AVP, Absence Operations

When you join the team at Unum, you become part of an organization committed to helping you thrive.

Here, we work to provide the employee benefits and service solutions that enable employees at our client companies to thrive throughout life’s moments. And this starts with ensuring that every one of our team members enjoys opportunities to succeed both professionally and personally. To enable this, we provide: 

• Award-winning culture 

• Inclusion and diversity as a priority 

• Performance Based Incentive Plans

• Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability 

• Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!) 

• Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution 

• Mental health support 

• Career advancement opportunities 

• Student loan repayment options 

• Tuition reimbursement

• Flexible work environments 

*All the benefits listed above are subject to the terms of their individual Plans.

And that’s just the beginning…  

With 10,000 employees helping more than 39 million people worldwide, every role at Unum is meaningful and impacts the lives of our customers. Whether you’re directly supporting a growing family, or developing online tools to help navigate a difficult loss, customers are counting on the combined talents of our entire team. Help us help others, and join Team Unum today! 

General Summary:

The AVP, Absence Operations, is a critical role in leading the delivery of Leave and Absence services in pursuit of Unum’s growth aspirations. The role is accountable for leading key elements of leave and absence operations that consistently deliver high quality outcomes, an exceptional customer and client experience, and operational excellence. This role involves the execution of complex operational activities on a daily basis and delivering consistent, high-quality service to our claimants and clients, in a way that drives the growth and financial outcomes needed.

The AVP, Absence Operations leads our new segmented service model that is focused on delivering consistent, high-quality service and a great client, claimant, and employee experience. We are looking for individuals who bring deep operational experience, a track record of strong people leadership, and are at heart problem solvers. You will lead a large group of Absence and Leave specialists, manager, and directors in a fast-paced environment, and you will be frequently engaged with clients, brokers, and field partners to solve problems and help tell the Unum leave and absence story.

And, if you want a role where you play a part in growing Unum’s business and you like to be in a space where what you and your team does every day is highly relevant to supporting Unum’s strategic goals, then this is it. In return you will join a high performing team of leaders who operate with a sense of clear purpose, a high degree of accountability and autonomy, and have exposure to both strategic and tactical opportunities.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities

• Leads enterprise Leave and Absence operations in support of growth objectives, delivering high-quality outcomes, exceptional customer and client experiences, and operational excellence.
• Accountable for complex, high-volume, technology-enabled end-to-end operations, ensuring fair, accurate, timely, and compliant claim outcomes across all service lines.
• Builds and scales a high-performing operations organization capable of operating effectively within a complex regulatory and operational environment.
• Ensures strong people leadership, disciplined execution, and data-driven decision-making are embedded across operations to deliver consistent quality and customer experience.
• Drives continuous improvement by leveraging operational data, customer insights, and performance metrics to improve service consistency, reduce complexity, and enhance customer and employee experiences.
• Balances customer-centric service delivery with productivity, cost efficiency, and growth objectives to consistently achieve quality outcomes.
• Partners with Sales, Client Management, Finance, and technology and change leaders to design and deliver operational solutions that prioritize frontline effectiveness and customer experience.
• Delivers results aligned to enterprise performance indicators, including growth, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, and financial performance, while proactively mitigating operational and compliance risk.
• Ensures operational practices are in place to prevent, detect, and mitigate fraudulent or illegitimate claims.
• Leads long-term strategic planning and near-term operational execution to enable sustained quality, strengthened client trust, and reduced unit cost over time.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

Job Specifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in leading complex high volume operations that may include absence management, disability, or related operations
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise wide operations with a strong emphasis on quality outcomes, customer experience, and regulatory compliance
• Proven ability to design, scale, and sustain operations that consistently deliver fair, accurate, and timely claim decisions, resulting in strong customer, client, and employee outcomes
• Familiarity with the absence management marketplace, regulatory environment, and end-to-end leave administration models, with a focus on quality assurance and risk mitigation
• Track record of embedding lean management systems in a continuous improvement environment across teams through disciplined use of operational management systems, data, and customer insights
• Demonstrated ability to balance customer-centric service delivery with productivity, cost efficiency, and growth objectives, without compromising quality
• Experience leading digital and operational transformation initiatives that measurably improve customer experience, service consistency, and operational quality
• Strong business and analytical acumen with experience managing customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, and financial performance metrics simultaneously
• Ability to diagnose systemic operational issues, translate insights into practical improvements, and drive execution through leaders and frontline teams
• Executive presence with the ability to influence cross functional partners and senior stakeholders in matrixed environments, particularly across technology, product, and client-facing teams
• Experience partnering with technology teams in Agile environments to ensure solutions are designed and adopted with the frontline employee and customer experience in mind
• Proven ability to attract, develop, and retain high performing leaders while building a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement

• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, including experience engaging directly with clients to address service quality, strategy, and escalations

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Unum and Colonial Life are part of Unum Group, a Fortune 500 company and leading provider of employee benefits to companies worldwide. Headquartered in Chattanooga, TN, with international offices in Ireland, Poland and the UK, Unum also has significant operations in Portland, ME, and Baton Rouge, LA - plus over 35 US field offices. Colonial Life is headquartered in Columbia, SC, with over 40 field offices nationwide.

Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person's race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status.

The base salary range for applicants for this position is listed below. Unless actual salary is indicated above in the job description, actual pay will be based on skill, geographical location and experience.

$114,100.00-$215,700.00

Additionally, Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long-term disability), performance-based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not.  All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans.

Company:

Unum