Benefits Associate, Global Benefits

About the Role

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

Key Responsibilities

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 collects 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.
• 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.
• Coordinates benefit-related payroll inputs and follows up on payroll deduction or contribution issues.
• 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 and coordination with vendors, with training and guidance provided.

Process, Documentation & Continuous Improvement

• Maintains and updates process documentation, templates, and service resources.
• Performs additional related duties as assigned.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• High school degree or associate’s degree.
• Prior experience in customer service, shared services, HR operations, benefits administration, payroll support, or other administrative work is preferred.
• 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.
• Fluently speak, read, write, understand, and communicate in English.

Training will be provided on Alcon benefits processes, systems, reconciliation activities, and country-specific requirements.