One year in: How Microsoft is reimagining global benefits

When global organizations expand beyond their home markets, benefits management quickly becomes one of the most complex challenges to solve. Fragmented vendors, inconsistent processes, and manual administration can create friction for HR teams and employees alike.

Microsoft knows this story well. While they had long mastered U.S. benefits delivery with advanced systems and automation, the experience outside the U.S. looked very different.

At HR Tech Vegas, Benifexer Adam Mason, Chief Strategy Officer, sat down with Samantha Sergent, Director of International Benefits at Microsoft, in their session ‘You’ve mastered global benefits Now let’s talk global’. Together, they shared how Microsoft is reimagining global benefits delivery with Benifex – and what they’ve learned one year into their journey.

From spreadsheets to strategy

Before the transformation, benefits operations outside the U.S. relied heavily on manual processes. “We were, and are, let’s be fair, just using Excel files, SharePoint, emails, phone calls,” Samantha explained. “We’re now getting into the digital era, but we were starting at about 1984”.

The scale of the challenge was eye-opening. Across 100 countries, Microsoft’s HR teams were manually keying over a million data points each year – equivalent to 90,000 people hours. Employees often had to navigate multiple supplier portals, forms, and approvals to access basic benefits.

In Mexico, new hires faced nearly 50 different touchpoints during enrollment. “Some of those duplicated where somebody was entering something in an Excel spreadsheet, and then the employee was also emailing the supplier,” Samantha recalled. “And so we’ve brought all of that together… it’s one spot. You go to MyBenefits Hub and you get to see everything there”.

By cutting down manual administration, the Microsoft has been able to shift focus from day-to-day processing to more strategic work – using data and insights to shape the future of their global benefits experience.

Making the case for change

Microsoft’s business case was built around both operational efficiency and employee experience.

On the efficiency side, leadership saw the need to reduce the sheer number of suppliers and move toward scalable, centralized partnerships – while eliminating manual data handling. Supplier numbers have already been consolidated and reduced nearly by half, from more than 600 to about 350.

“We don’t want anybody typing anything in an Excel file,” Samantha emphasized. “Let’s get our people working on strategic work and out of manual files.”

On the employee experience side, the case for a global benefits platform was anchored in “moments that matter” – times when benefits should be easy to access and understand, such as a medical diagnosis, the birth of a child, or a relocation.

The vision became clear: one platform, one experience – wherever you work.

A global platform with local heart

Rolling out a global platform raised a common question: how do you deliver consistent, branded experiences while respecting local cultures, regulations, and needs?

For Microsoft, the answer was to keep global wellbeing consistent while adapting locally for pensions, healthcare, and cultural perks. “I love that we think globally with local heart,” said Samantha. “There’s something about being able to go into a country and go, what makes sense for you? How do we align this with your needs? Or how do we bring forward the benefits that you get as part of that country?”

One example is Microsoft’s second medical opinion benefit, which is available globally. Initially underutilized, with just 0.2% engagement, usage jumped to 16% after the platform was put in place, and targeted local communications explained its relevance to employees and their families.

Simple changes like using country-specific aliases for email sends also helped increase engagement.

Results one year in

Today, 13 countries are live and 37,000 employees are using the MyBenefits Hub.

Engagement has been strong, despite not having open enrollment periods in some of the countries they’ve launched in recently. “For those employees without a real reason to be in the tool, I’m feeling pretty good that we have nearly 60% engagement,” Samantha shared. Employees are logging in to explore benefits, check costs, and understand Microsoft’s contributions.

Automation is also driving measurable impact:

• Costs for 29 benefits are sent directly to payroll, removing the need for the HRS team to share this information
• 91 reports are sent to benefit suppliers each month removing these tasks from the HRS team
• Over 1,250 new joiners have been enrolled into benefits via MyBenefits since the initial launch
• So far this year, over 196k benefits have been administered globally via MyBenefits

Employees themselves are noticing the difference:

• “This has made it super easy to be able to manage my benefits and enroll into some of them.”
• “It is very clear to me to know how to use my benefits.”
• “The new app for benefits is fantastic, with all essential information so simple to find, ideal modern UI!”
• “Very competitive against other employers.”

Learning along the way

Samantha was also candid that the team had learnings and surprises to navigate along the way. For example, early on in the process the team discovered some countries were still storing benefits data on local laptops – a reminder of how much untangling global processes can require.

Policies are also being rewritten where automation surfaced gaps. “We can’t be in a place where position or people data aren’t driving enrollment factors,” Samantha explained.

Her advice to other HR leaders? Take the time upfront. “Invest in process, invest in project management, invest in change management. These are huge transformational projects… It’s worth every effort to spend six to eight months to get that right within your own company, and then spend a solid six to eight months with Benifex to land where it is that you want to go to get your global plan right”.

The next chapter: Hyper-personalization and AI

Looking forward, Microsoft’s focus is on hyper-personalization – delivering benefits experiences that are contextual, proactive, and embedded in employees’ flow of work. Samantha shared: “We’re focusing on hyper-personalization and engagement. So, I talked about those moments that matter. How do we get you what you need in that critical moment? Hey, how many workshops here at HR Tech are AI-based? It feels like we’re there. We’re agent-based, we’re AI-based. We’re focusing at Microsoft on employee self-service.” She went on to highlight “we’re looking at how we can give you that front-end experience with these questions that provide answers about you. It’s not just generic answers anymore. It’s how do we serve you up the benefits that you have, advise where you can go to access them, and how you get help as the individual, not just those basic, ‘here’s your landing page’ answers.”

With Copilot integration, employees can now ask about their benefits directly in Microsoft 365, without leaving Teams. Questions like “What healthcare options do I have in Portugal?” or “Am I eligible for parental leave?” can be answered instantly by pulling from the Benifex platform.

But Samantha added an important caveat: “Your AI outputs are only as good as the inputs you have in your system. Spend time to really get that content right, really understand your processes. It will make this a lot easier”.

The vision is for AI to act as a proactive guide, surfacing benefits that employees might not even know exist, tailored to their role, location, and life stage.

Lessons for employers

Microsoft’s experience offers clear takeaways for other global organizations embarking on similar transformations:

• Get your data house in order. Clean, structured data is the foundation for both digitization and AI.
• Prioritize moments that matter. Benefits should be simple to access during life events when employees need them most.
• Think global, act local. A unified framework works best when flexed to meet country-specific needs.
• Take a test-and-learn approach. Each rollout brings unique learnings that strengthen the next.

A connected, intelligent future

One year in, Microsoft’s global benefits journey is delivering tangible results: supplier consolidation, automation, improved compliance, and above all, a better employee experience.

As Samantha summed it up: “We’re now able to showcase benefits in a way that we’ve never done before – with a connected, intelligent, global benefits experience that delivers one experience, wherever you work.”