Carvana is the fastest growing online used car dealer in the United States and employs more than 13,000 people nationwide. Celeste Moreno is a Leave and Accommodations Specialist that has been with Carvana for almost three years.
Prior to making the switch to AbsenceSoft in 2022, Moreno was coordinating leaves of absence with a third-party administrator (TPA). While she enjoyed working with the TPA, she found it difficult to make their process consistent for each request. Because of the way their TPA processed their leave request, Moreno didn’t have access to historical claims or the documentation that their employees submitted to the TPA.
When an employee requested an accommodation, Moreno only had a case summary from the TPA to rely on. She often didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision and determine appropriate accommodations.
“We would try to ask as many questions as possible. But because we were not actually managing it ourselves or had the medical documents ourselves, there was very little that could take place because of HIPAA and things of that nature,” said Moreno.
Carvana recently brought leave management in-house to improve visibility into their leave program. Today, Moreno and her team have case information readily available, in a central system. Fast access to comprehensive case information helps them make more informed, consistent decisions, and establish a more streamlined process. When they make leave and accommodations determinations, they have both the details and the data to provide clear explanations to their leadership team.
“Switching from a TPA was so much better for us and our organization,” said Moreno. “AbsenceSoft stores everything so we’re able to see active cases and go back and see the historical cases for each employee. This helps us show our leaders why we’re going to do what we’re going to do or why we’re moving forward with an entitlement or why it should be covered under a different policy.”
Moreno currently oversees Carvana’s automated leave and accommodations workflows in AbsenceSoft. She is continually finding ways to optimize her current workflows, as well as create new ones to manage Carvana’s company policies. She appreciates having the flexibility to design workflows that follow their internal processes. Her workflows save her team a lot of time by including automatic communications and reminders at predefined steps in the process.
Carvana has a personal leave policy that employees regularly use. Before using AbsenceSoft, Moreno and her team manually sent out paperwork and created cases for people taking leave under Carvana’s policy – the TPA wasn’t able to manage organizational leave policies. With AbsenceSoft, Moreno has created an automated workflow for Carvana’s leave policy, and can manage it alongside the FMLA, ADA, and other state leave policies employees might be eligible for. Her team is now saving 30-40 minutes per case for this policy alone.
“The better I can create processes for my team, the easier it gets. The workflows have gotten us to a place where a case is out of sight out of mind until the workflow populates a to-do for us, and we know it’s there. So, it’s definitely helped us out so much. For me, the workflows are everything,” said Moreno.
The Carvana team also uses text messaging to communicate with their employees. This allows them to schedule phone calls and document their outreach.
“We are big on text messages. We use it all the time. We love it. That is one of the best ways that we are able to connect with our team members so that we can schedule calls,” said Moreno.
The leave team are not the only ones that love the text messaging feature.
“Our team members love text messaging because a lot of them are very busy, and this feature allows them to text their documentation and it attaches to their case within AbsenceSoft,” explained Moreno.
By bringing their leave program in-house, Moreno’s team can centrally manage all their leave policies in one system. With AbsenceSoft, they have automated and streamlined their leave and accommodations processes into workflows, saving the team a ton of time, while ensuring no case falls through the cracks. With easy access to case details and data, they have matured their program in several ways.
Today, Moreno and her team are more efficient, giving them the time and tools to provide a more personalized experience. They also have more confidence about making better, more compliant determinations and decisions for every request.
To learn how AbsenceSoft can help you streamline and automate your leave and accommodations programs, schedule a demo today.