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5 Compliance Concerns Your Clients Have Around LOA

Gabe Prusak on June 8, 2023

Com-pli-ance are the three scariest syllables keeping your clients up at night. People Ops professionals have a slew of responsibilities that require diligence in order to ensure their organizations stay compliant, and managing their employee population’s leaves of absence a rife with potential pitfalls.

Understanding your clients’ compliance concerns as it pertains to leaves of absence will help set you up for success in establishing a relationship built on trust and effective support.

1. Knowing the latest applicable leave of absence laws

One of the biggest compliance concerns your clients have is making sure they are administering every leave of absence in accordance with the latest State and Federal regulations. Depending on the type of leave being taken, they must have familiarity with everything ranging from the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). Federal and state laws provide certain rights and protections for eligible employees and if the rules aren’t followed the employer could face legal ramifications and fines.

Staying up-to-date with the latest leave of absence laws is a lot of work and breeds a steady stream of uncertainty in the minds of your clients. Providing them a solution backed by leave law experts takes their guesswork out of the equation and ensures their employees are being lawfully supported and protected throughout their leave.

2. Documentation and notice requirements for leaves of absence

With everything going on in your clients’ day, it can be easy to overlook some very important elements to managing a leave of absence. For example, depending on the scenario employers may be required to provide employees with information regarding their rights and responsibilities related to their specific leave of absence. They may be legally required to provide the employee with details about the applicable leave laws, the process for requesting the leave, the duration and benefits associated with the leave, and any required documentation such as their doctor’s medical certification. Failing to do so in a timely and accurate manner can leave your clients cooking in some hot water.

Providing manual notifications to every employee taking a leave about rights and responsibilities and documentation of any applicable paperwork can be a nightmare administrative scenario for your clients. They’re looking for the kind of support that simply does all of this for them because as leave requests rise, the burden of this concern only gets worse.

3. Manager misbehavior leading to claims of discrimination or retaliation

What’s out of sight can have your clients losing their minds. Even if your client is managing leaves and painstakingly crossing every “t” and dotting every “lower-case j” they still run the risk of having an employee’s manager run afoul throughout the leave journey. Whether it’s threatening job stagnation or termination, fumbling the return-to-work transition by not bringing them back to an equivalent position, or sending non-compliant communications to an employee while on leave, managers are major compliance concern that can rear its head at any moment.

Manager education can be time-consuming and is vital. Educating managers about their direct report’s specific leave, what it means, how long they’ll be gone, and the do’s and don’ts of a leave of absence behavior can be crushingly complicated, yet is critical to staying out of legal trouble.

4. Inconsistently managed leaves of absence

The inconsistent management of leaves is a constant worry for your clients. If they apply different standards or treatments to employees requesting leaves of absence based on protected characteristics such as race, gender, religion, disability, or age, it can lead to allegations of discrimination. If an employee has grounds to argue that they were not granted leave or provided with the same benefits and protections as others it can damage employee morale and lead to legal disputes.

To mitigate these risks, HR departments should establish clear policies and procedures and have the mechanisms in place to apply them consistently. Not. Easy. They also should establish training materials to educate the organization on legal requirements and company policies so that everyone throughout the organization is on the same page when an employee takes a leave so they can avoid inconsistently managed leaves.

5. Leave as an accommodation

Your clients might be required to provide leave of absence as an accommodation to employees if they’ve determined the employee’s circumstance qualifies under applicable laws like the American Disabilities Act (ADA) or the PWFA. It’s your client’s responsibility to determine whether or not the accommodation request is reasonable, and understanding how and when the ADA applies to a leave of absence, for example, is not always straightforward. As for the PWFA, which is set to go into effect on June 27, 2023, a reasonable accommodation must be provided to workers for known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

On top of that, if the requested leave of absence is determined to be a reasonable accommodation, communicating the decision to the employee in writing, specifying the duration and any other relevant details need to be executed in a timely manner and documented.

Leave as an accommodation is a tricky situation your clients find themselves in quite a bit, so it’s important for them to consult with leave experts to ensure they’re staying compliant with all applicable laws and regulations throughout the process of providing a leave of absence as an accommodation

About Tilt

Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.

A Broker’s Guide to Leave of Absence Fluency

Gabe Prusak on June 8, 2023

If leave of absence lingo is a foreign language to you, you aren’t alone. For your clients, however, managing employee leaves of absence is oftentimes a significant part of their job and a major pain in their side. In the middle of a conversation they may say something like, “I’m drowning with all these leaves of absence requests,” and it’s not always clear exactly what they mean. You can tell they’re struggling, but what it is they’re struggling with might not be obvious.

