Summary

The Director of Benefits/Wellness and Compensation provides strategic leadership, oversight, and administration of the University's employee benefits, wellness, retirement, leave, and compensation programs. The position partners closely with the Associate Vice President of Human Resources to develop, implement, and continuously improve HR policies, programs, and initiatives that support employee well-being, market competitiveness, internal equity, and regulatory compliance. The Director collaborates with University leadership and key stakeholders to evaluate positions, analyze compensation data, maintain salary structures, oversee salary surveys and IPEDS reporting, and recommend compensation strategies that align with the University's strategic goals and workforce objectives.

Essential Functions

Benefits and Wellness Program Leadership:

• Establishes the strategic direction of the University’s benefits, wellness, retirement, leave, and insurance programs, including group health, dental, vision, life, LTD, workers’ compensation, retirement plans,

tuition assistance, FMLA, leave plans, and 403(b)/401(k) hardship, loan, and withdrawal processes.

• Evaluates and compares existing benefits and wellness programs with those of other institutions by analyzing plan design, benefit surveys, claims data, market trends, and other sources of information to recommend improvements or changes.

• Develops annual goals, long-term objectives, annual action plans, policies, and procedures related to benefits, wellness, retirement, and leave programs.

• Ensures University compliance with applicable federal and state laws and regulatory requirements related to benefits and wellness programs, including ERISA, health care reform requirements, COBRA, HIPAA, FMLA, IRS, Department of Labor, insurance commissioner, and other regulatory agency requirements.

• Oversees required regulatory mailings, communications, reports, filings, and applications; serves as primary contact with third-party administrators, benefit providers, General Counsel, and external counsel regarding plan administration and compliance.

• Analyzes aggregate health claims data to recommend and implement wellness initiatives designed to support employee wellbeing, lifestyle and behavior change, and long-term cost management.

Compensation Program Administration:

• Administers the compensation program for faculty and staff and works collaboratively with Talent Acquisition to determine offers for new employees that promote internal equity while remaining competitive with the external market.

• Provides recommendations and guidance to managers on wages and salaries using the University’s Pay and Titling Guidelines, salary structures, external market surveys, and internal equity reviews.

• Benchmarks positions against market surveys to determine appropriate market pricing and placement within salary ranges; completes exempt and non-exempt salary surveys, including AAUP and CUPA-HR, and develops techniques for compiling, preparing, validating, and presenting compensation data.

• Approves compensation-related actions in Workday HCM; utilizes Workday reports to conduct analytics on wages and salaries; works with the HRIS Administrator to ensure compensation tables in Workday are updated to reflect minimum wage requirements, salary structure changes, and FLSA standards.

• Keeps current on Workday compensation releases and uses Workday Community resources to stay informed on compensation functionality, best practices, and system implementation considerations.

• Keeps apprised of federal, state, and local compensation laws and regulations to help ensure University compliance with wage and hour, minimum wage, salary basis, and related compensation requirements.

Position Description, Job Evaluation, Classification, and Reporting:

• Evaluates Position Description Questionnaires (PDQs) for new and existing positions to ensure duties and responsibilities, reporting structure, work experience, education, knowledge, skills, physical and working conditions, and University mission expectations are clearly defined.

• Makes recommendations for PDQ revisions to support uniformity of job descriptions, job titles, and titling guidelines.

• Investigates and analyzes position duties and responsibilities to determine appropriate FLSA classification, exemption status, job title, and salary range.

• Conducts job analysis and desk audits; develops or revises PDQs/job descriptions when needed and determines appropriate salary grade levels.

• Provides data to Institutional Research for the annual HR portion of the IPEDS report, including reviewing reports, conducting data validation, updating information, and serving as the Human Resources point of contact for the Institu