MCL requires a UK Pensions and Benefits Specialist to work with our clients Corporate UK Pensions and Benefits Team.

Duration: for a 12 month contract role that has an immediate start

Rate: a target limited company rate of circa £18.00 per hour. (Approximately £15.50 ph PAYE inclusive of holidays) There may be some room for negotiation on this rate for exceptional candidates.

For Ltd Co. contractors the role is likely to be outside IR35 but the final decision will be made after a Qdos assessment

Location: This role will ordinarily be based at our clients main UK office location in Leatherhead. As it stands, the role will start as a combination of remote working and occasional days in the Leatherhead office. Our client has an agile working strategy and the role will continue to enable a degree of flexible working.

** Candidates MUST have UK Right to Work**

Job Description:

The successful applicant will play a pivotal role in our clients UK Benefits team, which manages the benefits and pension plans to its UK employees through their in-house online flexible benefits platform that currently covers c2500 employees in the UK. The team’s remit is expected to expand with the number of employees covered increasing to c3750 employees through 2024 as other companies within the group join the platform.

You will work very closely with and support the other team members in running UK benefits. Some of the team members are based in the UK at the Leatherhead office and the others are based in our clients Chennai office in India.

You will report to the UK Pension & Benefits Manager who is based in the UK.
This is initially a 12 month opportunity to support with some exciting benefit developments, projects and case workload and it could be either a part-time or full-time position.

Skills, experience and qualities:

We are looking for someone who:

• Is enthusiastic, hard-working, friendly, open-minded and collaborative in their working approach.
• Has some experience of administering UK pensions and benefits in-house and ideally some experience of both defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans.
• Ideally has some wider HR, Reward or Payroll experience.
• Has strong interpersonal skills and spoken and written communication abilities enabling them to work with and manage multiple stakeholders effectively.
• Has a strong capability in working with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets including an ability to handle and analyse large volumes of data, and a good working knowledge of all the main Microsoft Office applications.
• Ideally has some experience of using any of: Workday, SAP, ADP, Dynamics and OneHub.
• Has an interest to further develop their awareness and understanding of the roles of benefits, HR and corporate functions teams within a global company.
• An interest in developing and running health and wellness programs would also be welcomed.

Role Responsibilities:

• Supporting the team in its strategic project activity which currently includes the design and delivery of benefits improvements for next year, onboarding an additional company onto the clients in-house online platform and supporting new companies with aligning their reward packages.
• Supporting UK employees with their pensions and benefits: through one to one meetings, both face to face and digital, over the phone and via email and Teams.
• Collaboratively manage the UK benefits team mailbox which is a key gateway for communication with employees, our benefit providers and other internal and external stakeholders.
• Supporting the UK benefits team in managing and operating benefits through the clients in-house online platform. 

This includes:

o Reviewing data files going into the site from our HR and payroll systems and coming back from the site for loading into our payroll system and going to benefit providers
o Working with our customer success manager at Benefex to ensure smooth ongoing running of benefits through the platform, resolving issues as they arise.
o Using the platform software to maintain and improve the content of the site.
o Preparing benefit communications, using the platform to send them to employees and working with the US benefits team on global communication initiatives.

• Support the team in managing its monthly operational processes associated with the online benefits system, payroll system and benefit providers, including benefit deduction and pension contribution reconciliations, auto enrolment checks and invoices. This involves working closely with the HR, HR systems, payroll, payroll accounting, IT, accounts payable and finance teams.
• Work with the team on annual and triennial reviews including the renewal of benefit contracts for the UK private medical schemes, electric car leasing scheme and back-up care program.
• Work with the HR teams and other corporate functions to meet the needs of the business on pension and benefits as they arise: examples include supporting secondments, overseas assignments and TUPE transfers for particular projects or situations, supporting auditors with corporate accounting disclosures and supporting other companies within the group with benefits arrangements that are managed outside the platform.
• Contributing to the development and delivery of our health and wellness programs in the UK.
• Supporting the team in an intended expansion of its remit into some of the compensation aspects of reward including dealing with salary surveys.