Senior Associate, Integrated Absence Product Manager

Location Designation: Fully Remote 

Group Benefit Solutions delivers comprehensive insurance and absence management solutions for mid-sized and large companies. Our work fosters a healthier, happier, and more secure workforce, contributing to New York Life’s legacy of being there when we’re needed most. Here, you'll design, implement, and support these solutions directly impacting employees’ lives. At our core, we provide financial security and peace of mind to people through our absence, accident, disability, voluntary benefits, and life insurance solutions. Click here to learn more about Group Benefits solutions.

Role Overview:

The Senior Associate, Integrated Absence Product Manager is responsible for bringing strong expertise to advance the strategy, design, and execution of New York Life's Group Insurance integrated absence and accommodations solutions. This role partners across Operations, Digital, Technology, Clinical, Compliance, Distribution, and Implementation teams to deliver market-leading leave, disability, and ADA experiences for employers and employees.

This individual will recommend future-state product capabilities, identify operational efficiencies, translate business needs into product requirements, and support the development of scalable solutions that improve customer experience, operational effectiveness, and market competitiveness.

What You’ll Do:  

Product Delivery

• Independently lead the development and execution of an assigned integrated absence product roadmap, while evaluating business priorities, customer needs, operational requirements, and business dependencies
• Analyze market trends, customer feedback, broker insights, and competitive landscape to identify opportunities for innovation.
• Exercise judgment in analyzing market trends evaluating product enhancement opportunities, recommending investment priorities, and making product design and implementation decisions that impact multiple business functions.

• Serve as a subject matter expert in integrated absence management, applying advanced knowledge of leave of absence, disability, paid family & medical leave, ADA accommodations, and related business processes to develop innovative solutions to complex product and operational challenges.
• Lead cross-functional product initiatives involving Operations, Technology, Digital, Clinical, Compliance, and Distribution, resolving competing priorities, influencing stakeholders, and driving alignment on product design and implementation decisions, while informing and driving the development of business case and recommendation for strategic investments.

Product Development & Execution

• Independently gather and document business requirements for assigned initiatives and enhancements, including operational capabilities.
• Partner with technology teams to translate business requirements into user stories and functional specifications.
• Facilitate product discovery, design, testing, and implementation activities.
• Provide data-driven recommendations to inform prioritization decisions based on customer value, operational impact, risk reduction, and strategic objectives.
• Lead the cross-functional coordination of user acceptance testing and implementation readiness activities.

Operational Excellence

• Partner with Operations teams to identify process improvement opportunities.
• Drive assigned initiatives and enhancements, including evaluation of operational impacts of new product capabilities and service model changes.
• Design scalable workflows that improve consistency, efficiency, and customer outcomes.
• Represent Product by demonstrating advanced expertise during initiatives focused in areas such as ADA expertise and specialization, proactive employee engagement, digital transparency, and process optimization

Digital Experience & Innovation

• Collaborate with Digital and Technology partners to enhance self-service capabilities.
• Provide product expertise and best practices to support development of employee and employer portal experiences.
• Provide product expertise and best practices to support AI and automation initiatives that improve customer and operational outcomes.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Build strong relationships across Product, Operations, Technology, Compliance, Legal, Clinical, and Distribution teams.
• Provide inputs to facilitate stakeholder alignment and decision-making.
• Prepare executive communications, presentations, and recommendations.
• Lead the coordination of working groups and deliverables across small-to-medium sized projects and workstreams from concept through implementation.

What You’ll Bring:  

Required

• Bachelor's degree and/or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in:
  • • Product Management
    • Absence Management
    • Disability Insurance
    • Leave Administration
    • ADA Accommodations
    • Employee Benefits
    • Business Analysis
    • Process Improvement
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience translating business needs into requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities and stakeholders.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
•  Customer-centric with the ability to identify opportunities, anticipate evolving customer needs, and translates insights into innovative, long-term business solutions.
•  Data-driven and execution-focused professional who leverages analytics and sound judgment to make recommendations and deliver on initiatives in a dynamic environment.
• Collaborative continuous improvement champion who fosters cross-functional collaboration, embraces curiosity and innovation, and continuously seeks and recommends ways to improve processes, experiences, and organizational performance.

Preferred

• Experience in Group Benefits, Leave Management, Disability, or ADA.
• Knowledge of:
  • • FMLA
    • ADA
    • Paid Family & Medical Leave programs
    • State disability programs
• Experience with digital product development and customer-facing technologies.
• Experience working in Agile environments.
• Familiarity with absence administration platforms such as FINEOS, Workday, Dayforce, or similar systems.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be demonstrated through:

• Delivery of roadmap deliverables on time and within scope.
• Improved employee and employer experiences.
• Increased digital adoption and self-service utilization.
• Identification and implementation of operational efficiencies.