To help you become fluent in all things leave of absence, we’ve provided a breakdown of some of the roles and responsibilities People Ops professionals have as it pertains to managing their employees’ leave of absence requests so you can better understand their frustrations and provide solutions that meet their needs.

The basics of leave of absence management

When an employee needs to take time away from work for a life event like adding a new member to their family, to grieve over the loss of a family member, or to recover from an operation (to name a few) employees may have certain rights that allow them to take a leave of absence from work.

It’s on the People Operations team to manage the leave of absence process for their employees, and the process is complex and filled with compliance hazards. In most organizations, this process is usually being managed manually in-house via a nest of spreadsheets, email chains and calendar invites, or their only solution is an add-on afterthought provided by their insurance carriers. Since carriers don’t specialize in leave management, People Ops pros find that they aren’t very effective at meeting the complex needs required to effectively support a leave.

If managing the leaves themselves weren’t enough, when employees have questions pertaining to their specific leave of absence they’re turning to People Ops pros for answers. This support and attention must be provided to every employee taking a leave, and the drain this causes on bandwidth is often more than People Ops can sustain and still effectively do their other job functions.

Things your client is being asked to do:

Determine FMLA eligibility: The Family and Medical Leave Act is a federal program that gives eligible employees job protection for up to 12 weeks when taking leave for a qualified event. Your client is required to notify employees of their FMLA rights and help establish their eligibility. FMLA does not provide employees with pay compensation, only job protection.

Confirm medical certifications: Depending on the leave, there’s a good chance the employer will require a medical certification verifying that the need for the leave of absence is valid.

Help employees apply for state benefits: Some states have their own paid benefits programs that provide a percentage of salary compensation to the employee. Your client will need to know if the state their employee resides in has such a program, and if so, they’ll need to help their employee navigate the ins and outs of the claim filing process.

Ensure employer-paid benefits are kicking in: In addition to FMLA and state benefits, your client’s organization might have their own paid benefits through a provider. The duration of these benefits might not be the same as the state benefits or FMLA, so job protection and salary pay calculations need to be considered.

Sync with payroll: On the topic of pay calculations, your client’s payroll department needs to know what the employee is owed by the company. This means that they need to sync with payroll to ensure the amount provided by employer benefits and state benefits are accurate so any top-up (making the employee’s paycheck whole) calculations are accurate.

Stay up to date with leave laws: Leave laws change all the time. From eligibility requirements to the amount of time and money a state might help cover the costs of a leave. Every state has different laws and not adhering to them could mean major financial implications for an organization. Your clients are likely having to Google leave laws in states they’ve never stepped foot in and hope they’re interpreting the laws correctly.

Educate managers: Your clients also have to worry about the managers of the employee taking leave knowing what they can and can’t say during a leave. If a manager isn’t aware of up-to-date leave laws, they might send the organization toward a lawsuit.

Track changing leave dates: Leaves of absence are rarely straightforward, and even when they are they are still subject to shifts in leave start and stop dates. If an employee plans to return to work early or gives birth early, this can have an impact on everything from team workload to pay sources.

Leave management doesn't have to be this complicated

These are just some of the tasks and responsibilities your clients are dealing with when trying to manage one leave of absence. Now multiply this by every leave request that comes across their plate and you can see why they’ve had enough.

Now that you know what’s required of your clients to effectively manage a leave of absence, you won’t be caught flat-footed and can help them by providing solutions that alleviate their struggles.

3rd-party solutions like Tilt take all of these stressors off of their plate entirely, and if you have more questions about what a 3rd-party solution can provide compared to a carrier we’ve written more about that here.

About Tilt

How Better LOA Management Leads to Your Clients Demonstrating Value

Gabe Prusak on June 8, 2023

It’s always a good idea to find at least one friend who loves nothing more than finding ways to make you shine. As a benefits broker, you field a variety of favors for clients who are seeking your guidance in delivering the best support possible to their employee population while also making their lives easier.

The brokers who really establish that “gotta-keep-you-in-my-life” bond with their clients do the aforementioned in a way that makes their value to the organization undeniable. This is where leave of absence management comes into play.

What does LOA management look like for your clients today?

