At Axia Women’s Health, recognized as a Great Place to Work for a 4th year in a row, our vision is to lead the way in improving women's health. At the core of achieving this is a caring, connected, and progressive community of women's health centers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kentucky. The rapidly growing network spans OB/GYN physicians, breast health centers, high-risk pregnancy centers, two laboratories, urogynecology care, and fertility centers. Together, Axia Women's Health puts women first by delivering the personalized care needed for women to lead healthier, happier lives.
We are hiring a Leave of Absence Administrator to join our HR Team.
The Leave Administrator is the HR Service Delivery team’s subject-matter expert for leaves of absence and workplace accommodations, serving as a senior individual contributor. This role independently manages Axia’s leave programs—including FMLA, short- and long-term disability, parental, personal, medical, and federal, state, and local statutory leaves, with particular emphasis on New Jersey programs—and owns the company’s in-house ADA accommodation program. Beyond administering complex cases, the Leave Administrator owns the continuous improvement of leave processes: identifying issues and roadblocks, designing long-term preventive solutions, and building automation and AI-supported workflows that make leave administration more accurate, efficient, and scalable. The role also manages leave-related benefit continuation and deductions, delivers manager training, leads leave-related projects, manages third-party vendor relationships, and uses data to inform policy and workforce planning—ensuring a compliant, consistent, and colleague-centered leave experience.
Essential Functions:
- Complex Leave & Accommodation Management
- Independently manage complex and high-risk leave and accommodation cases, including concurrent federal, state, and company leaves; intermittent and extended leaves; leave exhaustion; and return-to-work with restrictions.
- Lead end-to-end leave administration, from initial notice and eligibility through designation, ongoing tracking, and return to work, in compliance with federal, state, and local regulations.
- Interpret and apply leave policies consistently across the organization.
- ADA & Accommodations Program
- Own Axia’s in-house ADA accommodation program end to end, including intake, the interactive process, medical documentation review, accommodation decisions, implementation, and periodic follow-up.
- Administer pregnancy-related accommodations under the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and applicable state laws.
- Maintain consistent decision standards, templates, and documentation so the program holds up in audits.
- Partner with Legal on complex, disputed, or high-risk accommodation cases.
- Maintain and improve the program’s processes, tracking, and reporting as volume and needs change.
- State Leave Compliance
- Administer state leave and benefit programs, with particular expertise in New Jersey, including:
- NJ Family Leave Act (NJFLA)
- NJ Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI)
- NJ Family Leave Insurance (FLI)
- NJ SAFE Act leave
- Accommodation obligations under the NJ Law Against Discrimination (LAD)
- Coordinate how state programs interact with FMLA, ADA, STD, and company leave, including concurrent designation and benefit coordination.
- Monitor evolving state and local leave laws in all states where Axia operates and ensure timely updates to policies and practices.
- Policy Development & Compliance
- Administer a comprehensive range of leave programs (FMLA, STD, LTD, parental, personal, medical, ADA, and statutory leaves).
- Collaborate with Legal and HR to align policies with current legislation and organizational goals.
- Support compliance audits and risk mitigation efforts through proactive policy updates and documentation.
- Maintain accurate leave and accommodation records in compliance with legal and internal standards, keeping medical information confidential and separate from personnel files.
- Leave Benefits & Deductions
- Manage benefit continuation during leave, including premium deductions and arrears collection during unpaid or reduced-pay periods, in partnership with Payroll and Benefits.
- Reconcile leave status across HRIS, payroll, and vendor systems to prevent pay and benefit errors.
- Continuous Improvement & Problem Ownership
- Proactively identify recurring issues, bottlenecks, and compliance risks in leave and accommodation processes without needing direction.
- Analyze root causes and design long-term preventive solutions, such as process changes, automation, documentation, or training, rather than one-time fixes.
- Evaluate and redesign leave processes, workflows, documentation, and tracking systems to close gaps and improve efficiency.
- Prioritize workload and improvement initiatives independently as the team’s single leave subject-matter expert.
- Escalate risks and propose solutions to leadership with supporting data.
