Position Summary
As a member of the professional staff, contributes specialized knowledge and skill in a discipline (e.g. Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Operations Planning & Support, Sales & Marketing) area to support team and/or department objectives. Generally works under limited supervision, but within established guidelines, monitoring the flow of work between own department and others in alignment with business strategies, selecting and developing effective managers and work teams, managing own organization through reliable systems and processes, and producing and analyzing more complex business information to assist in the decision making process.
Job Summary
The Manager, Leave Administration is responsible for oversight, direction, and coordination of the Leave Administration team, who is responsible for administering statutory and company incidental leaves of absence in accordance with applicable regulations for the U.S. associate population of Marriott Vacations Worldwide. The Leave Administration team within the Associate Service Center serves as the Center of Excellence (COE) for leave administration.
Responsible for ensuring operational efficiency and compliance to mitigate company risk. Leverages deep working expertise of statutory leaves to ensure communications and interactions are compliant, high-quality, customer focused and timely (within determined Service Level Agreements). Serves as the primary liaison with the legal department when performing investigations or responding to litigation involving an associate that has requested leave.
Leverages technology to ensure processes are fully optimized. Monitors key service metrics including customer satisfaction and conducts quality assurance reviews to ensure quality of information shared and assess opportunities for training. The HR Manager, Leave Administration, reports to the leader of the Associate Service Center.
Expected Contributions
Operations & Management
- Understands the linkage between HR strategy and the Associate Service Center’s goals. Is able to clearly and positively articulate the benefits of new or revised HR processes for associates and managers.
- Provides day-to-day management, guidance and direction to the Leave Administration team. Must be able to motivate, lead and coach others (both direct and indirect).
- Ensures adherence to all Associate Service Center processes and procedures, and proper inquiry handling to maximize workflow and productivity. Ensures standards of customer service are met.
- Builds and maintains strong cross-functional stakeholder relationships for effective daily partnership with HR COE’s and the Law Department
- Continuously drive process improvements, identifying areas of opportunity for escalation and participating in the design and implementation of change.
- Develop and maintain Standard Operating Procedures and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Leave Administration. Ensures individual and team SLA’s are met or exceeded.
- Manages issue escalations. Provides guidance and handles escalated issues directly, as appropriate.
- Ensures complex employee, manager or business scenarios are analyzed and effective processing steps taken to ensure resolution within HR process guidelines.
- Effectively uses case management and knowledgebase tools to resolve, track and escalate all inquiries.
- Resourceful HR knowledge source regarding company policy and navigating HR processes & procedures. Leverages stakeholder relationships to stay informed and up to speed on compliance and regulatory requirements.
- Maintains a high level of confidentiality and professionalism.
- Demonstrates and maintains deep proficiency in multiple HR process areas.
Leave Administration
- Responsible for maintaining content for communications and attachments within case management.
- Prepare leave of absence summaries for identified associates based on litigation notification.
- Provides regular leave performance reporting.
- Leads investigations into perceived misuse of leave in partnership with HR Business Partners and/or legal.
- Responsible for preparing individual communications addressed to an associate’s treating health care provider in order to solicit information regarding the nature of ongoing leave requests or making decisions regarding indefinite leave accommodations.
- Maintains ownership for data integrations between the HRIS and Leave management applications.
- Collaborates with benefits administration and payroll to ensure both processes receive relevant leave of absence data to ensure smooth delivery of these services during leaves.
- Responsible for ongoing review and updates of the company leave of absence policy, with support from legal resources in order to ensure compliance with regulatory and business changes
Disability Accommodations
- Maintain current working knowledge of ADA and EEOC as well as market trends and employer benchmarking.
- Be responsible for process compliance with legislation and accessibility policies, communications.
- Partner with and support Diversity, Staffing, Risk Management, Law and HR Business Partners on all things disability accommodations/accessibility related while managing and messaging sensitive and confidential information appropriately.
- Handle ADA escalations working directly with associates, managers, HR and Law to resolve complex situations.
- Provides guidance on workplace accommodations and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Training & Communications
- Maintains personal expertise in federal and state regulations related to leaves of absence.
- Provides training for leave of absence areas to Associate Services to ensure team is knowledgeable and can respond or escalate associate inquiries effectively.
- Leveraging inquiry trends, identifies opportunities for training or communications to raise awareness/educate or promote process adoption among broader associate population and/or HR on policies, processes, technology, etc.
- Partners with appropriate stakeholders on developing and delivering training and communications.
- Supports distribution of targeted communications and updates from the Leave Administration team in partnership with HR COE’s.
Reporting & Process Improvement
- Actively monitors and uses metrics and trends to determine where process improvement opportunities exist related to Leave Administration.
- Makes improvement suggestions based on workload management, analyzing Leave Administration trends, or to comply with regulatory and/or policy changes.
- Identifies ways to improve/reduce inquiry volume by creating self-serve knowledge management materials, proposing user communications or improvements to user guides and training materials.
General
- Contributes to team, department and/or business results by performing more complex quantitative and qualitative analysis for business processes and/or projects. Often manages small projects, business processes or parts of larger ones.
- Responds to, solves and makes decisions on more complex/non-routine business requests with limited to moderate risk.
- Works to enhance the organization’s capabilities through effective staffing and development of others by:
- using appropriate MVW interviewing tools to hire the best managers available from inside or outside.
- hiring for diversity and balance of skills.
- setting and maintaining high standards for team and individual performance.
- providing timely coaching and feedback.
- making and rewarding distinctions in performance.
- Assists more senior associates in achieving business results by:
- identifying opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of business processes.
- providing training and technical guidance to less senior staff, where appropriate, and serving as point-of-contact for problem resolution.
- participating in setting department operating plans.
- recognizing and celebrating team successes.
- achieving results against budget within scope of responsibility.
- Demonstrates an awareness of personal strengths and areas for improvement and acts independently to improve and increase skills and knowledge.
- Performs other duties as appropriate.
Candidate Profile
Education and Experience
- Bachelors’ Degree in Human Resources or equivalent practical work experience.
- Three to five years of progressively more responsible positions in the HR discipline.
- Three+ years prior experience administering multi-state protected leave policies for a large client group.
- Three+ years prior experience in a service center environment.
- Three+ years prior experience leading teams (direct or project-based).
Skills/Attributes
- Demonstrated broad and comprehensive knowledge of HR methodology, processes, and procedures.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to manage in a rapidly changing fast paced environment.
- Ability to interact with all levels of associates and management.
- Ability to manage large, enterprise wide projects and programs.
- Prior experience leading management and non-management associates.
- Exposure to HR and/or case management technologies (e.g., portal technology, case management, human capital management, etc.) – Workday and Cherwell experience strongly preferred.
- Proven collaboration and stakeholder management capabilities.
- Sound judgment; ability to solve problems and make recommendations to remediate issues.
- Strong analytical abilities and demonstrated ability to run reports and interpret/analyze data outputs.
Marriott Vacations Worldwide is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive culture.
