Challenge: Administrative Burden Tedious processes and excessive paperwork make both HR and employees reluctant to engage in reimbursement programs. Employees don’t want to spend valuable time filling out forms to submit their receipts, nor do they want to go through a lengthy approval process. And keeping track of programs, requests, approvals and pending transactions can become a full-time job for HR, especially if they’re using spreadsheets. If neither party has the bandwidth to participate in a reimbursement program, it won’t be successful. Solution: Streamline the reimbursement program process with a digital interface that’s intuitive and user friendly. Making it effortless for employees to submit their requests, and for HR to validate and approve them, increases the likelihood that a program will be successful. Challenge: Multiple Offices and Remote Employees One of the biggest benefits of reimbursement programs over subsidies is that it’s easier to allocate them fairly to all employees; after all, they get to choose (pending company approval) how to use their allowances. But when offices are spread across the globe, juggling these reimbursement programs becomes more difficult, especially when they involve multiple currencies, allowances and time periods. Solution: Implement a custom platform that allows HR to create specific programs for different locations, time periods and currencies. The ability to accommodate all employees with fair allowances will drive engagement and increase employee well- being. Challenge: Communication Between Employees and Administration In a perfect world, all reimbursement requests would be approved without question. But what if a receipt is blurry, or an employee goes over budget? To ensure these programs are used for the right reasons, requests do need to be vetted, either by HR or a third party. Traditionally, if there’s a question about an employee’s request, that request is denied. Communication about the problem with the request is then handled through email. This can be frustrating for the employee, who has to go back through the submission process after making changes, and for HR, which doesn’t have a streamlined record of the request. espresa.com | Increasing Employee Engagement With LSAs + Reimbursement Programs 5