- Automation & Technology
- Design, build, and maintain automation for leave workflows, such as Excel VBA macros, Power Automate flows, HRIS reports, and templated correspondence.
- Integrate AI-assisted tools into backend leave processes (for example intake triage, deadline tracking, and correspondence drafting), defining where human review is required and ensuring confidential medical information is handled in line with privacy requirements.
- Document automated processes so they can be maintained, audited, and handed off.
- Partner with HRIS on system-level enhancements and integrations, coordinating ownership so that automation built by this role complements HRIS-managed tools.
- Project Management
- Plan and lead leave-related initiatives, such as vendor changes, new state leave program implementations, policy rollouts, and process redesigns, including timelines, stakeholders, and status reporting.
- Communication, Training & Support
- Develop and maintain clear, empathetic communication materials and toolkits for colleagues and managers.
- Deliver training to managers on leave policies, responsibilities, and best practices.
- Train managers to recognize when a colleague’s statements or circumstances may trigger FMLA, ADA, or state leave obligations, even when no leave or accommodation is explicitly requested, and to escalate promptly.
- Serve as a trusted resource for colleagues navigating the leave and accommodation process, handling sensitive conversations with professionalism.
- Deliver transparent, timely communication to colleagues and managers throughout the leave lifecycle.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner with HR Business Partners, Legal, Payroll, Benefits, HRIS, and external vendors to ensure seamless leave administration.
- Act as liaison with third-party leave and disability vendors, ensuring service quality and issue resolution.
- Coordinate with internal stakeholders to support inclusive, compliant, and colleague-centric leave experiences.
- Data & Reporting
- Analyze leave and accommodation trends and metrics (e.g., utilization, return-to-work rates, resolution times, accommodation volume) to inform strategy and process improvements.
- Build and maintain recurring leave reporting, automating data collection and refresh where possible.
- Provide data-driven insights to leadership to support workforce planning and policy development.
Skills:
- Ability to navigate and lead sensitive, high-impact conversations with empathy, clarity, and professionalism.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Proven ability to work cross-functionally and build strong relationships with stakeholders.
- High attention to detail, organizational skills, and ability to manage sensitive information with discretion.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a root-cause mindset and a track record of preventing problems, not just resolving them.
- Self-directed, with a demonstrated ability to work autonomously, set priorities, and solve problems without close supervision.
- Advanced Excel, including formulas, data analysis, and macro/VBA development
Education & Experience:
- 5+ years in a direct leave administration role, including FMLA, ADA accommodations, STD/LTD, and state paid leave programs.
- Demonstrated experience administering New Jersey leave and state benefit programs (TDI and FLI) alongside FMLA and ADA. Experience with other state paid leave programs is a plus.
- Strong knowledge of FMLA, ADA, PWFA, and other applicable federal, state, and local leave laws and regulations.
- Demonstrated experience building process automation, not only using automated tools. Experience integrating AI-assisted tools into HR processes is a plus.
- Experience managing leave-related benefit continuation and deduction/arrears collection.
- Demonstrated project management experience; PMP or similar is a plus.
- Demonstrated examples of identifying and resolving systemic process issues.
- Experience managing third-party leave and disability vendors (e.g., New York Life) preferred.
- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field preferred.
Pay or shift range: $60k to $80k
The estimated range is the budgeted amount for this position. Final offers are based on various factors, including skill set, experience, location, qualifications and other job-related reasons.
Benefits:
- Full-time benefit eligibility with benefits beginning the first of the month after starting.
- Choice of multiple medical insurance plans to best meet your needs.
- Axia-paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
- Additional insurance options including dental, vision, supplemental life insurance, FSA, HSA w/ employer contribution, identity theft, long term care, pet insurance and more!
- 401(k) matching.
- Generous PTO offering with additional time off for volunteering.
- Access to discount on Hotels, Theme Parks, Gym Memberships, and more through the Great Works Perks Program
At Axia Women’s Health, we’re passionate about creating a community where our colleagues and patients feel empowered to be their full, authentic selves. We welcome all individuals – without regards to gender, race, ethnicity, ability, or sexual orientation – and proudly celebrate our individual experiences and differences.
In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.
