Dive Brief:

• The world of benefits technology is undergoing rapid change, driven by tighter employee benefits and HR technology integration, a rise in cloud-based platforms and the rise of enrollment emerging as the leading application and benefits decision driver, according to new research conducted for Employee Benefit News.
• The best news from the survey: HR and benefits leaders had high satisfaction ratings overall, as they reported being either "satisfied" (53%) or "very satisfied" (17%), On the spending front, 93% of the 259 respondents said they spent as much or more on technology this year as they did in 2015.
• The 2016 EBN Tech Survey, in its third year and conducted this summer by Sourcemedia Research, indicates that benefit technology decisions largely focus on a desire to help employees "enroll in, use and monitor their benefits" (nearly 52%) while, at the same time, helping employers gain greater control of their benefits package offerings.

Dive Insight:

Sorting through the comprehensive EBN survey results, it's clear that HR and benefits decision makers face an increasingly wide array of choices in their quest to optimize and leverage technology to make the employee benefits process as smooth and transparent as possible. In other words, while technology has been around for decades in benefits, their are new, improved ways of using it to engage employees via stronger benefit plans and how they are accessed.

In addition, the rise in compliance with federal and state rules and regulations no doubt is driving benefits leaders to lean even more on technology in meeting mandated requirements. Mainly, that means a more intense focus on the ways technology can not only deliver a satisfying experience to the workforce, but also how it can help HR and benefits leaders ensure that an employer will avoid fines and penalties associated with non-compliance.