Job Description

Associate Director - Benefits

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our People & Culture team and lead the firm’s benefits function.

The Associate Director – Benefits is responsible for the leadership, governance and operational delivery of the employee benefits offering across Ireland and the firm’s associated jurisdictions, including Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar, ensuring alignment with the firm’s global benefits strategy and principles.

The role has end‑to‑end accountability for core benefits, including corporate pension schemes, group risk schemes, private health insurance, and recognition and wellbeing programmes. Acting as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, the role provides expertise on benefits design, investment and risk, while ensuring offerings remain competitive, well‑governed and operationally robust.

Core Responsibilities

• Collaborate with global reward and benefits leaders to shape a globally aligned benefits strategy, while enabling local flexibility to meet market and regulatory requirements.

• Lead market analysis and benchmarking to inform the firm’s benefits strategy and ensure offerings remain competitive, sustainable and aligned with people and reward priorities.

• Oversee end‑to‑end vendor strategy and broker relationships, including contract negotiations, renewals, service‑level performance management and financial planning for benefits programmes.

• Provide leadership and oversight of occupational pension schemes, auto-enrolment and group risk schemes including governance, design and funding oversight.

• Shape and oversee the firm’s wellbeing programme to support employee health, engagement and long‑term sustainability.

• Provide strategic oversight of the firm’s global recognition scheme across our various locations, ensuring local delivery aligns with global objectives and enhances the employee experience.

• Own the ongoing management and optimisation of the firm’s benefits platform, ensuring clear, targeted communications that support employee understanding, engagement and informed decision‑making

• Drive benefits cost management and investment decisions through budgeting, forecasting and scenario modelling.

• Maintain strong governance, risk management and regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions, ensuring audit‑ready documentation and effective controls.

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, translating complex benefits, cost and risk considerations into clear recommendations.

• Partner closely with Payroll, Finance, Legal and external providers to ensure seamless and effective delivery.

Skills / experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business, or related field, or equivalent experience.

• Progressive experience in Benefits or Total Reward with a strong track record in transforming organisational reward and benefits frameworks, consistently evolving structures to ensure they remain competitive, future‑focused, and aligned with the firms global business strategy.

• Experience operating benefits programmes across multiple jurisdictions, with an ability to navigate differing regulatory, tax and market requirements.

• Experience contributing to a global benefits strategy in a multinational organization and the ability to operate with a “global mindset, local execution” approach.

• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with experience evaluating cost, risk and value trade‑offs in benefits decision‑making.

• Clear and confident communication skills, with a natural ability to make benefits easier to understand and connect to.

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We are Grant Thornton
Grant Thornton Ireland is rapidly approaching 3,000 people, in 9 offices across Ireland, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Bermuda. With a presence in over 149 countries around the world and a global network of 73,000 people, we bring our clients the local knowledge, national expertise and global presence to help them succeed – wherever they’re located.

At GT, we work as trusted advisors, bringing local knowledge and national expertise, with a global presence, to help businesses succeed – wherever they are located. We make business more personal by investing in building relationships and empowering our clients to make the right decisions for their organisation now and for the future. Whether that is working with the public sector to build thriving communities, with regulators and financial institutions to build trust, or with a diverse range of businesses to help them achieve their goals, Grant Thornton Ireland work hard to support clients to act on the issues that matter.

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A Career at GT
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What does this mean for you?
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