Golden State Foods (GSF) is one of the largest diversified suppliers to the quick-service restaurant and retail industries. Headquartered in Irvine, California, GSF is known for its superior quality, innovation, and customer service in both manufacturing and customer service.
Challenges
Accurate and compliant benefits processing is a significant challenge for GSF because of the company's complex structure. As a food manufacturing and distribution company, GSF has an employee base that is mostly hourly, and a large majority of associates are union members.
Salaried and hourly employees are eligible for different benefits programs, as are union and nonunion members. Even associates with the same profiles have different benefits options depending upon their departments, such as transportation versus warehouse. In addition, the company has grown through acquisition and continues to absorb distinct benefits programs.
GSF runs weekly payrolls, and with employees located in more than 20 U.S. states, the company must ensure compliance with each state's benefits requirements.
Solutions
When GSF went live with the UKG Pro® solution, it immediately began using UKG Pro Benefits Administration as its benefits solution. They were a beta customer and one of the first 10 Pro customers to implement the Benefits Administration solution. "UKG Pro Benefits Administration offered us extensive field configurability, so we could trigger the correct benefits eligibility in the solution," said Shelley Gale, Senior Business Systems Analyst, HCM, at GSF. "It was capable of handling the number of requirements that we needed — putting our people in the correct eligible populations and cost populations — so that we could automate benefits calculations. It is a well-designed, well-thought-out system for benefits management."
GSF is currently using the solution for new-hire and rehire benefits enrollment and life-events processing as well as for processing work-status events, such as when employees move from hourly to salaried, are promoted, or receive a merit increase and life-insurance volumes need to be recalculated. The company also uses Pro for online open enrollment, requiring all 3,500 associates to log in to the system to elect benefits.
"Our online enrollment was very successful," said Gale. "UKG Pro Benefits Prime's shopping-cart model was popular and our employees were very familiar with the Amazon-style shopping experience. We are excited about the forthcoming integration of UKG Pro Benefits Administration with the UKG Pro mobile app, which will enable our largely mobile workforce, like truck drivers, to complete tasks such as new-hire enrollment or open enrollment on their phones."
"The solution has a tremendous amount of functionality. We are continuing to make refinements to our processes to make the employee experience even better and the administration of our complex benefits structures even easier."
Shelley Gale
Senior Business Systems Analyst, HCM
Results
"What I love most about UKG Pro Benefits Administration is its flexibility, and its ability to handle our most complex situations," said Gale. "I also like the comprehensive information available through the administrative portal."
According to Gale, human resources staff members have extended their learning by taking advantage of the free, ongoing training that UKG provides to all its customers.
"The three benefits specialists that were with GSF when we launched UKG Pro Benefits Administration have left the company, so the one-on-one training sessions with UKG's Benefits Administration experts have enabled us to provide a consistent level of service," said Gale. "I'm also learning things that I couldn't cover during the launch when we were so focused on just configuration and testing.
"The solution has a tremendous amount of functionality," Gale added. "We are continuing to make refinements to our processes to make the employee experience even better and the administration of our complex benefits structures even easier."