One function your clients almost universally struggle with is their leave of absence management. Most have inherited antiquated systems and processes that are confusing to follow, and each leave is a time vacuum to try to track and administer effectively. Add to that the leave laws, which are always changing and are different state to state, and it’s a nightmare to be responsible for.

Oh, that’s actually not all. They also have to navigate managers that are walking compliance risks, always one inappropriate leave-related email away from an employment violation and legal headaches. When an employee is confused about what to do for state benefit programs? They’ve gotta help their employees through that too. They’re also trying to coordinate with payroll who time and again can’t make the pay calculations add up based on a Google Sheet that requires manual updates when elements of a leave changes.

Needless to say, in their day-to-day world, leave of absence management is just about as high up on your clients’ “Least Favorite To-Dos” list as it gets.

How Good LOA Management Solutions Are a Boon for Benefits Brokers

Modern LOA management solutions, like Tilt, can make you an indispensable ally for your clients. Tilt not only manages your client’s leaves, but does so in a way that increases employee satisfaction and retention rates, reduces compliance risks, eliminates payroll overpayments, makes capitalizing on state benefits programs easy, and offloads all of the administrative burdens of managing a leave while delivering empathetic, 1-1 human support to their employee population.

For all the hard work employees do for their organization, an employee should feel supported when they need to take a leave of absence to take care of whatever major life event is happening. Making that process as easy and human as possible is essential to maintaining a happy employee population and is of critical importance to People Ops professionals no matter the size of the company or industry. The cost of getting it wrong and finding a replacement employee goes well beyond the dollars and cents. Their’s recruiting efforts, production impacts, and the loss of institutional knowledge as well.

Yes, it’s the human thing to do, but keeping one employee happy on a leave can also save an organization some serious cash and your clients will love you for it.

Another way your clients will shine in the eyes of leadership with Tilt is by mitigating compliance risks. We have a team of leave law experts who are absolutely obsessed with leave law. We don’t get it either, but we love ‘em and are glad they’re with us. This means our platform is always current on the latest leave laws and state benefit programs so your clients can rest assured their employees are being guided through the process efficiently, correctly and compliantly.

Payroll, payroll, payroll. Tilt makes payroll easy by automating pay adjustments when leave dates or pay rates change. Payroll gets access to our platform as well so your clients don’t have to tabulate squat. No more accidental overpayments to employees which can be very costly indeed.

State benefits is another major headache for People Ops that when taken care of by Tilt ensures their employees are guided every step of the way, and are even reminded of important filing dates. When they have questions they come to Tilt, not your client. This means that organizations that were previously just paying 100% of their employees leave, now have an easy way for the employer to offset those costs without your clients having to lift a finger.

Strengthen your bond with Tilt

By offering Tilt to your clients, you’re telling them, “Here, let me douse those flames from your LOA dumpster fire…and while Tilt does that you’ll be saving your company bags of money while mitigating compliance risks in the process.” Do that, and you’re now the indispensable work friend (still counts as a friend, right? Asking for a…work friend) making their lives easier while finding ways to help them demonstrate massive value in the eyes of their organization.

About Tilt

The Support People Ops Aren’t Getting From Carriers

Gabe Prusak on June 8, 2023

Insurance carriers provide a bevy of benefits to your clients, but a one-stop-shop for all things employee support they are not. As a consumer, there is a strong appeal for any opportunity to “bundle.” One source providing service for multiple needs? Pinch me and take my money.

There are times, however, when the elusive allure of one solution doing it all does more than a pinch, it can come back to bite you. Most insurance carriers are great at supporting the needs of your clients and their employee population as it pertains to insurance, but when they venture into the realm of leave of absence it becomes clear that they’re out of their depth.

Insurance carriers can’t deliver on leave management support

Insurance carriers are experts…on carrying insurance. While this may seem obvious to any benefits broker, what may be less obvious is that many of your clients are also using them for helping manage their leaves of absence. This becomes particularly problematic when an employee needs to file for state benefits and their People Ops team, who also aren’t leave experts, point them in the direction of their carrier’s 1-800 number. From there someone they’ve never spoken with before has to try to figure out who that employee is and what they need.

Every time they call.

Why is this important? Well, every leave of absence is unique, with new sets of characters and characteristics that can impact the kind of support needed to effectively help navigate a leave of absence. An employee might be going through one of the most challenging times of their lives; perhaps they need time to acclimate to experiencing the world with a disability, or perhaps they started their journey thinking they’d be taking a maternity leave only for it to tragically turn into a bereavement.

