Canada (EN)
Industry: Transportation, logistics, supply chain, storage
Global workforce: 10,000+ employees across four continents
Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia
Solutions: Alight Benefits Guidance, Dependent Verification, Engagement Services
When Americold, a national leader in food storage and logistics, recognized that new employees struggled to navigate an increasingly complex benefits landscape, the company saw an opportunity to improve the new-hire experience.
While previous enrollment improvements streamlined annual enrollment, they also reduced opportunities to educate employees about their benefits and reinforce the value of those offerings during onboarding.
Americold wanted a consistent, scalable approach that would simplify benefits decisions, improve communication accuracy and help employees make informed enrollment choices. To support that goal, Americold partnered with Alight to create a more structured and engaging benefits experience for new hires.
The challenge: help thousands of new hires across 100+ locations navigate a highly complex benefits program while ensuring accurate communications, informed enrollment decisions and a stronger onboarding experience.
Managing benefits communication across more than 100 locations presented significant complexity. Americold needed a process that could ensure every new hire received the right information at the right time while maintaining consistency across the organization. The company also wanted to encourage informed plan selection, sustain growth in healthcare flexible spending account (FSA) participation, promote supplemental benefits and create a more positive onboarding experience for employees and managers.
The solution: centralize and streamline the new-hire benefits experience through personalized communications, trained benefits specialists, HRIS integration and one-on-one enrollment support that ensured employees received accurate guidance at the right time.
- Scalable fulfillment and personalized communications. Alight developed a fulfillment grid capable of supporting more than 40 unique benefits packages. Each package included a personalized cover letter tailored to the employee’s hire date, eligibility timing and enrollment window, helping ensure employees received relevant information when they needed it.
- Specialized training and enrollment support. Alight benefit specialists completed 10 days of employer-specific training covering plan rules, enrollment procedures, audit protocols and plan details. This preparation enabled specialists to accurately guide employees and enter elections into Americold’s HRIS.
- Real-time system integration. Alight integrated directly with Americold’s PeopleSoft HRIS, creating seamless data flow between new-hire reporting, eligibility tracking, fulfillment and enrollment processing. The integration improved efficiency while increasing visibility into enrollment activities.
- Manager and employee education. Alight supported implementation through structured communications and briefings, ensuring managers and employees understood the new process and their respective roles.
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Results
The partnership helped Americold centralize what had previously been more than 100 separate orientation processes into a single coordinated effort without disrupting existing workflows. According to the company’s Vice President of Compensation and Benefits, the organization received highly positive feedback from both associates and managers regarding the new services.
Operational impact
- 100–300 personalized benefits orientation packages are delivered to employees’ homes each month
- Weekly status reports provide visibility into new-hire progress for managers across 100+ locations
- Employees have daily access to trained enrollment specialists, including bilingual support, with calls recorded and stored for future review
Benefits engagement outcomes
Targeted participation metrics continue to exceed stated objectives:
- Premium PPO participation remains below 50%
- Healthcare FSA participation is trending above 10%
- Accident and critical illness participation is trending above 20%
Cost savings
Americold’s dependent verification program continues to generate measurable savings:
Annual Savings
Looking ahead
Americold continues to benefit from a flexible and scalable approach that supports annual enrollment, life events and new-hire onboarding. By combining self-service tools with one-on-one guidance, the company delivers a stronger benefits experience for employees while realizing significant long-term value and savings.
