Alight, Inc. announced the first results of its investment in enhanced configurable intake and automation for its leading, AI-supported LeavePro absence management software, SmartSTART, and the release of Straight Through Processing (STP), with first-of-its-kind integration of leaves and other benefits. As a part of its holistic strategy, Alight recently integrated leave management into the Alight Worklife® platform. This integration offers a unified experience for employees, empowering them to more easily initiate leave of absence claims, assess eligibility, track claim status, explore leave options, and access disability-related information.

SmartSTART is Alight?s enhanced, configurable leaves claim intake process that is responsive to the specific needs of clients and their employees, creating more consistent, efficient customer experiences across channels, including phone or the online portal. SmartSTART streamlines claim intake for leaves of absence by asking questions based on the condition and reason for leave. A dynamic engine adjusts available responses based on the leave reason and plan offering, making it easier for an employee to request a leave of absence while reducing the amount of information that case managers must input manually, decreasing human error and follow-up calls.

Unlike other absence management technology currently available to large employers, SmartSTART prompts the employee to take additional, relevant actions outside of the leave process, like signing up a new baby for benefits and verifying dependents, transforming leaves of absence into a key part of overall employee wellbeing. Currently, 45% of Alight?s leave administration clients have SmartSTART. For maternity, surgery and COVID-related absences, Alight Leave Solutions clients using this tool reduced the number of follow-up phone calls by 10% within the first 60 days of the release of SmartSTART.

Developed to improve processing speed and accuracy, and to help reduce stress and complexity when an employee has an important life event, Straight Through Processing (STP) integrates Alight?s proprietary, evidence-based medical guidelines (MDGuidelines) and AI-supported automation to improve the employee experience during routine, less-complex claims intake. For example, STP allows customers to file a simple disability claim, without the need for medical paperwork and get immediate approval for their leave of absence if the leave falls within the medical guideline duration. This capability increases the speed at which decisions for common leaves of absence, such as maternity and certain routine surgeries, are approved and completed.

Employees no longer need to spend their time on medical paperwork for simple claim types or waiting for case managers to manually review and approve their leave.