Higher education workforce benefits. What’s your strategy?

Michael Plater, Ph.D. | Vice President, Higher Education

Academia, like most industries, is working hard to regain footing in today’s erratic labor market. For higher education specifically, fluctuating enrollments due to the pandemic have led to drastic shifts in workforce stability. Employees everywhere––and at every level––are demanding more competitive pay, benefits, and work-life balance. Administrators are reacting by carefully weighing and recalibrating their employment strategies––and that means reviewing benefits packages.

Most institutions are in the midst of open enrollment season. How did your HR team prepare the strategy behind it? Did a gap analysis reveal that your institution needed to focus on retaining or recruiting talent––or both? Were you able to provide a buffet of benefit choices to ensure that current or prospective faculty and staff would be complacent, happy, and motivated? At what level are you comfortable with cost-sharing with employees? Did you feel stuck with little bargaining power with benefit vendors?

That’s where Kelly Education comes in. For 75 years, Kelly has been helping companies around the world attract, onboard, train, develop, and manage their workforce.

When we partner with institutions, we have the flexibility to customize a benefits administration program that meets your strategic needs.

With decades of experience and more than 150 higher education clients, we know that educational institutions are saddled with legacy costs and employment contracts that drive up cost. Kelly operates in all 50 states and in many global markets, so we are able to leverage large-scale buying power with our vendors. We have the ability to negotiate results in market-competitive benefits that are regularly benchmarked.

As the pandemic initiated a greater remote workforce, some of our partner institutions have found that managing out-of-state employees going forward can be difficult because of the variability in disability and leave laws at the state and local levels. We have the expertise to manage compliance where your employees work, easing the burden for institutions. Kelly also offers ACA compliance for eligible employees, so employers do not risk a penalty from the IRS.

Change can be difficult for employees, and we understand that too. We take great pride in how we communicate about pay and benefits to them. At Kelly Education, we use interactive technology to reach both remote and in-person employees—providing a top-notch educational experience ahead of open enrollment, including instructional videos and an interactive benefits guide. Employees can use different tools to answer their pressing benefits questions and set up time to meet with certified benefits counselors to discuss their options. In addition to helping employees select the benefits that are right for them, we also work to help them use their benefit dollars wisely to keep money in their pockets.

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has changed higher education––and its workforce. There’s no returning to business as usual. New strategies for tackling cost containment are an organizational imperative to survival. Now is the time to explore strategic partnerships in employee and benefits management so that your institution can hire and retain the best workforce available to educate students.