Employee Benefits Consultant

Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is a leading energy provider serving 9 million customers across the Southeast and beyond through its family of companies. The company is committed to providing clean, safe, reliable, and affordable energy with excellent service, advancing innovation, resilience, and sustainability to meet customers' and communities' needs.

About the role

The Health & Welfare Benefits Consultant supports the day-to-day operations of the Health & Welfare (H&W) team by providing ongoing administration and oversight of group benefit programs and vendors. This role serves as a primary contact for vendors and internal HR partners, ensuring high-value benefit programs, operational efficiency, and alignment with broader Total Rewards priorities. The position will be filled as a grade level 5 or 6 depending on relevant experience.

Responsibilities

• Benefits Administration
  • Facilitate implementation of new benefit plan design features and update plan documentation, procedures, and related materials to reflect plan design changes.
  • Support compliance with legal, regulatory, and contractual requirements related to benefit plans and vendor administration.
  • Partner with H&W leadership to develop and deliver benefit-related communications.
  • Provide support for complex benefit-related inquiries and escalated participant issues, as needed.
  • Maintain effective communication with internal stakeholders on benefits-related matters or requests for benefits and/or vendor support (e.g., presenting at business meetings).
  • Coordinate resolution of member claims, appeals, and escalated cases—partner with internal and external resources for timely execution.
• Vendor Management
  • Manage day-to-day relationships with vendors, monitoring trends, issues, and customer service levels; raise appropriate risks, opportunities, and enhancements to leadership.
  • Analyze vendor-related issues and recommend solutions.
  • Monitor vendor service delivery and data interfaces; identify opportunities to improve operating efficiency using data and trends to inform recommendations.
  • Develop and maintain plan and vendor summaries.
  • Coordinate plan and vendor audits, identify trends or issues affecting participants and processes, and recommend or implement appropriate follow-up actions.
  • Actively monitor, evaluate, and report on plan and vendor performance using established key performance indicators.
  • Support new vendor selection and current vendor renewal activities.
  • Coordinate with vendors, as needed, to support Annual Enrollment processes.
  • Support or lead assigned projects to improve customer experience, vendor efficiency, and cost effectiveness.
  • Support vendor invoice review and coordination, as needed.
• Total Rewards Alignment
  • Support execution of broader Total Rewards priorities by helping ensure Health & Welfare programs are competitive, sustainable, and aligned with business and workforce needs.
  • Bring an enterprise Total Rewards perspective to day-to-day work by connecting Health & Welfare activities to employee experience, operational effectiveness, and long-term program success and value.
  • Collaborate across Total Rewards, HR, vendors, and internal stakeholders to support integrated solutions and a consistent employee experience across rewards programs.
  • Contribute to a One Team approach by collaborating on initiatives that integrate Health & Welfare, wellbeing, retirement, and other rewards programs where appropriate.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in HR, business, finance, or related field preferred or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience: Minimum of 4 years of progressive experience in employee benefit plan administration, vendor management, or related benefits operations.

Skills

• Effective critical thinking and problem-solving skills: skilled at relating and comparing data from different sources, identifying issues, securing relevant information, critically evaluating situations, and presenting sound factual reports.
• Confident and skilled at working independently as well as in a team environment.
• Flexible and adaptable—able to learn new technologies and applications quickly.
• Demonstrates effective project management skills—able to multi-task seamlessly.
• Exhibits the highest level of customer service focused on ownership, speed, responsiveness, and accuracy.
• Demonstrates strong communication skills—ensures key stakeholders are updated and informed; experience developing successful working relationships to drive effectiveness.
• Demonstrates behaviors consistent with the Southern Company culture: Safety First, Intentional Inclusion, Act with Integrity, Superior Performance.

Benefits

Southern Company invests in the well-being of its employees and their families through a comprehensive total rewards strategy that includes:

• Competitive base salary.
• Annual incentive awards for eligible employees.
• Health, welfare, and retirement benefits designed to support physical, financial, and emotional/social well-being.
• Eligibility for additional compensation, such as an incentive program, with the amount of any bonus/awards subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable incentive plan(s).

Additional details about total compensation and benefits will be provided during the hiring process. A summary of benefits can be found here.

Schedule

Full time.