Workscape Announces OBA Enterprise; Redefines Benefits Management Experience for Employees & Employers Alike

MARLBOROUGH, MA--(Marketwire - April 2, 2009) - Workscape, Inc., a leading provider of Web-based outsourced benefits administration and talent management solutions, today announced the availability of OBA Enterprise, the next generation of Workscape's proven, award-winning outsourced benefits administration platform. Built from the ground-up to simplify the process of evaluating, selecting and enrolling in health and welfare benefits, OBA Enterprise features a completely redesigned user interface and information infrastructure. These innovations deliver greater integration of decision support tools, health-risk assessments and flexible spending accounts, resources that have been proven to generate a demonstrable reduction in overall healthcare costs for employee and employer alike.

Helen Neale, HRO Research Analyst at NelsonHall, commented, "The financial and economic strains of 2009 are causing companies to take this time to review their employee-facing business processes and prepare for the upcoming resurgence. Workscape's proven experience in helping clients take substantial costs out of the benefits administration business process, combined with their ability to make the process more accessible and intuitive, will continue to drive their leadership role in this category." She continued, "We're also impressed by Workscape's employee-centric approach to outsourced benefits administration. Focus on the user experience is going to escalate in importance even further as companies seek to drive more cost-effective enrollment through Web-based self-service tools."

Based upon the same Adobe Flex technology platform that has powered Workscape's talent management platform for more than two years, OBA Enterprise helps companies to transform the annual benefits enrollment process from a routine transaction to a strategic cost-effective business process that represents an important opportunity to engage employees. OBA Enterprise seamlessly integrates within any existing IT infrastructure -- exchanging data between ERP, HRIS, internally developed or third-party provided systems -- delivering the benefits of open connectivity while maintaining stringent security standards that meet or exceed HIPAA requirements. Workscape's SaaS-based offerings have also attained SAS70 Level II certification ensuring that the highest levels of security controls are in place.

Delivering an Employee-Centric Experience

As employees and employers struggle to keep up with the growing complexity and choices available in today's benefits plans, OBA Enterprise demystifies the process by delivering an easy-to-use, interactive presentation that prompts and guides the user through the options available to them based upon their organization's unique business rules.

At specific points during the process, users can be directed to any of Workscape's fully integrated decision-support tools that help to identify the benefits plan and corresponding flexible spending account contribution level that is best-suited to each individual's personal and financial needs. Because flexible spending account deposits are made on a pre-tax basis, the corresponding reduction in taxable income generates meaningful and measurable savings.

The graphical and architectural enhancements of OBA Enterprise also yield significant improvements for management and HR support staff as well. For example, through the use of a dynamic timeline graphic, individuals can immediately identify coverage period start dates, pinpoint life events and visualize other "milestone" activities that may affect their enrollment status. Additionally, "on-demand" reporting tools enable employers to understand enrollment patterns, identify utilization levels for specific enrollment tools and ultimately gauge how employee activities affected overall healthcare costs. This information is critical when developing campaigns and strategies aimed at encouraging the online behaviors that will generate the greatest cost savings for the company.

OBA Enterprise's user interface can be tailored to reflect the same familiar look and feel -- such as colors and graphics -- of the client organization's brand. And because the entire application is available through a hosted model, it can be implemented quickly and without significant burden on already stretched IT resources.

Workscape's Holistic Approach to Benefits Administration

In addition to the OBA Enterprise online enrollment environment, Workscape also delivers a complete array of outsourced benefits administration services, all of which are designed to enhance the employee enrollment experience and help organizations to achieve their cost reduction and employee participation goals. Workscape's unique approach to the enrollment process brings together a full-service employee communications group, 24x7 onshore service center, COBRA administration, vendor management services and more, all of which can be implemented as an end-to-end integrated solution or as modular individual components. When combined with the company's extensive compensation planning and talent management offerings, Workscape can have a significant positive impact on two of the most substantial cost centers in the enterprise: healthcare benefits and employee compensation.

"The Flex-based infrastructure that is at the heart of OBA Enterprise serves as the technology foundation for our award-winning talent management solutions," stated Steve Migliaccio, vice president, Product Management, Workscape. "By bringing our core benefits administration platform onto this proven technology base as well, Workscape can simplify ongoing support, deliver a single user experience to clients and their employees and enable clients to fully leverage a total rewards approach through an integrated offering."

Workscape's Portal Offering Delivers Single Sign-on and Ease-of-Use

To deliver a fully integrated online experience, OBA Enterprise and Workscape's suite of talent management offerings (as well as multiple third-party or internally developed applications) can be accessed via HR Central -- Workscape's employee-centric portal offering that aggregates HR-related information from multiple disparate sources into a single, powerful, SSO-enabled online resource. Taken together, Workscape's solutions deliver unparalleled openness, connectivity & simplicity. All Workscape offerings are available via a modular, a-la-carte approach which ensures that organizations can add functionality and connectivity at a pace that matches their business and financial needs.

For more information, visit www.workscape.com.

About Workscape

Workscape is a leading provider of business-critical HR solutions that enable hundreds of organizations to manage their two largest workforce expenditures: employee benefits and performance-driven compensation. Workscape's offerings share a common technology platform, can be readily integrated with existing IT investments, serve millions of employees, and are scalable and configurable to meet the distinct requirements of organizations ranging from 2,000 to over 500,000 employees. Solutions support the needs of some of the largest organizations in the world and their employees in over 130 countries. Workscape's outsourced benefits administration offerings are backed by U.S.-based 24/7 support for managers and employees on policies and processes. For more information about Workscape, visit www.workscape.com or call (888) 605-9620.