Sr. Retirement Analyst

First for a reason:

At First Student, we are a family of 60,000+ employees who take pride in safely transporting more than 5 million students and passengers to and from their destinations each day! Our family of brands include Transco, Total Transportation, Maggies Paratransit, and GVC II. Our employees are at the forefront of safety and innovation; they create and implement the most advanced training and technology the transportation industry has to offer.

The Sr. Retirement Analyst works both independently and in a team setting supporting the administration of First Student's 401(k) Plans, include Multi-Employer Plans (MEP) through Unions, and Deferred Compensation Plan. This position will partner with a variety of different internal functions and third-party providers in generating reports, analyzing and resolving system issues, and reviewing and recommending process improvements to ensure process and compliance controls are effectively established and executed. Additionally, this role is responsible for providing a high level of customer service on employee issues and requests with timely resolution. The focus of the Sr. Retirement Analyst role is compliance and more complex issue resolution. Higher-level administrative duties of this role may include mentoring and training lover level Retirement Analyst, Coordinator or Intern roles.

Major Responsibilities

• Key contributor in the administration of the 401(k), MEPs, and non-qualified retirement plans serving both hourly, union and non-union and salaried populations. Requires the ability to complete complex retirement calculations independently, while validating with reporting and troubleshooting for inconsistencies.
• Acts as a subject matter expert, responding to unresolved and escalated complex employee questions/issues, provides assistance and clarification to the Human Resources team, labor, payroll, management, and employees on retirement plans while adhering to regulatory and company guidelines. Review and respond to inquiries from locations, unions and trust contacts.
• Assists with monitoring CBA renewal cycles and coordinates updates with the Workday configurator. Communicate proactively with internal labor team as issues arise and may review retirement benefit language in CBAs to determine administrative feasibility of negotiated arrangements.
• Maintains an updated knowledge of industry trends and best practices along with data and statistics specific to the retirement plans.
• Reviews relevant plan documents and other plan materials.
• Takes a lead role in the oversight of the annual compliance activities such as non-discrimination testing, preparation, review, and obtaining necessary documentation for qualified plans’ IRS and ERISA mandated submissions and employee communications (i.e., 5500’s, SAR’s, SPD’s, etc.) and required plan audits.
• Compiles and generates various reports to conduct analysis and evaluation of retirement benefit programs for continued enhancement and improvement.
• Audits payroll deductions, vendor files and funding to ensure all systems/contributions are aligned.
• Complete cross-training across the retirement team as directed by their manager to gain functional working knowledge in all areas of retirement administration and compliance.
• Assist in the development and documentation of processes and procedures related to ongoing duties as assigned.
• Audit and analyze large data sets to identify issues and structure effective solutions.
• Look for opportunities to simplify or enhance operational processes and workflow. Develop solutions to problems of unusual complexity that have a broad impact on the business which require a high degree of ingenuity, creativity, and innovation.
• May mentor or provide direction to lower level Retirement Analyst, Coordinator or Intern Roles.

Minimum Experience or Skills Required

• Bachelor’s degree preferred, equivalent combination of relevant education, experience and certification may be substituted as appropriate.7 or more years of experience in a retirement benefit plan sponsor or vendor role, prior supervision experience a plus
• CEBS certification or similar certification preferred
• Extensive knowledge and experience in qualified retirement plan compliance required
• Extensive knowledge of 409A requirements preferred
• Ability to communicate and/or present information to all levels of management
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize projects and issues
• Demonstrated sense-of-urgency and follow-up
• Demonstrated experience handling confidential or sensitive information
• Self-motivated yet comfortable in a team environment
• Strong skills in the full Microsoft office suite including Excel, PowerPoint,