WHAT DOES A COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS ANALYST DO?

Updated: Jan 11, 2025 - The Compensation and Benefits Analyst develops and conducts analyses to support and enhance compensation and benefits programs aligned with the organization's reward strategy. Responsibilities include managing the global merit process, short-term incentive programs, and compensation frameworks to ensure consistency and accuracy. Additionally, the role involves collaborating with vendors for market data, preparing reports, and maintaining job descriptions and market data for benchmarking surveys.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Compensation and Benefits Analyst

1. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Duties

  • Job and Salary Structure Review: Review of Job and Salary Structure, Job Evaluation, Incentive Bonus Plans, Share-Based Compensation Plans, and Employee Benefits Studies.
  • Sustainability Strategies: Develop sustainability strategies and include performance metrics in their performance and incentive plan design.
  • Actuarial Skills: Usage of actuarial skills to review retirement and medical benefits plans.
  • Compensation Analysis: Analysis of current Compensation and Benefits structure of different firms.
  • Payroll Support: Provide support related to payroll operations benefits schemes across Europe and the Asia Pacific.
  • Process Improvement: Review and recommend process improvements.
  • General HR Support: Provide support to processing new hire payroll procedures and other general HR-related activities.
  • Benefit Surveys Analysis: Provide support in the analysis of benefit surveys against the market.
  • Ad-Hoc Query Support: Assist in addressing ad-hoc payroll and benefits queries.
  • Benefit Surveys Analysis: Provide support in the analysis of benefit surveys against the market.
  • Reward Projects Support: Support the wider C&B Team on any reward-related projects as directed by the global payroll or C&B leads.
  • Compliance Activities: Perform compliance activities including annual reporting and filings.
  • Invoice Reconciliation: Review, prepare, and reconcile benefit-related invoices.

2. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Details

  • Annual Processes Support: Assist in annual increase, bonus, and performance processes.
  • Benefits Administration: Assist with day-to-day activities for benefit and wellness programs such as health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, employee assistance, retirement, and other plans (401K).
  • Program Enhancements: Identify, analyze, and recommend enhancements or changes to compensation, benefit, and wellness programs based on market trends, company strategy, or changes in regulations.
  • Job Description Management: Partner with functional leaders to maintain and update job descriptions, recommend FLSA classifications and conduct job analyses.
  • Broker Liaison: Act as liaison between broker and carriers/vendors.
  • Communication and Education: Collaborate with internal and external partners on communication and education programs to enhance team members' knowledge of benefits and compensation programs.
  • Open Enrollment Participation: Participate proactively in the annual Open Enrollment process.
  • Internal Consulting: Serve as internal consultant to the HR team and managers, and support employee inquiries.
  • Compensation Management: Provide support to the C&B Director on the management of the compensation processes for the Genesis Business Unit (800 employees, 10 countries).
  • Process Coordination: Manage the process for the BU within the global campaign, providing required support to HRBPs during data validation and finalization, providing salary review and promotion data to Payroll and coordinating with Payroll for payment, preparing and issuing Annual Salary Adjustment/Promotion letters.
  • Proposal Support: Support HRBPs with proposals for new hires and coordinate submission of data for compensation surveys.
  • Operational Efficiency: Provide recommendations for operational efficiencies and process improvements and assist in change initiatives from requirements gathering through adoption.
  • Project Leadership: Lead and/or participate in other special projects as defined.
  • Effective Communication: Communicate effectively and professionally in all forms of communication with internal and external customers.

