100% federally funded, Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) serves members of Medi-Cal and Medicare in Southern California. At IEHP, company culture is of the utmost importance. Their 1.3+ million members mean everything to them, but in order to take good care of their members, IEHP has to take good care of their own team. It was that ethos that prompted their HR transformation journey.
IEHP shared their story at the 2020 WorkForce Software® VISION event. The full session is now available to watch as a WorkForce Software Groundbreaker session here.
A Day In the Life
Obamacare initiatives caused IEHP to grow very quickly. As their memberships doubled, so did their workforce. Though some automation was in place, many processes remained manual, and timesheets remained on paper. While IEHP’s legacy Time and Attendance solution met their minimum requirements, reporting issues and mistrust between the users and the solution caused serious challenges.
Growth Required Innovation
They needed a way to make sure everyone was paid right – and paid right the first time. Simultaneously, they needed to consider the rules and complexities of the healthcare industry balanced with the intricate laws and state-level guidelines of California. Compensation for extra shifts, returning to work from leave, personal support…the list of requirements was big.
Transformation Had Begun
As a public entity, IEHP began their process through a formal vendor selection. Ultimately, the team decided on WorkForce Software as their solution of choice for its comprehensive time and attendance features, and its ability to work with the full–suite SAP® SuccessFactors® HR solution.
When it came down to selecting a partner, IEHP felt that Rizing had the right skillset to help them implement their hefty transformation plan, which included:
- WorkForce Software – Time & Attendance, Absence Compliance
- SAP SuccessFactors – Employee Central, Talent Modules, Compensation, Performance & Goals, Succession & Career Development
- Benefitfocus
- Sodales
- Application Managed Services for ongoing support
In order to manage such an intricate project, IEHP knew their full attention had to first be given to WorkForce Software Time & Attendance.
Preparing, planning, and learning as much as possible about their processes, strengths, and pain points was key. The mantra was: “If you can’t map your current, you can’t map your future.” And IEHP took this advice seriously by sparing no effort in learning as much about themselves as possible. From sitting down with each internal department head to hiring a third-party process engineer, they made sure that everything was modeled accurately and documented clearly.
There was a lot of work to be done but IEHP’s diligence in planning and preparing paid off when two years of transformation were finally live in December 2019.
The Unexpected Hiccup
COVID-19 brought a new set of challenges to this healthcare organization. All of a sudden, IEHP needed to keep their people moving safely and keep paying their employees amidst the chaos. They were asking themselves many critical questions. How do we track who gets sick? How do we support our employees? Who is most at risk and how do we protect them?
IEHP did not wait to answer these questions and began their response to the pandemic as quickly as possible. Like we said, employees are at the heart of IEHP’s culture, so they needed to make sure employees felt supported, protected, and could take care of their members.
It was very much “changing the engine while flying the plane”. IEHP’s IT department was able to facilitate over 2,500 employees to work from home in less than two weeks.
California’s generous leave laws meant that IEHP had to accommodate new leave codes and pay codes due to COVID-19, yielding changes in their Time & Attendance and Absence Tracking solution.
Employees were trained on these updates while Rizing ensured the new changes in the system were legally compliant. Wage and hour impacts for essential employees were managed.
Crossing the Finish Line
Looking back, the existing partnership with Rizing and a fortunate timing on their initial transformation implementation are what enabled them to respond speedily and seamlessly to the pandemic.
When we asked IEHP what advice they would give to an organization looking to transform their HR processes, they shared these four tips:
- Prepare, prepare, prepare
- Trust the process
- Support your team while they learn and adjust to a new system with new processes
- It really is a team effort with your internal team and with your partner
While IEHP is still very much in their WorkForce Software implementation, their foundation is built, tried, and tested. They’re ready to keep going.
If you enjoyed this story and would like to listen to the full session, you can access it on the WorkForce Software Groundbreaker Session page here.
