As hybrid and remote working continue to become the norm, workplace locations, habits, procedures and policies are changing rapidly. And the tools and processes organizations use to reimburse employees for their expenses—vehicles, devices, home offices, relocation, and everything in between—may not be up to scratch.
Organizations saddled with multiple legacy reimbursement providers and inefficient manual processes may struggle to keep up with fluid market conditions, emerging hybrid workforce expectations, and ever-changing compliance demands. This can prevent leaders from making decisions that could help their companies grow. Customers also notice when these organizations’ competitors are better positioned to deliver what they need.
But some organizations are optimizing their resource allocation by implementing simple, flexible, and scalable reimbursement and applying real-time data analytics to help them spot problems and improve data-driven decision making. Updating these processes and platforms is helping them reduce costs and maximize reimbursement spend without disrupting their workforce. Your solution is software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools that reduce administrative burden, seamlessly trend, drive intelligence, ensure tax compliance, and pinpoint compliance issues across markets and regions.
Shifting to fluency
A midsize delivery company relies on drivers who use their own vehicles to complete their tasks. After adopting a low-cost workforce management system to oversee reimbursements, the company quickly discovered that onboarding each new driver to the platform was a multi-day process that required the company to complete multiple manual administrative tasks. That was a risky scenario, as employees would not be reimbursed if the information was entered incorrectly. “The goal of this solution was to make sure our drivers were reimbursed,” says a company operational leader, “and that wasn’t happening.”
The organization made a smooth transition to a scalable, flexible, and reimbursement-optimized SaaS system. Adding new drivers has become a simple process. All drivers are signed up and paid accurately: “Nobody misses a refund,” says the operational leader, and costs have been reduced by 30%.
In Louisiana, a beer and soft drink distributor once supplied company vehicles to its sales force. These employees had long work hours, each visiting around 15 accounts a day, and the employees were expected to drive their cars home after work. Together, that activity adds up to 20,000 miles on the odometers of company cars each year.
But the company realized that drivers were tough on these fleet cars. Frequent accidents and inconsistent maintenance led to increased corporate risk and liability exposure. And company leaders believed that employees underestimated the benefit of their vehicle.
As the organization implemented a policy change to have its employees drive their personal vehicles instead of company cars, it implemented a reimbursement platform that quickly made ongoing program management user-friendly and easy to navigate.
The system provider managed all communication to launch the program on a new platform and performed administrative tasks, verifying that all drivers were insured and compliant with company policy. The change also caused a welcome cultural shift. Today, with employees driving and caring for their personal vehicles at work, company liability is significantly reduced and maintenance expenses are no longer an issue.
brewing efficiency
DG Yuengling & Son, the Pennsylvania stalwart that is America’s oldest brewery, had long used a mileage-tracking app to reimburse its sales employees for their trips. But their system was problematic and often inaccurate, wasting time as sales reps manually updated their trip records.
Company leaders knew the brewer needed to update its refund platform, but were hesitant to potentially disrupt legacy workflows without being sure a new solution would bring real improvement.
But Yuengling adopted a highly accurate and easy-to-use platform that was easy to integrate with its expense management software, freeing up its sales team to focus on selling rather than manually entering mileage into a trackable legacy system. GPS ineffective. After the switch, 92% of platform users at the brewery said the new tools saved them significant follow-up and mileage reporting or helped them streamline their work and eliminate manual processes.
A new tool for growth
In a challenging economic environment with a stubbornly tight labor market, organizations must make critical decisions to optimize growth, profit, and culture while retaining their best talent. Examining and implementing your reimbursement programs can help your organization make decisions that help both your employees and your business grow.
Find out how Motus can help your organization build your rebate program.