No one should have to “press zero to speak to a representative” when their life has been flipped on its head, but perhaps most importantly, insurance carriers are not leave of absence experts. They don’t provide 1-1 direct support so an employee is working with different representatives any time there’s a question, and they don’t have in-house experts who specialize in mastering leave laws.

Then there’s the issue of visibility. Your client is responsible for helping their employees navigate leave, but they have no window into the support the employee is, or in most cases is not, getting. The “you don’t know what you don’t know” game is an especially dangerous one to play when it comes to being compliant and providing empathetic support.

What does good leave management support look like?

Good leave management support means different things from the People Ops side as it does the employee side, but it needs to be effective for both parties.

What your clients need: Your client needs a holistic leave management solution that takes all the administrative burdens off their plate while delivering a seamless experience to their employee population. They need to have one system that tracks, updates, educates, and informs everyone involved in a leave and all leaves need to be administered consistently.

Whether it’s payroll needing accurate pay calculations or an employee’s manager needing instruction on what rights their direct report has so they avoid potential legal troubles, good leave management support reduces compliance risks, streamlines and guides employees through complicated processes like applying for state benefits programs, and offers empathetic human support backed by leave law experts so your client knows their employees are in good hands.

What your client’s employees need: There’s a good chance that your client’s employees have never taken a leave of absence before and with how complicated they are, intimidation is a real factor. The emotions an employee might be going through when they realize they need a leave of absence can range from excited to heartbroken, but what they really want from their employer is the feeling of, “Hey, take care of yourself, we’re going to make this as easy and supported as possible for you.”

Where insurance carriers don’t have the systems or expertise to deliver on these needs, a modern leave management solution like Tilt does.

Tilt has a team of in-house leave law experts that not only supports our tech platform, but are also at the ready should our Leave Success Managers (AKA LSMs, AKA Empathy Warriors) need them. Leave laws are constantly changing and your clients have to deal with some wild employee leave scenarios…trust us.

Our LSMs are the heartbeat of Tilt. They ensure your client’s employees are getting the support they actually need when they need it. Here’s just one example of what we mean:

My LSM Sabrina was such a wonderful surprise from the day we met. Navigating FMLA is confusing, and somewhat frightening to navigate on your own especially as you’re going through such a large life change. I was so happy on day one when Sabrina emailed me immediately to chat live about leave, and what I need to do and helped consult on strategy. Sabrina, thank you so much for all that you did to make my leave easy and enjoyable, you are the best! – Nash C. Principal Product Manager @ Invoca

When an employee logs into Tilt, a leave plan has already been created for them so all that they have to do is walk through the steps laid out before them. Further, we also make it easy for them to see how much they’re getting paid and where the source is coming from.

Tilt removes the busywork and anxieties around leave that an insurance carrier just doesn’t factor into their offerings. By bundling leave management services with a carrier, your clients simply aren’t getting the support they actually need.

By proposing Tilt to your clients you’re proving to them that you actually understand one of their biggest pain points and have the solution they’ve been dreaming of. Pinch them awake from their leave management nightmare with Tilt.

About Tilt

What to Do If Your Client’s Leave Management Isn’t Scalable

Gabe Prusak on June 8, 2023

In order for Benefits Brokers to effectively grow relationships with clients the solutions you provide must be able to grow as their needs do. A lack of scalability is one of biggest frustrations People Ops professionals have with their tech stack because the greater the need for a tool to scale, the bigger the headaches it causes when it can’t.

There are three common unscalable leave management scenarios your clients might be dealing with, so let’s unpack what they are and how you can help them manage their leaves moving forward at any scale.

Scenario 1: Manual leave of absence processes

Manually managing leaves is the least scalable solution your clients may be dealing with, and you’d be surprised just how many of them are at the mercy of manual process madness. This can look different depending on the organization, of course, but oftentimes your clients are trying to track and update leave dates, pay, state benefit statuses and more in a tangled web of Excel spreadsheets for every leave of absence request that comes across their inbox.

Oftentimes they’re the only point of contact when questions arise from employees about their leave including the process to apply for State Benefits programs, changes that may occur during their leave (a maternity leave to a bereavement leave, for example) and where their pay is coming from.

Scenario 1 is a nightmare for your clients to deal with at any scale, but the burden can become unbearable as leave requests rise.