3. Compensation Benefits Analyst Responsibilities

  • Program Implementation: Recommend and manage the implementation of compensation and benefits programs designed to align with business strategies, motivate and retain current employees, and attract top industry talent.
  • Job Evaluation: Conduct industry-specific job evaluation, market pricing, salary structure maintenance, and development.
  • Market Analysis: Conduct market analysis and provide compensation recommendations.
  • Compensation Support: Support US and Canada compensation programs.
  • Legal Compliance: Stay current with compensation and benefit statutes and ensure procedures and practices comply with all state and federal laws.
  • Plan Documentation: Ensure plan documents comply with all applicable laws and regulations and remain current.
  • Merit and Bonus Cycle: Assist with the annual merit and bonus cycle, including meeting project achievements, performing audits, and user acceptance testing.
  • Benefits Consultation: Consult with management and employees on benefits related to the Family Medical Leave Act, leave of absence, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, including eligibility, plan provisions, procedures, compliance, and applicable forms.
  • Collaborative Implementation: Work collaboratively with internal and external partners, including plan vendors and consultants, other HR staff, IT, and Finance, to implement and maintain plans and troubleshoot issues.
  • Leave Inquiries: Assist with general employee leave inquiries and resolving related issues.
  • Issue Resolution: Promptly resolve issues with documents or data to eliminate processing delays.
  • Vendor Coordination: Consult, coordinate, and partner with vendors, cross-functional teams, and systems.
  • System Utilization: Effectively utilize systems, tools, and resources to maintain complete and accurate records.
  • Confidentiality: Address sensitive situations and preserve the confidentiality of team member information and files.
  • Escalation: Escalate issues to the proper management resource.
  • Collaboration: Collaborate with other cross-functional team members to resolve employee issues in a thorough and timely manner.

4. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Accountabilities

  • Program Implementation: Implements and administers plant-wide compensation and benefits program initiatives, policies, and procedures.
  • Salary Structure: Conducts research and implements salary structure initiatives by the company philosophy.
  • Data Analysis: Collects, evaluates, and analyzes market and job data using a variety of sources.
  • Compensation Recommendations: Recommends compensation actions for associates to management.
  • Survey Management: Conducts compensation & benefits surveys and completes survey submissions for Plant Spartanburg.
  • Market Analysis: Studies the labor market to determine compensation and benefits trends and analyzes BMW's position against the market data.
  • Program Development: Participates in the development of recommendations for appropriate changes in current programs.
  • Job Evaluation: Conducts job evaluation activities and oversees the preparation of job descriptions within assigned areas to maintain the organization's competitive position in the market.
  • Job Classification: Determines classification of jobs and ensures correct alignment of jobs within the Plant Spartanburg exempt structure and placement within exempt and non-exempt classifications regarding FLSA standards.
  • Report Analysis: Compiles, analyzes, and presents reports, statistical presentations, and charts from survey results.
  • Legislation Knowledge: Develops and maintains expert knowledge of applicable compensation and benefits legislation and requirements.
  • HRIS Maintenance: Ensures the maintenance of accurate information tracked within the SAP HRIS Organization Management module and provides backup to the personnel administration module.
  • Project Management: Works on projects and additional duties as assigned within the Compensation and Benefits areas.
  • Pension Validation: Provides final BMW sign-off and validation on pension calculations to pension vendor.

5. Compensation Benefits Analyst Functions

  • Pension Support: Responds to technical pension calculation questions from Associates and facilitates the transition from full employment to retirement by addressing questions and ensuring process stability.
  • Compliance Assurance: Ensures legal compliance of terminated vested files.
  • SOP Management: Ensures standard operating procedures for retirement processes are up to date and modified as continuous improvement is implemented.
  • Technology Utilization: Recognizes opportunities and regularly leverages emerging technology to enhance process effectiveness.
  • VPS Understanding: Understands and models VPS (Value Added Production System) Principles and concepts of Standard Work.
  • Compensation Philosophy: Establishes an overall compensation philosophy.
  • Compensation Design: Conducts market compensation assessments, designs compensation structure and matrix, and makes compensation recommendations to the Director of People Operations Shared Services.
  • Compensation Matrix: Builds a compensation matrix inclusive of department, geo-locations, level, cash compensation, and options.
  • Annual Merit File Management: Analyze the current data, clean up, and take full ownership of the annual Merit file.
  • Merit Cycle Management: Design, plan, and execute regular merit cycles for global organizational alignment.
  • Compensation Analysis: Deliver compensation analyses for job changes and newly created positions using internal and external market data.
  • Benefits Evaluation: Identify what Synack team members value from a benefits perspective in order to support the “whole” individual.
  • Broker Relationship Management: Develop relationships with the benefit broker teams and collaborate innovatively to create a benefits strategy that aligns with the culture.
  • Benefits Design: Design and implement benefit plans.
  • Trends Monitoring: Keep up with current trends in the benefit space.

6. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Job Description

  • Legislation and Trend Analysis: Leverage rewards expertise in proactively understanding legislation changes, practices, and trends for the industry and markets.
  • Strategy Recommendations: Propose solutions/recommendations to stakeholders to drive the company’s rewards strategy.
  • Project Execution: Support execution and delivery of Global and Regional Total Rewards projects and programs, influencing, educating, and collaborating with stakeholders for optimum execution.
  • Cross-Functional Projects: Participate in various cross-functional and cross-regional HR projects, and may lead projects with manageable risks and resource requirements.
  • Complex Inquiry Resolution: Act as an escalation point to research and resolve complex total rewards inquiries that need specialized rewards knowledge or access to specific rewards systems.
  • System Review: Review system-generated correspondence and communications, rewards vendor websites, benefits enrollment tools, HRA training materials, Local Work Instructions, and Knowledge content available to the workforce for direct access.
  • Data Accuracy: Ensure data are current, accurate, and market relevant, creating and recommending updates.
  • Compliance and Governance: Assist with compliance and governance of all total rewards plans and programs including identifying risks, participating in audits, and recommending and delivering corrective or preventive actions.
  • Performance Collaboration: Collaborate with all functional teams for People Services to collectively achieve the performance indicators.
  • Objective Delivery: Deliver on meeting the objectives related to case management, operations accuracy, and timeliness.
  • Process Improvement: Identify and recommend opportunities for improvements to existing People Services systems and processes, by working collaboratively within the HR team.
  • Consistency in Execution: Ensure consistency of execution of end-to-end HR processes, across regions and functional areas.
  • Ad-Hoc Analytics Support: Provide ad-hoc analytics support to stakeholders.
  • Issue Resolution: Research, problem-solve, and respond to issues related to rewards programs, objectives, and procedures raised by employees, HR, and third-party vendors, which could not be solved by the HRA team.

7. Compensations and Benefits Analyst Overview

  • Project Leadership: Lead and participate in compensation and benefits projects.
  • Program Analysis: Analyze and administer various programs such as Employee Share Plans, Sales Incentives, Annual Merit Increases, short and long-term incentive plans, Recognition Programs, Executive compensation, benefit plans throughout the year.
  • M&A Participation: Participate in mergers and acquisitions activities related to compensation and benefits.
  • Continuous Improvement: Influence change that drives continuous improvement in administration and employee experience.
  • Consultation and Education: Consult and educate business partners on compensation and benefits topics.
  • Data Analysis: Analyze data to perform simple to complex tasks based on goals within projects and day-to-day tasks.
  • Payroll Direction: Provide direction to America's payroll teams relative to compensation and benefit program earnings and deductions.
  • Communication: Communicate with all levels of employees, managers, and leaders within the organization.
  • Program Administration: Support, administer, and analyze health and welfare programs including Annual Enrollment, reimbursement accounts (Flexible Spending, Dependent Care, Health Savings, Limited Use), claims for benefits/appeals, etc.
  • Compensation Reporting: Analyze and report on employee compensation and/or benefit programs including salary and benefit plans, incentive plans, merit increases, insurance plans, and retirement plans.
  • Market Analysis: Conduct a market analysis of company jobs to determine the competitive positioning of the organization's pay programs.
  • Industry Standards: Collect data on industry standards and practices to determine the competitive positioning of the organization's benefit offerings.
  • Cost Evaluation: Evaluate the cost impact of changes to base pay rates, incentive programs, or benefits packages.
  • Annual Processes: Assist with annual compensation and benefits processes, including annual market pricing exercises, salary increase cycles, bonus plan administration, and benefits open enrollment.
  • Manager Support: Support managers and people lead in C&B-related matters.

8. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Details and Accountabilities

  • Analysis and Recommendations: Develop and conduct analyses, interpret results, and make recommendations that support the development and maintenance of effective compensation & benefits programs aligned with the organization's reward strategy.
  • Merit Process Management: Manage the merit process for the global organization by creating a process that allows leaders to manage their allotted merit in line with salary guidelines and performance programs.
  • Short-Term Incentive Management: Manage the global short-term incentive program, including monthly accrual calculations and audits to ensure the accuracy of the participant list.
  • Global Compensation Framework: Manage the global compensation framework to ensure consistency of roles across the globe and support global total rewards team members.
  • Market Data Management: Work with vendors to obtain accurate market data.
  • Policy Analysis: Collect data about the company's Compensation & Benefits policies and analyze them to prepare reports and advise the management team on key findings.
  • Process Improvement: Identify business process improvement opportunities for the HR department, including compensation, benefits, and key HR functions.
  • Vendor Data Management: Support the benefits team in the development and management of vendor-specific file maintenance to ensure employee data is up-to-date and accurate between Ultipro payroll system and vendor systems.
  • Ad Hoc Analysis: Create ad hoc analysis and support the team.
  • Job Description Accuracy: Ensure descriptions accurately reflect the work being performed by incumbents.
  • FLSA Compliance: Assess jobs and their respective duties to support FLSA requirements.
  • Market Data Management: Manage market data for participation in benchmarking surveys.
  • Benchmarking Analysis: Benchmark jobs against surveys using data analysis techniques to assess results and market trends.
  • Reporting: Prepare and present summary reports of job analysis and compensation analysis.
  • Job Description Maintenance: Prepare and maintain job descriptions for each job in the organization.

9. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Tasks

  • Research: Conduct research, analysis, and clerical tasks.
  • Benefits Design: Assist with the design and implementation of benefits programs, policies, and procedures.
  • Benefits Administration: Support the research, analysis, evaluation, and administration of corporate benefits plans and programs.
  • Vendor Coordination: Work with appointed vendors for outsourced benefits programs to ensure employees' questions and issues are properly resolved.
  • Market Analysis: Assist in salary surveys and perform competitive market analysis for salary review and planning.
  • Compliance Auditing: Review reports and auditing of the organization's compensation programs to ensure they are consistently administered in compliance with the organization's policies and government regulations.
  • Software Evaluation: Analyze Human Resource Management system needs, alternative software packages, costs, and benefits.
  • Salary Structuring: Evaluate and create a salary range for each job within Valiant.
  • Market Data Analysis: Works with Pricing and others on proposal teams to gather market data and evaluate jobs required for government contract proposals.
  • Talent Support: Support the People Ops/HR team with recruitment and talent management activities.
  • Job Evaluation: Create and analyze job descriptions, evaluations, and classifications.
  • Benchmarking: Conduct salary and labor market research to define benchmarks.
  • Auditing: Conduct periodic audits, and prepare and present reports.
  • Reporting: Support the Finance, Accounting, and Tax teams with all compensation, equity, and benefit information requests and reporting.
  • Compliance: Assist with SOX compliance efforts.

10. Compensation and Benefits Analyst Roles

  • Compensation Programs Design: Contribute to the design, development, and implementation of compensation and rewards programs and infrastructure.
  • Program Administration: Responsible for the administration of compensation programs.
  • HRIS Collaboration: Collaborate with the HRIS Manager to develop infrastructure in the Workday platform to maximize efficiencies leveraging technology and approach to job codes, job families, leveling, and other components in the management and administration of programs.
  • Research and Analysis: Conduct research and analysis in areas of compensation and rewards.
  • Job Profiles Management: Develop and maintain job profiles and applicable leveling/attributes, compensation ranges, program participation, conduct job evaluations, FLSA review, etc.
  • Market Data Management: Identify and manage appropriate market data resources, participation, and utilization.
  • Compensation Studies: Conduct compensation studies and contribute to the design and development of infrastructure for base compensation structures.
  • Variable Compensation Management: Support analysis, design, development, and management of variable incentive and equity compensation programs.
  • Policy Development: Develop or improve policies, guidelines, and tools for compensation programs and serve as subject matter expert for the development and delivery of communication and training for compensation and rewards programs.
  • Initiative Analysis: Analyze various initiatives, investigations, and other business needs related to compensation, benefits, and other rewards.
  • Stakeholder Collaboration: Collaborate effectively within the HR team as well as with management and key stakeholders across the company to deliver results.
  • Knowledge Transfer: Contribute to knowledge transfer and skill development in Compensation and Rewards to HR team members.
  • Program Compliance: Ensure program policy and procedures are adhered to and that programs are on par with industry standards, while aligned with business needs and facilitating desired program outcomes.
Relevant Information
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