Benefits and Human Resources Specialist

As a Benefits and Human Resources Specialist at Grand Rapids Community College, this position plays a crucial role in managing and administering employee benefits programs. Primary responsibilities will include collaboratively maintaining compliance with laws, regulations, plan documents, policies, procedures and employee contracts. This position provides support to employees in processing benefit elections and changes, as well as supporting the benefits department in data requests for surveys, collective bargaining and benchmarking. This position will serve as a backup for the Employee Leave Specialist and assist with other HR projects.

Position Number: 00001436
Requisition Number:
Department: Human Resources
Employee Group: Professional, Management, and Administration (PMA)
Schedule: 40 hours/52 weeks
Compensation: OP3;
Benefits: Full Time
Reports to: Benefits Manager
Posting Opens: 4/1/2026
Posting Closes: 4/14/2026

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

Benefits Administration:

• Provide excellent customer service to all employee groups in supplying information and resources related to employee benefits and eligibility
• Present benefits information to new employees during their onboarding session with Human Resources
• Maintain current benefits for full and part time staff; this includes health insurance or health insurance waivers and documentation, life insurance, disability insurances, supplemental benefits, dental and vision reimbursement program
• Maintain Flex Spending Account and Health Savings Account data in PeopleSoft for all eligible employees
• Reconcile, balance and maintain spreadsheets for carrier payments
• Serve as a liaison with employees, health carriers, and our broker to assist with unique or complicated requests
• Collaborate with the Benefits Manager to complete the plan build, testing and successful launch of open enrollment and ongoing maintenance of eligibility within a GRCC’s HRIS/online enrollment platform

Tuition Waiver Responsibilities:

• Become familiar with employee contracts to accurately determine tuition waiver eligibility, including differences in benefit structures across employee groups.
• Review and verify dependent documentation.
• Track any taxable tuition for dependents over age 24 who are not considered IRS dependents, and coordinate with Payroll to process the applicable taxable benefit.
• Communicate with employees regarding the approval or denial of tuition waiver requests.
• Collaborate with Student Financial Services to ensure approved waivers are accurately applied to student accounts.

Compliance & Documentation:

• Conduct a complete Dependent Audit on all covered employees with dependent(s) on health, dental and vision coverage
• Partner with benefits consultants, brokers, third party administrators and other providers. Support contract negotiations and open enrollment activities.
• Responsible for maintaining all correspondence associated with Federal COBRA laws
• Maintain Life Insurance beneficiary designations forms. This includes offering conversion life insurance letters for terminated employees and running yearly census reports for the insurance carrier.
• Assist with Employee leaves, workers' compensation and LTD claims. This may include working with employees, health centers, supervisors and the work comp carrier in the absence of the Employee Leave Specialist.
• Work with vendors for employment verification; conduct audits of HRIS, payroll, and benefits data. Ensure regulatory compliance and reporting
• Maintain compliance with labor law poster across campus in all buildings

Data Maintenance & Technology:

• Maintain employee benefit files, including confidential health information subject to HIPAA compliance
• Complete report requests for benefits data from PeopleSoft, including census file data used for contract negotiations
• Create regular communications to employees on the value-add programs and other benefit information to promote employee health and wellness initiatives

Other Job Functions:

• Organize, plan and coordinate vendors for the benefits fair and/or vaccine clinic annually
• Collaborate with the