Scenario 2: Relying on Traditional Insurance Carriers

Your clients also might be relying on traditional insurance carriers to provide their leave of absence management support. The issue there, as we outline in more detail here, is that support they provide ends up being subpar because they don’t manage every aspect of the leave journey, and the aspects they do support aren’t effective or efficient because traditional carriers are not leave experts.

Leaves are complicated, and when an employee takes a leave they need an empathetic human who understands exactly what they’re going through and what they need to do. Dialing a 1-800 number and getting a new rep every time you have a question leaves employees feeling unsupported and confused. Furthermore, your clients have no window into what’s happening.

With traditional carriers leave information is siloed and spread across multiple systems (theirs and your clients’) where errors and omissions leave employees no choice but to go to HR and ask for help. Of course, your clients then have to take on the burden of navigating the confusion, which of course isn’t scalable as leave requests rise.

Scenario 3: A 3rd-party solution with automated filing

While the automated filing of forms seems like it would be scalable, really it’s not. The truth is that states do not have platforms that allow for benefits forms to be filed via tech, they have to be done by a human. This means that if a 3rd-party solution is responsible for filing the benefits forms for your clients’ employees, a human is still doing the work. That human doesn’t work for your client, and there’s no guarantee that they have the bandwidth to file the employee’s paperwork on time especially as leave requests scale upward with company growth.

Not only does this solution not scale, it’s also a compliance risk as both your client and the employee they’re trying to support don’t have a window into the benefits form filing process so errors and delays in submittals are at risk of going undetected which could impact coverage.

What does scalable a leave of absence management solution look like?

A scalable leave management solution, like Tilt, gives your clients a comprehensive management solution with total transparency throughout the leave journey. Tilt makes tracking, pay information, and personal employee information in one secure location, while guiding employees through every twist and turn a leave may bring through empathetic technology and real 1-1 human support.

Tilt empowers employees by making it simple and straightforward to apply for state benefits themselves knowing that the latest leave law information is baked into the tech. Your client might be able to field questions if one employee is on a leave, but even then they’re likely relying on Google leave law searches because People Operations professionals are not leave law experts. Tilt is.

If your client has an employee with a leave-related question, Tilt’s experts handle it compassionately with the help of our in-house leave law experts so your clients can focus less on frantic leave law Google searches and more on the work they love.

Quite simply, Tilt takes your clients’ least favorite to-do and does it for them….at scale.

About Tilt

Keeps Your Clients Compliant With Leave Management By Tilt

Gabe Prusak on March 15, 2023

The administrative burdens on People Teams of managing their organization’s leaves of absence can be soul-crushing, but it’s the lack of compliance confidence throughout the leave journey that really keeps your clients up at night. As a Benefits Broker, there are various leave management compliance pitfalls your clients are trying to navigate that you need to be positioned to help solve.

Let’s first take a look at what those risks are, then we’ll talk about how Tilt mitigates those risks through their LOA management platform.

FMLA

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law that provides eligible employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for certain medical and family-related reasons.

Client risks: When it comes to managing FMLA, People Teams are required to:

Provide notice and inform employees of their rights under the FMLA.
Avoid preventing or discouraging employees from taking FMLA leave or retaliate against them for taking leave.
Ensure the employee returning from taking FMLA is restored to their original job or an equivalent position.
Maintain the employee’s benefits.

Getting FMLA right is a huge deal for your clients. Defending an FMLA violation can run an organization $80,000 on average, and of course that number can be a lot higher (upwards of $500,000) if an employee is successful in, say, a wrongful termination suit. Relying on uninformed managers to be compliant (more on that below) and handling FMLA eligibility manually quite literally keeps your clients up at night.

Tilt’s Solution: Tilt’s platform automates the FMLA process by determining employee eligibility and notifying the employee on behalf of the employer. As one customer put it:

“Compliance is the biggest risk mitigation Tilt helps with. Because previously we weren’t providing any employees with FMLA designation or their rights notices. So just being able to know that even if an employee doesn’t take FMLA, but we delivered the notice to them, we’re meeting our compliance as a business which is a HUGE piece of mind aspect.” – Sierra Stein – Benefits Partner @ Robinhood

State Benefits

Different states have different benefits programs that many employers require their employees to apply for. One example is California, which has the California State Disability Insurance (SDI) program.

The California SDI program provides short-term disability benefits that are designed to replace a portion of the employee’s income while they are unable to work, typically for up to 52 weeks. That’s money in the pockets of the employer who now isn’t on the hook for their employees’ entire salary while on leave.

