Work Work Work

It has been an interesting last couple of weeks. I took a nosedive health-wise and had another flare up--the first is quite a while. So I'm on Prednisone for the next while and miraculously don't have any serious side effects. It has helped calm things down.
I have been working on setting up one of our clients, TGN (also known as The Generations Network which is the parent company of Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com etc etc) on our Benefit Online Support System (BOSS). Basically I build a site online where all employees of our clients can log in and update their information (add babies, change address, etc) as well as manage their benefits (health, dental, vision, life etc). The really neat thing is that some of the insurance providers allow for what is know as an EDI (electronic data interface) feed to go from this site to their system. In short, much of the previous required paperwork is unnecessary and allows everyone with internet access to see and manage their benefits.
I absolutely love my job. I have been building these sites for the past six months and have been learning so much. I find it especially satisfying to go out to train our clients on how to use the system. For those who are in management or human resource positions the BOSS is one of the best benefit sites on the market today. I enjoy working with a wide variety of clients as well as insurance carriers and others. TGN is a pretty large company with hundreds of employees scattered across the world. I think it is neat that my job impacts so many other people and that what I do really matters come open enrollment time. And it seems to be looming even closer. Many of our clients have their open enrollment January 1, so that means that from about October until into January is the really busy time for me in updating the sites for the employees. My mentor, Betty, was in HR for several years and now is the boss of the BOSS. She has been constantly supervising my work and helping me understand not only the technical side of this position but also the HR side and how that matters to the employees.
As our society becomes ever more technically dependent I believe that the future of benefit management is through online tools such as the BOSS. Many companies are shifting from using paper forms that they have to distribute, get the employees to fill out completely, and then get them into the insurance carrier in a timely fashion. Now, with the BOSS, an HR manager can send out an email notifying all employees where they can log in to their company BOSS site and effectuate basically everything that used to be done on paper.
Well, I guess that's enough rambling for now. I am enjoying a nice day off for the 24th of July.