Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a benefits coordinator and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A benefits coordinator is tasked with the primary responsibility for handling and managing of employees? benefits plan. In most cases, he/she will provide the communication link between the employees and their providers comprising of insurance and retirement benefits as well as ensure that the employees get the right understanding of their benefits packages offered to them by their benefits providers.
Besides that, he/she will also get to perform other functions like; giving benefits training to current and new employees, handling queries on benefits plan from the employees, participating in negotiation of collective bargaining agreements, maintaining employees? benefits data and information and makes them available when needed and advising employees on the best saving plans and programs that will suit their needs.
Core Skills Required to be a Benefits Coordinator
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A benefits coordinator should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Public Speaking:
Public Speaking though closely related to presenting differs in that it is the process of performing a speech before a live audience with the purpose of informing, persuading or entertaining.
A Benefits Coordinator must be equipped with good public speaking skills to be able to address an audience through presentations or talks to drive the point home and create a reputable record.
Collaborating with others:
Collaborating is willingly working with one another and cooperating in whatever task one is assigned without behaving poorly or having an attitude change that hurts others.
A Benefits Coordinator is meant to collaborate with all workers and management both male and female without causing frustrations or sidelining any worker or delaying their promotion from any informal conversations where most decisions are often made.
Team Building:
Team Building represents various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within the different teams at the workplace.
A Benefits Coordinator ought to provide team building activities to his team to cultivate better communication, morale, motivation, productivity and help employees know each other better as well as their strengths and weaknesses to be used in building a better workplace.
Dependability:
Dependability is the characteristic of being able to be counted on and relied upon by providing services that be trusted within a period.
A Benefits Coordinator needs to be dependable and hire reliable employees who can be counted on as consistent and beneficial to the business, building their niche as an essential element of the larger team without worrying about bringing less than your efforts.
Ethical Behavior:
Ethical Behavior is acting in policies that are consistent with what the society and individuals typically think are good morals or values.
A Benefits Coordinator should put emphasis on ethical behavior as best as he does to performance because it's as important as high morale and teamwork to all individuals who are committed to keeping the company values as well as speaking up when such costs are broken.
Emotion Management:
Emotion Management is the ability to realize, readily accept and successfully control feelings on oneself and sometimes in others around you by being in complete authority over your thoughts and feelings that are generated whenever your values are touched.
A Benefits Coordinator must be able to manage his emotions as well as assist the staff to control their emotions to ensure that the professional reputation, the efficiency, and productivity is not compromised.
Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional Intelligence is the capability to identify your emotions, understand what they are telling me and realize how the feelings are affecting you and the people around you.
A Benefits Coordinator should be wise to handle different personalities that carry different emotions presented in the workplace while ensuring relationships are managed more efficiently by respecting your perception and the employee's as well.
Personal Commitment:
Personal Commitment is an obligation that you have voluntarily agreed to fulfill without being cajoled or threatened and are willing to be held accountable for the results.
A Benefits Coordinator ought to understand that though adopting new policies and procedures will be met with resistance, the approach by which safety standards are implemented and enforced influences employee's attitudes and commitment towards the organization.
Goal and Objective Setting:
Goal and Objective Setting is the strategic plan that is set and laid down identifying how goals should be accomplished, by who and by what time.
A Benefits Coordinator must detect and schedule each employee's goals, strategy, and objectives and keep motivating them to ensure all of them are met within the set time bringing growth to both the company and the employee.
Managing Details:
Managing Details is the skill of paying close attention to details of every element of your job performance to ensure nothing is overlooked.
A Benefits Coordinator should be keen to handle every detail using strategic planning and organizational techniques that make it easy to keep track of everything that is happening in the organization consistently desiring to improve their knowledge and skills.
Hard Skills Required to be a Benefits Coordinator
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A benefits coordinator should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.