Client risks: Applying for state benefits is confusing for employees and different states have different rules, requirements and guidelines for the successful filing of benefits claims. If not managed properly, People Teams run the risk of mishandling sensitive employee information which could lead to employee privacy breaches or benefits payment mishaps. All of these risks get amplified if your client’s solution for managing the state benefits isn’t scalable, and gets even more complex if your workforce is remote across multiple states,

Further, some 3rd-party leave management solutions file these claims on behalf of the employee, effectively impersonating the employee through a power of attorney agreement. While this seems like an administrative lift, it means that neither the employee or their employer (your client) has insight into the state benefits process. So if anything goes wrong your client would be the last to know, and since states don’t have sophisticated electronic filing systems, you’re relying on humans outside of your organization to fill and file these forms, which can only scale as much as the bandwidth of those humans.

Tilt’s Solution: Tilt’s personalized leave plans give employees a step-by-step guide for filing forms that are easy to follow, and lays out everything they need to know no matter the leave and no matter the state. Tilt holds their hand to the goal line and shows them how to cross the finish line.

This removes all confusion for employees, all risk for the employer, and scales easily as the employee taking the leave is empowered to check the boxes and submit the claims themselves. No power of attorney required. No impersonating employees. Just simple and thorough support for your client’s employees the entire way. If an employee has a question, they’re supported by a 1-1 Leave Success Manager (LSM) who are backed by our in-house legal and compliance team.

Manager Missteps

Managers are (mostly) great at what they do, but leave law experts they are not. When an employee requests a leave of absence, the responsibility to successfully navigate and manage the leave falls on more than your client, it also relies on that employee’s manager to know the do’s and don’ts.

Client risk: As mentioned in the FMLA section above, there are things employers can and can’t do as it pertains to FMLA, but this extends to non-FMLA leaves as well. While People Teams are often (not always…) aware of these guardrails many managers don’t know they exist, and some don’t care.

Your clients, however, are well aware that managers should know these rules and should care about them. Managers are a leading cause of employment law violations and if left to their own devices might illegally deny a leave the employee has a right to, require or request that the employee work while on leave, and might implicitly or explicitly express employment recourse against the employee taking leave.

If a manager says this:

“This is really bad timing for a leave, we’re super slammed and remember you’ve got that promotion coming up.”

“Hey, I know you’re on leave, but could you hop on this customer call and send them this deck to review?”

…your client will have a compliance mess on their hands.

Tilt’s Solution: Tilt’s platform not only gives your client complete visibility throughout the leave journey via intuitive dashboards, but we also give limited access to the employee’s manager where they are educated on the type and length of leave their direct report is going on, the rights they have, and guidance on what they can and can’t say. Further, we provide tips on how to provide a soft landing for employees who return on leave.

Here’s a peek at how we help your clients avoid manager missteps throughout each phase of a leave of absence:

Tilt makes the risks of a manager mucking up a leave a thing of the past for your clients.

Lack of Leave Law Knowledge

Leave laws change like the wind, and as employee populations embrace remote work and scatter across the country, your clients are stuck frantically learning the latest leave laws in states they’ve never stepped foot in.

Client risks: Whether they like it or not, your client is responsible for having a firm understanding of Federal and state leave of absence laws. These laws outline the rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees and a lack of knowledge could lead to legal disputes, penalties, and fines.

Tilt’s Solution: Tilt provides your clients with compliance confidence through our in-house legal and compliance team. All they do is eat, breathe and sleep leave laws so that our platform is always up-to-date with the latest information and requirements your clients are responsible to adhere to.

Our team also supports our Customer Success and Leave Success Managers so your clients can rest assured that if they have any questions about how a law applies to a specific or obscure leave request, our team of experts have the answers they need to avoid those legal disputes, penalties, and fines.

Other Ways Tilt Keeps Your Clients Compliant

A consistent leave experience for employees: No more manual processes. Each leave is personalized, standardized, and made consistent for all employees, which helps avoid preferential treatment claims.

Data security: We store all important employee information on our secure platform meaning there is one source of truth for all leaves (more about our security and compliance measures here).

Visibility: Easy-to-use dashboards give your clients, payroll, managers and employees visibility into each leave journey so everyone is on the same page at all times.

About Tilt

How Benefits Brokers Win Big By Providing LOA Management Solutions to Clients

Gabe Prusak on March 15, 2023

As a benefits broker, you’re constantly thinking about ways to strengthen your relationships with clients to build long-lasting loyalty. Providing the solutions that matter most to People Teams can demonstrate that you understand their needs while providing exceptional value and customer service.

