Manager, Employee Benefits

Summary

Description

National Jewish Health is seeking an Employee Benefits Manager to lead the strategy, administration, and employee experience for the organization's comprehensive benefits programs. This role oversees health and welfare, retirement, leave, disability, workers' compensation, and ancillary benefits while ensuring compliance, operational excellence, and exceptional service for employees across the institution.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the administration and continuous improvement of employee benefits programs and services.
• Manage benefits staff, vendors, brokers, and consultants to ensure effective, compliant, and cost-efficient program delivery.
• Drive benefits strategy, annual enrollment, employee communications, and program enhancements.
• Partner across Human Resources, Payroll, and technology teams to support seamless benefits operations and data integrity.

National Jewish Health offers the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the employee experience at the nation's leading respiratory hospital. The Employee Benefits Manager plays a key role in supporting a workforce dedicated to advancing patient care, research, and education while ensuring employees have access to competitive programs that support their health, well-being, and financial future.

Position Summary: This role leads the design, administration, compliance, and employee experience for National Jewish Health's health and welfare, retirement, leave, disability, workers' compensation and ancillary benefit programs. Evaluates plan performance and market competitiveness, develops data-driven recommendations, manages benefits staff and external partners, oversees benefits systems and operational controls, and ensures programs are administered consistently with plan documents and applicable requirements. 

Essential Duties

• Manages and develops an effective staff: providing effective communication, leadership, guidance and resources. Determines staff qualifications and competency: recruits, interviews, selects, hires, trains, orients, mentors, evaluates, coaches, counsels, disciplines, and rewards.  Establishes and monitors staff safety and regulatory compliance.
• Oversees health and welfare benefit programs and ensures accurate, timely, and consistent administration, including eligibility, enrollment, life events, and escalated claims.
• Manages outside consultants, broker and vendor relationships ensuring services delivered provide value, are cost-effective, aligned with service agreements and provide excellent service to employees.
• Executes the organization's benefits strategy. Leads the implementation of approved plan changes, new offerings, and vendor transitions. Identifies opportunities to improve administration, service delivery, and employee understanding of benefits.   
• Manages retirement and deferred compensation plans to include 403(b) and frozen pension plans; ensuring all pension and welfare benefit plans are administered in accordance with policies and procedures, plan documentation, contractual arrangements, and regulatory requirements. Manages the leave administrator;  guides organizational leave and disability programs, including ADA, Colorado FAMLI, FMLA, short-term and long-term disability, military leave, and other statutory federal, state, or organizational leaves. 
• Maintains plan documents, summary plan descriptions, amendments, policies, and administrative procedures. Supports plan governance and carries out plan administration in accordance with plan documents, organizational governance, and applicable regulatory requirements (ERISA, DOL, IRS, HIPAA, FMLA, ADEA, ADA, other federal, state and local laws).
• Partners with HRIS, payroll and IST to manage benefits system, carrier and vendor data interfaces, payroll deductions, eligibility reconciliations, and data-quality controls.
• Develops and executes a year-round benefits communication and education strategy. Leads annual enrollment planning and execution, including system readiness, decision-support resources, employee meetings, vendor coordination, targeted communications, and post-enrollment reconciliation.

Other Duties

• Performs other duties as assigned. 

Competencies

• Accountability: Accepts full responsibility for self and contribution as a team member; displays honesty and truthfulness; confronts problems quickly; displays a strong commitment to organizational success and inspires others to commit to goals; demonstrates a commitment to National Jewish Health. 
• Adaptability: Maintaining effectiveness when experiencing major changes in work responsibilities or environment; adjusting effectively to work within new work structures, processes, requirements, or cultures.
• Building Strategic Relationships: Identifying opportunities and taking action to build strategic relationships between one’s area and other areas, teams, departments, units, or organizations to help achieve business goals.
• Building Trust: Interacting with others in a way that gives them confidence in one’s intentions and those of the organization.
• Decision Making: Identifying and understanding issues, problems, and opportunities; comparing data from different sources to draw conclusions; using effective approaches for choosing a course of action or developing appropriate solutions; taking action that is consistent with available facts, constraints, and probable consequences.
• Impact and Influence: Using appropriate interpersonal styles and techniques to gain acceptance of ideas or plans; modifying one’s own behavior to accommodate tasks, situations, and individuals involved. Taking advantage of opportunities to make a difference and have an impact. When used well, the intended outcome of this competency is the creation of goodwill, trust, and respect while motivating people to want to follow you even when they need not.
• Managing Work and Time/Project Management: Effectively managing one’s time and resources to ensure that work is completed efficiently. Effectively manages project(s) by appropriately focusing attention on the critical few priorities; effectively creates and executes against project timelines based on priorities, resource availability, and other project requirements (i.e., budget); effectively evaluates planned approaches, determines feasibility, and makes adjustments when needed.
• Talent Management for Leaders: Clearly establishes and communicates expectations and accountabilities; monitors and evaluates performance; provides effective feedback and coaching; identifies development needs and helps employees address them to achieve optimal performance.

Supervisory or Managerial Responsibility: Manages 1 to 3 employees.

Travel: None

Core Values

• Be available to work as scheduled and report to work on time.
• Be willing to accept supervision and work well with others.
• Be well groomed, appropriately for your role and wear ID Badge visibly.
• Be in compliance with all departmental and institutional policies, the Employee Handbook, Code of Conduct and completes NetLearning by due date annually.
• Promotes a workplace culture based on mutual respect and merit, where all individuals are treated fairly and provided with equal opportunity to contribute to the mission and goals of the institution.
• Adheres to safe working practices and at all times follows all institutional and departmental safety policies and procedures. 
• Wears appropriate PPE as outlined by the infection control policies and procedures.
• Demonstrates compliance with all state, federal and all other regulatory agency requirements.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree required. Human Resources Administration or related field preferred.
• Work Experience: Minimum of five years of progressive benefits including complex plan administration experience, including at least five years of experience leading and managing a team.
• Special Training, Certification or Licensure: None

Salary Range: $102,589.71 – $135,679.89

Benefits
At National Jewish Health, we recognize that our outstanding faculty and staff are the essence of our organization. For every aspect of health care, our employees are our greatest asset. With that in mind, we have designed a valuable, comprehensive benefits package to meet the needs of our employees and their families. 

• Comprehensive Medical Coverage: Multiple Cigna health plans for Colorado, regional office and remote employees. Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) available to pair with some plans.
• Paid Time Off: Generous PTO accruals to use for vacation and sick days, and six paid holidays, all compliant with Colorado state sick leave regulations.
• Dental & Vision Plans: Coverage effective the first of the month after hire.
• Retirement Savings: 403(b) plan with employer contributions after two years.
• Wellness Incentives: Earn up to $200 annually for preventive health activities.
• Tuition Reimbursement: Up to $5,250 annually for full-time and part-time employees.
• Child Care Assistance: Childcare Flex Spending Account (FSA) with annual employer contribution.
• Loan Forgiveness: Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligible employer.
• Disability & Life Insurance: Employer-paid plans and optional buy-up choices.
• Voluntary Benefits: Full suite of coverage options such as Accident, Hospital Indemnity and Legal Plan
• Exclusive Discounts: Savings on local services, insurance, and RTD bus passes.