A benefits experience that’s stuck in the past

Technology and data are not just part of their product, they’re central to everything that Job&Talent does. Matthew says, “Before we connected with Nava, we were working with a more traditional benefits broker that really did not leverage any elements of technology or data that we see from the Nava team.” As a result, he says, “Our benefits administrator had a lot of manual processes – everything from enrollment to cancellation and especially the day-to-day support. All of that took up a lot of her time and our current broker wasn’t offering options that made that any easier.”

Pre-Nava, the new hire process in particular was overly-complicated. Employees submitted their benefits enrollments through the HRIS, but the benefits broker required elections to be submitted to them in a different system. The Job&Talent team had to manually export elections and import them to the benefits system, wait for the broker to review it and then go back to the HRIS and manually set up payroll deductions. The team was spending up to an hour per new employee. With about 30 new employees per month, that time adds up. 

In addition to manually onboarding each new employee, they also were responsible for answering or coordinating responses to employee support requests. Matthew says, “Access to healthcare information and healthcare support for our team was severely lacking with our previous broker. If someone had a question and needed support, they would have to reach out to our benefits administrator. And if she didn’t know the answer, then she would have to call or email the broker team.” Being the middle person took up valuable time, slowing down responses to employees and resulting in even more time spent manually managing the benefits experience. 

When Matthew and his team went looking for a new broker, the use of technology and data to make their internal processes and the employee experience more efficient was at the top of their priority list. 

Saving 20 hours per month by optimizing employee onboarding 

Job&Talent evaluated a variety of new brokers and ultimately chose Nava. Matthew says,

“We decided to go with Nava because, just like us, they’re disrupting a legacy industry with technology and data. Bringing technology to an industry that maybe hasn't done a great job of applying new tech is something that we felt matched up really well with our company culture, because we're trying to do a similar thing in the staffing industry that Nava is doing in the benefits world.” 

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That shared commitment to evolving experiences with technology has saved Job&Talent time and improved their ability to serve employee’s benefits needs.

Matthew estimates that taking new employee onboarding off of their plate completely has saved the team about 20 hours per month. Since Job&Talent made the switch to Nava, Matthew says, “Now we have a Nava team member that goes directly into our HRIS and takes care of the whole new employee onboarding process for us. We don't have to look at it unless there's some sort of issue that the Nava team brings to our attention.” 

The Nava team is working right alongside the Job&Talent team to make sure the benefits experience is smooth year-round. Matthew says,

“I see Nava as more of an extension of our team than a vendor. Their knowledge and expertise in the benefits space has really enhanced our team.” 

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That expertise has opened doors for the Job&Talent team. “We brought in an FSA and DCFSA this year after we evaluated what we were missing with the Nava team. They also helped us find an EAP after our previous broker wasn’t able to find a good match for us.

Employee support and access to benefits information

Matthew also points out that Nava offers direct employee support, something they were missing with their previous broker. Now, Matthew says, “Some people use the Nava support email address to send emails directly to the Nava Benefits Experts. Other people like to use the chat feature in the Nava Benefits App. People do still come to us with questions but now we can confidently pass those off to the Nava team.” 

Not only is there less time spent coordinating support emails, but the quality of support they’re able to offer is much more in depth with the Nava Benefits Experts., “The customer service and expertise is at a level that I have not seen with other brokers.” He also adds,

“The team is confident that the Nava support team has all the answers. They know that when they go to them, they can be confident that their questions will be answered or their issues will get resolved and they'll get resolved in a timely manner.”

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The day-to-day benefits experience has also been improved with access to the Nava Benefits App. Before, employees had to log in to multiple different platforms to access ID cards, track deductibles and find providers. That resulted in more support requests about lost logins and cards for Matthew and his team and a frustrating experience for employees. Matthew says,

“Once we got set up with Nava and everyone had digital copies of their cards in the Nava app, questions about ID cards and logins immediately vanished. Now people can just scan the QR code, open up the Nava app, and they have all of their cards right there at their fingertips.”

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A future-focused benefits strategy

Outside of enhancing the employee experience, the data that the Nava Benefits App offers Matthew and his team is now helping them shape the future of their benefits strategies. For instance, they noticed that employees were asking about a few different benefits that Job&Talent doesn’t currently offer. Based on the feedback they received through the app, they’re now planning to add those benefits in 2025. Matthew says, “Having access to the data in the Nava Benefits App has been very helpful for us to understand what people are happy with and what people think is missing or could improve the benefits experience at Job&Talent.”

The Job&Talent team also looks forward to working with Nava to offer their employees more choices in their benefits during open enrollment this year. He says, “We’d like to expand our offerings this year to give employees more choices. With our Nava team, we have a plan in place to look at other options that increase our employee’s access to the benefits they want. 

When Matthew was asked what he liked most about working with Nava, he quickly answered “The people,” and continued, “Nava is approaching both the customer relationship and the relationship with our employees in a different way than I've seen from other brokers. Their approach has created a more positive experience for myself and our admins internally, as well as our team members who are using the services every day.”

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