefficiency in benefits administration is a multi-faceted challenge that impacts financial resources and educational quality. Partnering with PayBridge mitigates the risks and helps schools overcome these challenges.