When it comes to leave of absence management, your clients are spending way too much time on administrative tasks and tracking, are nervous about compliance risks, and need a solution that not only alleviates their burdens but also provides real ROI to their organizations.

Here’s how Benefits Brokers can build trust and be a client savior by offering a leave management solution like Tilt:

Administrative relief

Tilt’s platform gives your client’s leave management support at scale without having to lift a finger. When your client has an employee needing to take a leave of absence, they log into Tilt where all the information and guidance they need to have a successful leave journey awaits them. All of the paperwork, education, communication, and frantic Google leave law research all get taken off your client’s plate. To put it simply, we automate your client’s least favorite to-dos all while giving them complete visibility into each leave through easy-to-use dashboards.

Even better, our in-house legal and compliance team ensures that our platform is always current with the latest leave laws, meaning your clients can rest easy knowing they’re compliant, and their employees have a trusted resource should any leave law questions arise throughout the journey.

Here’s what one of our customers says about the administrative relief TIlt provides. It’s the kind of support that will have your clients singing your praises for providing them:

“We really feel we can leave our leaves in the hands of Tilt and they will manage from start to return. We spend way less time tracking down and determining FMLA eligibility and what is needed for a leave. I imagine anywhere between 8-10 hours a week have been saved when we transitioned to Tilt, which has been the biggest benefit to our time management goals.” – Erica Bernal, Sr. Benefits Manager @ Pie Insurance

Return on investment

Relieving administrative burdens and alleviating compliance anxiety is a great way to win big in the eyes of your clients, but if it’s not economical the conversation isn’t going to get very far. There is real tangible ROI on the hours saved by freeing up People Teams to do more meaningful work, but Tilt also provides ROI in the following ways on top of that:

Improve retention: A negative leave experience can lead to an increase in employee turnover and a decrease in employee productivity and engagement. Tilt can make it so your clients are reducing the costs associated with replacing employees who don’t return after a mismanaged leave of absence (more on this here).
Capitalize on state benefits programs: Tilt makes it easy for employees to file for state benefits ensuring that your clients are swooping in on state-funded programs meant to help offset salary costs for employees on leave. Tilt is the only solution that can provide empathetic support for employees at scale so that your clients don’t have to (more info on this here).
Avoiding lawsuits: Leave law compliance is massively important to your clients, and above all the other headaches associated with what they need to do to manage a leave, having the leave law experts at Tilt running the show means that costly legal fees and lawsuits over mismanaged leave will be a thing of the past.

Payroll clarity: When your client is managing leaves either through a carrier or manually, payroll inconsistencies can be extremely costly. People Teams need to be mindful of salary increases while employees are on leave, or even start and end dates shifting based on initial leave dates needing to be adjusted (say, for an earlier-than-expected pregnancy). Tilt’s platform gives payroll a window into each leave, and our automated pay adjustments ensure their people are getting paid exactly what their owed:

“Week one, Tilt saved us tons of money by figuring out an overpayment issue with one of our leaves. It left quite the impression!” – Becca Derrico, HR Generalist @ Booster

Win big with Tilt

People Teams turn to Benefits Brokers to provide them with the guidance and tools that they need to be successful in their operations. For Brokers to establish a high level of trust and long-term relationships with their clients, they need to reliably provide administrative relief while proving to leadership there is a bottom-line return on the investments. You can provide all this and more with Tilt.

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Breakdown: Standalone Leave Management Software Vs. Traditional Carriers

Gabe Prusak on March 15, 2023

As an employee benefits broker, you understand the importance of providing your clients with the best possible benefits package. One area of confusion that may arise in client conversations is how a standalone leave management solution like Tilt might differ from a traditional benefits carrier.

To help with that we’ve outlined some of the key factors below so that you and your clients can make an informed decision on what is best for their organization.

How do traditional carriers manage leave?

Some traditional carriers do have a leave management component to their offerings, but the process for employees to actually take a leave, and for HR to effectively manage that leave, creates friction and compliance risks.

Further, leave of absence (LOA) processes provided by carriers aren’t typically streamlined for HR. The LOA offerings they do provide aren’t designed specifically for efficient leave management or a supported leave journey. People teams relying on traditional carriers to manage leave are stuck navigating siloed systems where visibility is limited and employee information may be stored across multiple platforms, spreadsheets and email threads that are nearly impossible to keep track of and keep secure.

