Senior Manager, Benefits

Holland America Line has been exploring the world since 1873. Our ships offer innovative features and enriching experiences focused on destination exploration and personalized travel, inviting guests to savor the journey.

We’re looking for an amazing Senior Manager, Benefits to fill this role. You’ll be responsible for strategic and operational leadership in the design, development, implementation, administration, and communication of our global benefit programs, including medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance coverage; Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), retirement plans, onsite and remote wellness programming, COBRA, and legislated leaves of absence and statutory provisions.

Here’s a summary of what Holland America Line is looking for in its Senior Manager, Benefits. Is this you?

Responsibilities

• Maintains a working knowledge of current trends, developments and legislation in the benefits field to make informed changes, recommendations and/or additions to the employee benefits program designs that serve overall Company objectives.
• Works closely with external consultants and vendors to ensure services and programming remain competitive and cost-effective.
• Leads the annual U.S. benefits enrollment process to include: systems testing, communication and training including open enrollment meetings, vendor management.
• Ensures compliance with all federal and state disclosure and legal reporting requirements such as COBRA, HIPAA and IRS (Section 125) Flexible Spending Account Programs.
• Participates in the renewal processes and recommend a go-forward approach taking into consideration feedback from internal stakeholders, market research, and cost analysis.
• Provides retirement plan oversight for the U.S. 401(k), including annual audits and non-discrimination testing.
• Oversees retirement plans, including vendor & platform management and annual compliance and testing.
• Provides plan oversight for Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).
• Partners with key stakeholders in HR, Finance and Legal. Develop and work in partnership to monitor service level and performance of service providers.
• Leads, motivates, and develops a team of service oriented benefit professionals to ensure competence and expertise, ensuring seamless compliance with federal and state regulations.
• Develops new materials, strategies, and project plans to enhance employees' understanding of benefits offerings and policy changes.
• Continuously improves the employee experience with compliant benefits communication, FAQs, and self-service tools.
• Maintains and frequently updates benefit information and policies on internal communications resources.
• Develops simple, logical processes that make it easy for employees to access and understand their benefits.
• Proactively delivers communication and follow-up, and effective verbal and written communication skills to collaborate, develop partnerships and instill trust of vendors, managers, and employees.
• Manages multiple stakeholders, balancing strategic objectives while addressing competing needs effectively.
• Adopts fostering cross-functional partnerships, ensuring alignment between benefits strategy and broader business goals.
• Develops clear, structured processes that improve efficiency and employee understanding related to benefits, absence and time off, ensuring alignment with organizational goals and compliance with global regulations.
• Encourages the growth of the Benefits Team members through skill development and goal setting.Holds direct reports accountable for meeting performance standards and departmental performance goals.
• Identifies and implements process improvements while working with the team and stakeholders to identify opportunities for improvement.
• Presents issues and recommendations to leadership.
• Performs other duties as assigned

Requirements

• Strong verbal and written communication, critical thinking skills, with an ability to see trends and to understand how seemingly disparate things may be connected. 
• Ability to handle sensitive/confidential information and situations with high ethics, confidentiality, diplomacy, patience and tact. 
• Ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously in a dynamic ever-changing environment. 
• Medium to Advanced skills in Outlook, Microsoft office sui