Benefits Director
About the role
The Director, Benefits is a strategic leader responsible for designing, implementing, and managing comprehensive employee benefits programs that align with organizational goals and enhance employee well-being. This hands-on role requires both strategic vision and operational expertise to oversee health and welfare plans, retirement programs, leave policies, and wellness initiatives, ensuring compliance, cost-effectiveness, and competitive positioning in the marketplace.
Responsibilities
- Develop and execute forward-thinking benefits strategies encompassing health, welfare, retirement, wellness, and leave programs, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and industry benchmarks.
- Lead cross-functional initiatives to enhance the employee experience through innovative benefits offerings.
- Oversee the strategic planning and execution of the annual Open Enrollment process, including renewal strategy, employee communications, and educational materials.
- Build and manage relationships with benefits brokers, carriers, and third-party vendors to optimize service levels, cost efficiency, and program effectiveness.
- Monitor legislative changes and assess their impact on benefit programs.
- Collaborate with Finance to forecast and manage benefit budgets.
- Analyze cost trends and recommend plan design changes to optimize value and control expenses.
- Develop clear communication strategies to educate employees on benefits offerings.
- Serve as a resource for escalated employee inquiries and complex case resolution.
- Lead and mentor a team of benefits professionals.
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement and service excellence.
- Oversee and ensure appropriate controls are in place to safeguard personnel data, maintain continuity of operations, and maintain data accuracy and integrity.
- Maintain knowledge of HR requirements and regulations affecting human resources functions and ensures policies, procedures and reporting are in compliance.
- Ensure plans are compliant with local, state and federal regulations, including timely and accurate completion of all required government filings, and distribution of required participant plan disclosures.
- Supervise a team of up to 1-5 regular employees, interns and/or contractors.
Requirements
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential duties.
Qualifications
- Ten (10) years of progressive experience in benefits administration with five (5) years of people management experience.
- Deep knowledge of compensation analysis and benefits structures, and benefit regulations, including health care reform (Affordable Care Act – ACA), HIPAA, Workers Compensation, ERISA, etc.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Prowess in problem-solving, decision making and critical thinking skills.
- Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate sensitive and confidential matters effectively.
- Proven success managing benefits strategies for an employee population of over 8,000 employees.
- Focus on customer satisfaction.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Project, and Visio; Intermediate to advanced Excel user.
- Experience with benefit module(s) of HRIS applications such as Workday, Ultimate Software, Oracle, etc.
- Web proficiency.
Skills
None specified.
Benefits
Stride, Inc. offers a robust benefits package for eligible employees that can include health benefits, retirement contributions, and paid time off. The above job is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position. Incumbents will follow any other instructions, and perform any other related duties, as assigned by their supervisor. All employment is “at-will” as governed by the law of the state where the employee works. It is further understood that the “at-will” nature of employment is one aspect of employment that cannot be changed except in writing and signed by an authorized officer.
Pay
$113,480.25 - $155,000.00 per year.
Schedule
Home-based position.