The lack of administrative visibility for HR and the “call center” experience for employees when questions arise are some of the factors that can create a negative LOA outcome. Traditional carriers are not set up to manage a leave of absence in a way that truly helps HR deliver an empathetic and supportive leave of absence to their employees.

How does standalone leave management software work?

If your client is exploring the possibility of a standalone leave management solution like Tilt, it’s important that the solution works in harmony with whichever carrier they use.

Unlike traditional carriers, standalone leave management solutions are 100% focused on solving the problems and pain points impacting People Teams and employees’ experience with a leave of absence. This means that your clients can be confident that their leaves are being managed by the experts.

Tilt’s approach to managing all types of leave across the country is by providing your clients with:

Easy-to-use platform

Scalability & automation

Visibility for People Teams, Payroll, Employees and Managers

In-house legal and compliance team

1-1 support by our Leave Success Managers (AKA “Empathy Warriors”)
Carrier agnostic

Benefits of standalone Leave Management Software

Administrative Relief: Leave management software takes all the manual processes required by traditional carriers or in-house methods and automates them under one digital roof. This dramatically reduces the risks associated with mismanaging a leave all while alleviating the administrative burden on managers and HR pros. It allows your clients to provide a smooth, simple and supported leave experience to their employees so they can spend more time on the tasks they were hired to do.

Compliance: A major risk your clients are facing is the legal ramifications that can result from a manager misstep (intentional or otherwise), inconsistent leaves that could potentially be deemed preferential treatment, remote workforces in states the HR team has never known the leave laws for, and the evolution of those laws and state benefits.

Tilt’s in-house legal and compliance team ensures that the platform is always up-to-date with the most current federal, state, and city laws. This gives your clients the confidence that their leaves are being administered correctly.

Employee Satisfaction: A leave of absence is often an inflection point in an employee’s relationship with their employer. The way in which an organization comes through for their people when they need it most can play a major factor in them returning to the organization or seeking pastures elsewhere. Having a leave management process that is easy, supportive and empathetic increases trust with the employee and establishes a bond upon their return to work.

If your client currently depends on carrier call centers then there’s a greater chance that those employees won’t be walking through that door, and that increase in turnover due to a poorly managed leave sends a strong message to other employees about how they’ll be treated when a life event happens to them. A solution like Tilt provides your clients with the perfect tool to successfully administer leaves and have employees return feeling engaged and satisfied.

Money Savings: There are several ways in which a standalone solution like Tilt will save your clients money. For starters, legal fees from a mismanaged leave can submarine an organization, and the costs to replace employees who don’t return from leave at all are substantial.

Further, Tilt’s technology and team of leave experts ensure a smooth and simple process for employees to apply for state benefits, which would save your client $10,000-$18,000 per leave of absence (depending on leave type and state). More on the financial benefits of a solution like Tilt here.

How benefits brokers shine through leave management

At the end of the day it’s essential that your clients trust your ability to steer them in the right direction about what benefits are best for them and their given situation. Not all clients are the same and not all clients will have the same needs.

Every HR team is responsible for managing their org’s leave whether they like it or not, or whether they’re set up for success or not. As a benefits broker, you can give your clients a big win and earn their trust by letting them know there’s a better way to do leave management. A solution like TIlt works in conjunction with their current carriers and puts leave management processes into the hands and tools of the experts.

1. Knowing the latest applicable leave of absence laws

2. Documentation and notice requirements for leaves of absence

3. Manager misbehavior leading to claims of discrimination or retaliation

4. Inconsistently managed leaves of absence

5. Leave as an accommodation

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The basics of leave of absence management

Leave management doesn't have to be this complicated

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What does LOA management look like for your clients today?

How Good LOA Management Solutions Are a Boon for Benefits Brokers

Strengthen your bond with Tilt

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Insurance carriers can’t deliver on leave management support

What does good leave management support look like?

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Scenario 1: Manual leave of absence processes

Scenario 2: Relying on Traditional Insurance Carriers

Scenario 3: A 3rd-party solution with automated filing

What does scalable a leave of absence management solution look like?

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FMLA

State Benefits

Manager Missteps

Lack of Leave Law Knowledge

Other Ways Tilt Keeps Your Clients Compliant

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Administrative relief

Return on investment

Win big with Tilt

About Tilt

How do traditional carriers manage leave?

How does standalone leave management software work?

Benefits of standalone Leave Management Software

How benefits brokers shine through leave management

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Resources

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