VP, Total Rewards

UMass Memorial Health•Worcester, MA

About The Position

At UMass Memorial Health, everyone is a caregiver – regardless of their title or responsibilities. Exceptional patient care, academic excellence and leading-edge research make UMass Memorial the premier health system of Central Massachusetts, and a place where we can help you build the career you deserve. We are more than 20,000 employees, working together as one health system in a relentless pursuit of healing for our patients, community and each other. And everyone, in their own unique way, plays an important part, every day. The Vice President of Total Rewards is a critical leader within the Human Resources organization at UMass Memorial Health (UMMH), reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). This is a newly expanded and highly visible role, responsible for unifying benefits, work life, and compensation into an integrated total rewards strategy and operational plan for a large, complex, and highly unionized healthcare system. The VP of Total Rewards is responsible for compensation (non-physician), benefits (retirement and health and welfare), executive benefits, leave of absence, work life services, and time away from work programs. This leader will be tasked with rethinking current practices and designing caregiver centered and financially responsible solutions that meet the evolving needs of a diverse workforce. Operating under significant financial and labor constraints, the VP will assess current models, embrace innovation, and lead a comprehensive redesign of rewards programs to better support caregiver well-being, organizational performance, and financial sustainability. Success in this role requires not just operational excellence, but innovative thinking, financial fluency, and a deep understanding of what today’s and tomorrow’s healthcare workforce truly values.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree.
Fifteen (15) years of Human Resources experience demonstrating progressive knowledge and experience in Total Rewards.
Experience working in a large organization with exposure to labor unions.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in human resources, business or related field.
Certified Benefits Professional (CBP) or Certified Compensation Professional (CCP).

Responsibilities

System-Wide Rewards Strategy: Architect and lead the transformation of the total rewards strategy—including benefits, work life services, and compensation into an integrated plan. Develop a balanced approach that optimizes both pay and benefit investments to deliver maximum value to caregivers while ensuring financial sustainability. Reimagine how total rewards are structured, delivered, and communicated to reflect evolving workforce expectations and align with UMMH’s strategic goals and fiscal realities.
Caregiver-Centered: Assess and understand the experience of caregivers across roles and levels, and co-create programs that are relevant, equitable, and allow for greater personalization. Guide the organization from viewing benefits as fixed and already best-in-class to embracing innovation, flexibility, and caregiver-driven choice.
Digital Enablement: Champion the use of AI and decision support tools designed to help caregivers understand benefit options and associated costs (e.g., AI-powered benefit plan comparisons). Also, enable the HR team with AI solutions to streamline work and reduce manual and repetitive work.
Compensation Program Reinvention (Non-Physician): Lead a review and benchmarking of non-physician compensation models. Design pay structures, skills-based frameworks for appropriate positions, and incentive plans that reflect performance, equity, and future workforce trends.
Benefits Strategy for Workforce Resilience: Redesign benefits offerings with a focus on flexibility, personalization, cost-effectiveness, and holistic well-being. Consider emerging trends such as caregiver choice, modular benefits, virtual care integration, and mental health equity—while navigating funding challenges and regulatory compliance.
Wellness: Build a system of work service offerings that provide traditional and cutting-edge programs—EAP, critical incident support, addressing social determinants of health, burnout detection tools, and financial literacy. Position UMMH as an employer that supports the full life experience of its caregivers.
Operational Excellence Ensure that benefits and compensation programs and practices are translated into reliable operational execution through Policies, workflows, Workday, standalone applications, the HR Solution Center, and vendor programs and their customer service.
Financial Leadership & ROI Discipline Bring deep financial acumen to reward strategy. Model multi-year impacts, propose cost reduction and cost avoidance, and deliver programs that balance measurable health outcomes while managing financial trade-offs.
Executive Compensation & Governance: Oversee executive compensation strategy and design in collaboration with the CHRO and Board Compensation Committee. Ensure governance, competitiveness, and alignment with organizational values and performance metrics.
Leadership: Act as the Chairperson of the systemwide Benefits Committee and the Health Plan Steering Committee, as well as leader of the benefits and compensation teams.
Stakeholder Alignment & Change Leadership: Build deep partnerships with Finance, Legal, Labor Relations, HR Business Partners, Labor Relations, and Operations. Lead with influence and credibility across the system to gain buy-in and momentum for change. Deliver clear, empathetic, and strategic communication throughout transformation.
Vendor Partnerships: Rethink the role of external vendors and consultants—shifting from traditional transactional relationships to partnerships that fuel increased innovation, value, and agile delivery.
Cultural Stewardship: Use total rewards as a lever to reinforce the organization’s culture. Build trust and transparency by making the "value of employment" visible, understandable, and meaningful to every caregiver.
Directs and supervises assigned personnel including performance evaluations, scheduling, orientation, and training. Makes recommendations on employee hires, transfers, promotions, demotions, discipline, terminations, and similar actions.
Develops and recommends the budgets for the areas managed. Ensures adequate equipment and supplies for department. Manages activities to assure financial goals are met.
Encourages and supports diverse views and approaches, demonstrates Standards of Respect, and contributes to creating and maintaining an environment of professionalism, respect, tolerance, civility and acceptance toward all employees, patients and visitors.
Integrates diversity into departmental objectives, such as hiring, promotions, training, vendor selections, etc.
Fosters the effective integration of efforts with system-wide initiatives. Participates in performance improvement initiatives and demonstrates the use of quality improvement in daily operations.
Ensures compliance with regulatory agencies such as Joint Commission, DPH, etc. Develops and maintains procedures necessary to meet regulatory requirements.
Ensures that department complies with hospital established policies, quality assurance programs, safety, and infection control policies and procedures.
Develops and maintains established departmental policies, procedures, and objectives.
Ensures compliance to all health and safety regulations and requirements.