The spread of data and real-time analytics in our everyday lives continues to expand our acceptance of technology and our desire to leverage the insights we gain from it. Today, consumers turn to online and mobile apps to receive real-time analytics on traffic, to search for open tables at restaurants, and then to book the nearby ride-share to get them there. Yet, despite the growing expectation that technology can meet our on-demand needs, the benefits and health care industry remains locked in a different world. We can purchase homes, cars and complete college degrees online or with mobile apps, but we are just beginning to push industry boundaries around real-time, on-demand access to health care costs and medical care.

While technology like robotic process automation (RPA) can streamline routine HR activities and benefits, real-time benefits administration and the technology underpinning it elevates a broker's and consultant's approach by adding a strategic element. Platforms with real-time benefits administration capabilities provide timely and strategic insights for brokers and consultants to use to provide robust, relevant and impactful recommendations on demand.

The changing benefits industry

As benefits consultants and brokers prepare for open enrollment and look back at the previous year, it will be important to consider how much has changed and how technology can create new opportunities to drive impact for clients. Employers of all sizes, industries and locations are facing new challenges around remote work, employee-employer engagement expectations, and vaccination requirements. Brokers and benefits consultants can leverage real-time benefits administration to increase quality and approach each client's need differently. For the benefits industry, real-time benefits administration provides a greater level of automation to a broker's workflow and allows them to meet on-demand expectations better.