Wealth Management Customer Service Team Leader

Guardian Life Insurance; New York (NY); On-site; USD 69,000 - 113,000; Full time

Job summary

Guardian Life Insurance is seeking a Park Avenue Wealth Management Team Leader to guide a frontline team at our Park Avenue/Tribeca locations. You will lead, coach and develop colleagues to exceed customer service goals while upholding Guardian values and compliance standards.

You will collaborate with senior leadership, manage day-to-day operations, and drive continuous improvement across processes and service experiences, with travel up to 10%.

Qualifications

• Minimum 2–3 years of high-touch customer service or operations experience in wealth management.
• Excellent leadership, analytical, verbal & written communication skills.
• Ability to create effective relationships with senior leaders and stakeholders.
• Exceptional level of accountability, discretion, and independent decision making.
• Ability to effectively prioritize tasks, take initiative and problem-solve.
• Excellent time management and organizational skills.
• Strong ability to simultaneously manage multiple business processes or functions.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coach a frontline team to meet service commitments.
• Drive strategic initiatives and continuous improvement, influencing practices and change management.
• Manage day-to-day operations and serve as primary contact for colleagues and partners.
• Inspire a high performing team through coaching, training and feedback, driving engagement.
• Create a culture of diversity and innovation and empower employees to contribute ideas.
• Effectively execute and manage budgeted resources against goals and metrics.
• Proactively monitor schedule adherence and team coverage for customers.
• Lead or collaborate on department projects and recruitment strategy.
• Oversee annual performance review processes and objective setting.

Skills

Customer service leadership

Leadership and coaching

Strong communication

Relationship building

Problem solving

Time management

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Excel

PowerPoint

OneNote

Job description

As one of our Park Avenue Wealth Management Team Leaders, you will be at the heart of our Contact Center’s day to day operations. You will have the opportunity to lead, manage, coach, develop, and motivate an award-winning team of frontline colleagues to meet our commitments to customers while living our Guardian Values. You will demonstrate leadership competencies and behaviors needed to influence change and accelerate impact through a consumer centric, growth mindset.

The role of an Park Avenue Wealth Management Team Leader is instrumental in exceeding customer service expectations, and achieving individual, team and organizational performance goals. Your contributions will be critical in driving colleagues to reach the highest level of service excellence, employee engagement, continuous improvement of operational processes and self-service offerings, while adhering to compliance and security requirements.

You will

• Partner with leadership to drive strategic initiatives and continuous improvement efforts, influencing operational practices, leading change management activities, and ensuring the team successfully adapts to evolving business needs and customer expectations.

• Lead day-to-day business operations and achieve optimal business results, serving as primary point of contact for colleagues, critical business partners and customer escalations.

• Oversee and inspire a high performing team through daily coaching, training, and call/contact listening, providing tailored development feedback to each team member, and driving employee engagement.

• Create a culture of diversity and innovation where employees feel safe and empowered to share their thoughts/ideas; effecting change that will benefit team members and enhance service experiences.

• Effectively execute and manage budgeted resources against business goals to ensure that commitments and key performance metrics are achieved.

• Proactively monitor schedule adherence and behaviors to ensure team members are in the right place, at the right time, to effectively serve our customers.

• Proactively analyze root-cause issues that generate service escalations, unnecessary customer effort, or multiple contacts on same service issue, adversely impacting the overall customer experience.

• Provide thoughtful responses to customer experience feedback, assisting with service recovery and/or implementing business improvements to drive persistency and service excellence.

• Proactively identify and communicate with senior leadership regarding business performance, adverse impact of decisions on customers and potential risks to the business.

• Effectively lead and/or collaborate on department projects and ongoing recruitment strategy.

• Manage annual performance review process, helping leadership team to set objectives and key results.

You have

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 2-3 years of high touch customer service or operations experience, specifically with strong retirement and/or wealth management knowledge and background.

• Excellent leadership, analytical, verbal & written communication skills, and emotional intelligence.

• Ability to create effective relationships with senior leaders, peers, colleagues, and partners and be recognized as a trusted subject matter expert and resource.

• Exceptional level of accountability, discretion, and independent decision making.

• Ability to effectively prioritize tasks, take initiative and problem-solve.

• Excellent time management and organizational skills.

• Strong ability to simultaneously manage multiple business processes or functions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or relevant degree/work experience preferred.

• Proficiency in Microsoft products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.

Reporting Relationships

• This position reports to the Head of Park Avenue Wealth Management Service and Third-Party Technology.

Position Location & Travel

• Bethlehem or Hudson Yards locations.

• 10% Travel depending on location of direct reports, any off-site Conference/Learning Development, and to attend annual Leadership Team Summit (when required).

Salary Range:

$68,970.00 - $113,310.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals. Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities.Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [e-mail]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment-based visas (e.g., such as an H-1B). In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship/support now or at any time in the future.

Notice Regarding Guardian’s Use of Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment

As part of Guardian’s job application process, Guardian may use artificial intelligence tools (“AI Tools”) to automate the sorting and filtering of information provided by applicants as part of its preliminary screening. This preliminary screening may be used to help identify applicant materials and resumes relative to their indication that the applicant meets the requirements for the specific job for which they are applying, as specified in the listing posted on Guardian’s jobs website (Careers at Guardian at https://www.guardianlife.com/careers). At Guardian, we do not use AI Tools to substantially assist or replace human judgment or discretionary decision making in our hiring process. All hiring decisions will be made by Guardian colleagues.

Please be aware that if you apply for a specific position with Guardian, you will have the choice of opting out of Guardian’s use of AI Tools during the job application process. If you would like to request an alternative process that does not utilize AI Tools or would like to request a reasonable accommodation, within ten business days of your position application, you must email your request to [e-mail], making sure to provide your name and job requisition identification number. Guardian will retain your applicant materials and resume and all information therefrom in accordance with Guardian’s document retention policy, a copy of which you may request via [e-mail].

Additionally, at applicable times, Guardian will make public the most recent bias audit results for such AI tools, which may be found here.