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Benefits Office creates one-stop information site

A new Web site created by Benefits and Employment Services (HR-B) is helping meet customer requests for consolidated information regarding University of California benefits and retirement information. The Web site is located at http://www.lanl.gov/worklife/retirement online.

“We have seen an increase in requests from employees for benefits information related to UC retirement,” said Karen Burkett, acting deputy director of the Human Resources (HR) Division. “Much of the information that employees were requesting was available on the Web, but it was available in several different places. To help employees, we’ve created a single site where employees can gather the information they need to answer the most frequently asked questions that have been posed to the benefits office in recent weeks.”

A link to the new site also is available off of the main HR Web site. In addition, the division has developed posters advertising the new Web site; they will be posted throughout the division and in offices of deployed HR staff.

Benefits also has increased the number of UC Retirement System presentations it will conduct in the coming months. The schedule of presentations can be found on the new Web site. The next regularly scheduled UCRS presentation is at 8:30 a.m., April 21 in the Physics Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3. The presentations are open to all UC employees and are intended to review retirement options available to employees. A recording of the first UCRS presentation of the calendar year is shown regularly on LABNET Channel 10. Check the schedule at http://www.hr.lanl.gov/TIO/labnet10.htm online for viewing times.

During the first two months of 2005, requests for information from HR-B have increased dramatically, said Burkett. Compared to the first two months of the previous year, electronic mail traffic into the Benefits Service Center has increased 80 percent; monthly appointments have increased 63 percent. Many requesters have cited uncertainty associated with the UC contract as the reason behind their inquiries.

“The new Web site and the UCRS presentations are a way for employees to gather much of the information that employees have been seeking during the past three months,” Burkett said. “These mechanisms are a way to be responsive to customer needs and to possibly reduce the volume of inquiries that have been overwhelming to the benefits staff.”

For more information about Laboratory benefits, contact HR-B at 7-1806 or write to benefits@lanl.gov by electronic mail.

--James E. Rickman

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