Sikich Revamps Its Pre-Tax Programs and Introduces a Flexible LSA

Background

Sikich is a global company specializing in technology-enabled professional services. With more than 1,800 employees working remote or hybrid roles across 37 states, Sikich’s benefits programs are designed to meet the needs of a diverse workforce. As the company has grown, it has realized the need to deliver top-notch benefits that help them stand out in the marketplace and attract and retain top talent. With that in mind, they sought to improve their benefits programs with a modern, consolidated approach. 

Dealing with a lackluster pre-tax experience 

“We had employees calling in and sitting on hold for hours. Even on the admin side, there was no customer support and the technology was clunky.” - Shanda Brown, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations

Sikich’s previous pre-tax vendor delivered a less-than-stellar employee experience. Employees frequently ran into issues as they tried to access and use their benefits, and the vendor’s customer service team was not very responsive. Employees would often sit on the phone for two to three hours to receive help in setting up their accounts. 

“People couldn’t get their accounts unfrozen or open because of the hurdles they had to go through with this prior organization,” said Shanda Brown, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations. “I had people’s money just sitting there that they couldn’t use because they couldn’t work with them to get their accounts open.”

The experience was also subpar for admins, who had to navigate confusing reports and manually upload contributions. For example, they had to manually match employees’ names to Social Security numbers so the finance team could accurately reconcile payments. 

“I had to manipulate all this data within Excel and do lookups to find out whose money this was,” Shanda said. “We weren’t able to just pull reports to simply validate who was being paid out. Pulling those reports was like pulling teeth. You couldn’t get a clean report; you’d go into the system and if you didn’t do it exactly right, you’d get garbage data.” 

Launching a modern, innovative pre-tax program

“Our main goal was ease of use for employees. Our employees having a better user experience and having a tool we can grow with and utilize for more things—those were our two main goals when we decided to choose Benepass.” - Shanda Brown, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations

Working with their broker, the Sikich team explored a few vendors before choosing Benepass. The team valued the improvements in technology and user experience, along with the ability to grow and scale over time. 

“The customer service has been excellent because we have someone we can go to, and they’re very knowledgeable and great at helping us find resolutions,” Shanda said. “We didn’t have that before.”   

In January 2024, the Sikich team launched a revamped pre-tax benefits program, consolidating the following benefits on the Benepass platform:

• Health flexible spending account (FSA) 
• Health savings account (HSA)
• Dependent care FSA (DCFSA)
• Limited purpose FSA (LPFSA)
• Parking 
• Transit 

The team later added their non-taxable phone and internet reimbursement accounts to the platform, further centralizing their benefits and providing employees with a unified approach. They also offered a non-taxable Workspace Accommodation benefit designed to help employees set up their home offices. Previously, the team used an expense reporting system to deliver these benefits, which cost them quarterly fees and required the chief HR officer to approve expenses. 

“It has added an ease of administration,” Shanda said. “When we added in the reimbursement accounts, it just made so much sense because it’s all in one area. Now it’s easier for our employees to understand some of those reimbursement accounts as benefits.” 

Adding a flexible lifestyle spending account 

“Our philosophy is giving employees what they need and what they’re asking for.” - Shanda Brown, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations

As the company has rapidly grown, the Sikich team recognized the need to provide strong benefits that help them compete for top talent. They added a lifestyle spending account (LSA) to their benefits package to give employees flexible funds they can spend on a variety of health and wellness items, including: 

• Fitness: Gym memberships, exercise classes, equipment, clothing, fitness events (races, marathons, etc.)
• Spa: Massages, facials, beauty products, salons
• Tech-supported wellness: Meditation apps, fitness apps, fitness trackers
• Nutrition: Nutritional programs like Weight Watchers, nutritionists, supplements and vitamins 
• Mental health: Therapy, apps, meditation
• Food: Groceries, restaurants, meal kit delivery, food delivery
• Student debt: Student loan repayment
• Finance: Financial coaching and advisory services 

Employees enjoy the flexibility to tailor their benefits to their individual needs, and the Sikich team has seen employees purchase running shoes, Fitbits, gym memberships, and more. The benefit allows the team to achieve their goal of delivering benefits that equitably serve a diverse employee base. 

“Offering the LSA goes along with our employee-first philosophy and our diversity goals,” Shanda said. “You can use it for many different types of services, which lends itself to our diverse group.” 

Partnering to deliver benefits that meet employee needs

“Things are being updated and enhanced literally every day.” - Shanda Brown, Senior Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations

Looking ahead, the Sikich team is eager to explore other ways they can use the Benepass platform to provide more personalized benefits to their employees. The team has enjoyed the partnership with Benepass and appreciates the ongoing technological innovations that allow Sikich to meet employee needs—for example, Benepass recently introduced an update allowing employees to submit DCFSA expenses larger than their available balance and be paid out over time. 

“Benepass is always innovating and trying to make the tool better,” Shanda said. “We’re always trying to improve and streamline, and we see that emulated with everything that Benepass has done.”

Key results 

“When I have talked to my cohorts about Benepass, I talk about the ease of implementing it and how easy it is for employees to use the tool.” - Shanda Brown, Director of Total Rewards and HR Operations

• Enhanced employee experience: The Benepass platform consolidates benefits in one place so employees can easily access and use their benefits, while the flexibility of their LSA program gives them the freedom to tailor their benefits to their unique wants and needs.
• Reduced administrative burden: With Benepass’s advanced reporting capabilities, the Sikich team saves time they previously spent navigating confusing reports and manually uploading contributions. 
• Excellent customer service: Benepass’s responsive customer support team quickly answers questions and resolves issues, and the Sikich team values the partnership as they seek to continuously improve their programs over time. 
• Room to grow: The flexibility of the Benepass platform allows the Sikich team to continue finding new ways to provide personalized benefits to their employees as the company grows and scales.