Benefits Associate - Global Benefits

Job Summary

The Benefits Associate is an entry-level role within the HR Service Center that provides Tier-1 colleague support for benefits-related questions and transactions across assigned countries or populations. The role serves as a first point of contact for routine inquiries, case intake, and basic issue resolution, while coordinating with payroll, external vendors, and the Global Benefits COE to ensure timely and accurate service delivery.

This role supports day-to-day benefits administration activities, including enrollments, changes, terminations, vendor coordination, and payroll-related benefits updates. A key responsibility of the position is performing reconciliation work, including colleague census, eligibility, pension contribution, invoice, and premium reviews, to help ensure records and payments are accurate. Because reconciliation work can be more complex, structured training and process guidance will be provided.

The role is accountable for executing assigned responsibilities in a high-quality, timely manner and in alignment with service-level expectations, standard operating procedures, and operational metrics. More complex cases, exceptions, and non-routine plan matters are escalated to senior team members, payroll, vendors, or the Global Benefits COE as appropriate.

Essential Job Functions

Essential Job Functions include the following:

Customer Support and Case Management

• Serves as a Tier-1 point of contact for colleague benefits questions, routine issue resolution, and case intake through the HR Service Center.
• Escalates complex cases, exceptions, plan interpretation questions, and non-routine issues to senior team members, payroll, vendors, or the Global Benefits COE as appropriate.
• Supports claim administration and collect documentation needed to facilitate submissions or follow-up with colleagues, beneficiaries, and vendors, as applicable.

Benefits Administration

• Supports day-to-day benefits administration activities, including new hire enrollments, benefit changes, life event updates, terminations, and other colleague transactions in accordance with established procedures.
• Collects and processes required documentation for enrollments, dependent or beneficiary updates, claims support, and other benefits transactions where applicable.
• Supports periodic enrollment windows, flexible benefits administration, and country-specific benefit processes as assigned.

Coordination Support (Payroll, Vendors, Stakeholder)

• Coordinates benefit-related data updates and communications with payroll, benefit vendors, and internal stakeholders to support accurate administration.
• Coordinates benefit-related payroll inputs and follows up on payroll deduction or contribution issues to help ensure accuracy and timely resolution.
• Supports administration of benefits or voucher programs that are not fully managed by external vendors, following defined processes and controls.

Reconciliation and Financial Administration

• Performs reconciliation work, including colleague census, eligibility, pension contribution, invoice, and premium reviews, and follows established processes to investigate and resolve routine discrepancies.
• Processes and reconciles benefit invoices, premium payments, allowances, reimbursements, and other assigned transactions in coordination with finance, payroll, and vendors.
• Prepares, distributes, and reconciles eligibility, enrollment, and other recurring reports used for benefits administration and vendor processing.

Retirement Programs

• Supports retirement and pension administration activities for designated countries or programs, including contribution updates, coordination with vendors, and related administrative follow-up, with training and guidance provided.

Process, Documentation & Continuous Improvement

• Maintains and updates process documentation, templates, and service resources to support consistent and effective service delivery.
• Performs additional related duties as assigned by the manager or in coordination with the Global Benefits COE.

Competencies

Required Proficiency Level

(Fundamental; Intermediate; Advanced; Thought Leader)

Action Oriented

Enjoys working hard; is action oriented and full of energy for the things he/she sees as challenging; not fearful of acting with a minimum of planning; seizes more opportunities than others.

Fundamental

Customer Focus

Is dedicated to meeting the expectations and requirements of internal and external customers; gets first-hand customer information and uses it for improvements in products and services; acts with customers in mind; establishes and maintains effective relationships with customers and gains their trust and respect.

Fundamental

Functional/Technical

Skills Has the functional and technical knowledge and skills to do the job at a high level of accomplishment.

Fundamental

Informing

Provides the information people need to know to do their jobs and to feel good about being a member of the team, unit, and/or the organization; provides individuals information so that they can make accurate decisions; is timely with information.

Fundamental

Process Management

Good at figuring out the processes necessary to get things done; knows how to organize people and activities; understands how to separate and combine tasks into efficient workflow; knows what to measure and how to measure it; can see opportunities for synergy and integration where others can’t; can simplify complex processes; gets more out of fewer resources.

Fundamental

Standard Minimimum Requirements 

• Education: High School Degree or associate’s degree
• Experience: Entry-level position; prior experience in customer service, shared services, HR operations, benefits administration, payroll support, or other administrative work is preferred.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• High level customer service orientation and ability to communicate clearly with colleagues, vendors, and internal stakeholders
• High level attention to detail, accuracy, and follow-through, especially when reviewing and reconciling data
• Ability to review and analyze data to identify discrepancies and trends
• Comfort working with data, reports, and common business software such as Excel and Word
• Basic understanding of service metrics and data quality concepts
• Experience with HR systems or service management tools is preferred
• Familiarity with automated workflows or digital tools to support HR processes is a plus
• Problem-solving skills and ability to follow structured approaches to issue resolution 
• Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information
• Ability to work across different regions, cultures and time zones
• Ability to communicate effectively across multiple channels (email, systems, chat)
• Ability to work with both internal and external stakeholders with guidance
• Ability to learn and follow defined processes, service standards, and escalation paths
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines in a service center environment
• Ability to identify opportunities to improve processes and enhance efficiency
• Training will be provided on Alcon benefits processes, systems, reconciliation activities, and country-specific requirements
• The ability to fluently speak, read, write, understand and communicate in English.

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Alcon is an Equal Opportunity Employer and takes pride in maintaining a diverse environment. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, or any other reason.