Automated New Hire Enrollment Windows
Purpose: To show you how to set up automated new hire enrollment windows for your new hires.
Overview
Automated new hire enrollment windows are based on your new hires' hire dates and populated with all benefit plans they are eligible for. Plan effective dates are based on each plan's settings, and you will be able to edit those (if needed) when reviewing and approving your new hires' benefit elections.
The option to automate a new hire enrollment window is available when setting up or editing a plan year in Settings > Benefits > Plan Years. On the Plan Years tab, create a new plan year (+New Plan Year) or edit an existing plan year to which you want to add automated new hire enrollment windows.
In the New Hires section, choose when new hires can start their enrollment process through one of the following options:
When can new hires start their benefits enrollment?
1. Immediately upon hire
If selected, new hires will be able to start electing their benefits on their hire date. Determine how much time they have to complete elections by entering a specific number and then selecting day, week, month or year from the dropdown menu.
2. After a waiting period
If selected, new hires can start electing benefits after a waiting period based on their hire date. To set up the waiting period, choose a number of days, weeks, months, or years after the hire date new hires can start electing benefits. Then, add how much time new hires have to complete their elections.
3. First of the month following a waiting period
If selected, your employees can start electing benefits on the first day of the month following a waiting period. This option helps admins who need to standardize the start date for benefits regardless of when a new hire is hired within the month.
4. Before Hire Date
If selected, new hires will be able to start electing benefits before their hire date. This makes it so that their benefits will be effective on the first day of their employment at your company.
If you choose this option, please note that the new hire will need access* to their account in advance of their hire date so that they can start electing their benefits.
Fill out the Add New Employee form to add the new hire and select from either of the following access settings on the form:
- Allow Access to BambooHR (automatic access): The new hire will have employee access automatically enabled and receive a password reset email that will allow them to log in to their BambooHR account and complete their benefit elections.
- No Access (scheduled access): Grant them access at a specific time before their hire date. At that time, send them a password reset email so that they can log in to their BambooHR account and complete their benefit elections.
*Ensure that you enable the new hire's access to BambooHR before the start date of their enrollment window. If you enable access for the new hire after their enrollment window has started, they will not receive this email notification.
5. It will be different per employee
If you prefer to manually create an enrollment window for each new hire, select this option.
Enrollment experience
Once you save the plan year, your new hires can start electing benefits based on their hire date* on their employee profile. To review and approve a new hire's benefit elections, navigate to Settings > Benefits > Windows and select their specified window.**
*Hire date: If you add a new hire date to a new hire who has a previous hire date, the system will not automatically assign them to the automated new hire enrollment window. Instead, you will need to create a new hire enrollment window specific to that new hire.
**The enrollment window name automatically includes the new hire's name, the window type, the hire date, and the plan year.
New Hire: [Hire Date in YYYY/MM/DD] [Last Name, First Name] (Plan Year)