Payroll And Benefits Specialist

Payroll & Benefits SpecialistThe Payroll & Benefits Specialist is responsible for the accurate and timely administration of payroll, employee benefits, HRIS data, and employee records. This role serves as the primary point of contact for payroll and benefits-related inquiries, ensuring full compliance with federal, state, and local regulations as well as internal policies, while delivering exceptional support to employees and leadership. Working closely with Human Resources leadership, this position supports key HR initiatives and helps maintain efficient payroll, benefits, and employee record management processes. The role offers strong long-term incentives, including generous vacation, annual salary increases, comprehensive benefits, and significant retirement contributions.Responsibilities include processing biweekly payroll accurately and on schedule for all employees, reviewing, auditing, and validating employee timecards, attendance records, and leave accruals to ensure accuracy and compliance, ensuring adherence to federal, state, and local wage and hour regulations in all payroll activities, managing payroll-related deductions, including benefits, garnishments, tax levies, and other required withholdings, preparing manual payroll checks as needed to resolve exceptions or urgent payment situations, maintaining complete and accurate payroll records, general ledger accounts, and supporting documentation, reconciling payroll reports and preparing payroll-related financial data for accounting and reporting purposes, coordinating quarterly and year-end payroll filings, tax reporting, and payroll adjustments, generating payroll reports for management, budgeting, audit, and compliance purposes, administering employee benefit programs, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, retirement, and voluntary benefit plans, managing benefits enrollments, changes, terminations, and annual open enrollment activities, conducting new hire benefits orientations and employee benefits education sessions to ensure understanding of available plans, coordinating and administering FMLA, COBRA, leaves of absence, short-term disability, and long-term disability claims, ensuring compliance with ACA requirements, 1095 reporting, and other applicable benefits regulations, reviewing and reconciling benefit vendor invoices and process benefit-related payments accurately and on time, serving as the primary resource for employee benefit questions and claims inquiries, providing clear and timely guidance, maintaining accurate and up-to-date employee personnel files, payroll records, and HRIS data, processing new hire documentation, including I-9 verification and E-Verify requirements, ensuring full compliance, ensuring employee records remain current, complete, and compliant with applicable laws and company policies, assisting with internal and external payroll and benefits audits by preparing documentation and responding to inquiries, developing, updating, and maintaining payroll and benefits policies, procedures, and training materials, creating employee communications related to payroll, benefits, and HR programs to promote understanding and engagement, safeguarding confidential employee and company information and handling sensitive data with discretion, serving as the first point of contact for employee payroll and benefits questions, providing high-quality customer service, investigating and resolving payroll discrepancies and benefit issues in a timely and professional manner.Essential Skills include minimum of 7 years of progressive Human Resources experience with a strong focus on payroll and benefits administration, proven experience processing biweekly payroll, including time and attendance review, deductions, and reconciliations, hands-on experience with benefits administration, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, disability, retirement, and voluntary benefit programs, solid understanding of wage and hour laws and payroll tax regulations at the federal, state, and local levels, experience managing garnishments, tax levies, unemployment claims, and other payroll-related compliance requirements, demonstrated ability to administer FMLA, COBRA, leaves of absence, and disability claims, experience maintaining accurate employee personnel files, payroll records, and HRIS data, knowledge of I-9 verification and E-Verify processes and requirements, ability to review and reconcile benefit vendor invoices and process benefit-related payments, proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Excel, Word, and Outlook, for reporting and communication, strong understanding of HR policies, HR administration, and employment law as it relates to payroll and benefits, excellent administrative support skills with high attention to detail and accuracy, ability to create clear employee communications and conduct benefit meetings and orientations, strong analytical and problem-solving skills to resolve payroll discrepancies and benefit issues, high level of discretion and integrity in handling confidential employee and company information.Additional Skills & Qualifications include Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Accounting, or a related field from an accredited institution, experience with ADP payroll and HRIS systems is a plus, union environment experience is a plus, experience in recruiting and talent management is beneficial, familiarity with pension and retirement benefit administration is advantageous, knowledge of compensation practices and structures is helpful, strong interpersonal and communication skills to support employee relations and engagement initiatives, ability to work collaboratively with HR leadership and other departments to support organizational goals.Job Type & Location: This is a Permanent position based out of Jacksonville, FL.Pay and Benefits: The pay range for this position is $70000.00 - $75000.00/yr. Individual compensation offered for this position within this range will depend on many factors, including qualifications, skills, relevant experience, job knowledge, geographic location, internal equity, and other pertinent job-related factors. Health, dental, vision, all the holidays.Workplace Type: This is a fully onsite position in Jacksonville, FL.Application Deadline: This position is anticipated to close on Sep 17, 2026.