Senior Director Benefits Ops

In-Office: This is a 100% in-office role based at our Schaumburg, IL, Merdian, ID, or Rochester, NY location. Remote or hybrid work is not available for this position. Candidates must be able to work on-site five days per week during designated work hours.

Position Overview

The Senior Director Benefits Ops leads the Benefits Service, EDI and Implementation functional areas and the Benefits Directors accountable for those teams. This leader drives the strategy and its execution, ensures client perspectives are understood and addressed by business leaders, and is accountable for team performance, on-time implementations, retention and customer satisfaction. They create scalability in our delivery model, implement process improvement and change strategies, and identify expansion opportunities in a growth environment. This position will be measured by retention, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Primary Responsibilities

The below represents the primary duties of the position, others may be assigned as needed. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Lead the team to achieve high quality of service across the department, meeting agreed upon deliverables and ensuring key operational performance metrics are met.
• Set the vision and culture for continuous process and quality improvement for both our employee and client experiences.
• Develop, evaluate, and implement strategies to gather and respond to client feedback, and work with cross-functional teams to align client interests with business objectives.
• improvements in efficiency, decision quality, and client experience. tion of AI capabilities into core business processes, championing change management, and ensure measurable improvements in efficiency, decision quality, and client experience.
• Provide direction for a more strategically oriented client experience, including streamlining points of interaction between the client and the company and simplifying processes.
• Develop and present to key internal stakeholders on service, implementation, retention and metrics showing the overall health of client and employee satisfaction and engagement.
• Determine organizational structure and development needs for the business. Create workforce forecasting and plans to ensure staffing for the function as well as the appropriate training plan and career-path development for our evolving business needs.
• Collaborate with nearshore site leadership to address staffing needs, operational performance, employee engagement, and process consistency across nearshore teams.
• Accountable for fostering and promoting a strategic and effective partnership with key partners throughout the business, including Sales, Product, Vendor-partners, Service and Implementation.
• Lead, coach, motivate and develop management staff. Responsible for one-on-one meetings, performance appraisals, growth opportunities and attracting new talent.
• Work with Benefits directors and managers to maintain consistent model designs and processes and to drive change and improvement agendas across the function.
• Drive the Voice of the Client with Product to influence the design and implementation of new product functionality and additional service offerings.
• Handle escalations that require senior management intervention to remedy any service or implementation failures.
• Ensure all internal audit and compliance requirements are met, including benefits-specific regulatory and carrier requirements. Oversee leaders who serve as point people for internal audit and compliance requests.
• Improve client loyalty as measured through NPS surveys and client retention.
• Responsible for the ongoing communication and engagement of the Benefits teams to ensure employee understanding and engagement. Presents, along with the management team, new policies and initiatives to the team.
• Prepare and report on annual budget (headcount plan, productivity goals and capital expenditures). Manage expenses to the established budget/plan.
• Partner with leaders and L&D to develop appropriate training that will successfully onboard employees, offer continuous development, and maximize effectiveness of the operation.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree is required.
• Minimum 10-15 years of progressive senior leadership experience, primarily in a leader of leader capacity (ideally in a payroll, benefits administration or B2B SaaS service environment).
• Ownership of a book of business and P&L responsibility.
• Proven leadership competencies running multi-site service, implementation or operations teams.
• Experience in a large scale, margin focused, fast-paced B2B SaaS business.
• Data-driven decision making and financial acumen; experience using reporting and metrics to drive performance (monthly/quarterly KPIs).
• Strong judgment with the proven ability to balance growth, retention and profitability business goals against operational constraints and risk.
• Demonstrated strong ability to source talent, train and develop leaders.
• Proven experience leading through significant growth.
• Demonstrated ability to adapt, drive and lead through change.
• Experience driving cross-functional process improvement initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple resources across multiple locations who are working on complex projects and tasks simultaneously.
• Demonstrated ability to interact with and influence C-level executives, internally and externally.
• Ability to build strong and effective relationships which introduce win-win solutions across departments and with clients.
• Strong collaborative, negotiating, influencing, leadership and decision-making skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; highly complex problem-solving ability.
• Experience with analysis and project life cycle methodologies.
• Broad knowledge of Benefits administration, Payroll/HRIS/Time and Attendance or other
• B2B applications preferred.
• In-office role with up to 50% travel.

Physical Requirements

• Ability to sit for extended periods (typically 7-8 hours/day).
• Proficiency in operating computer and phone systems, including simultaneous use of multiple software programs.