Retirement Plan Onboarding Associate

The Retirement Plan Onboarding Associate supports the onboarding of new retirement plans by coordinating required information, documentation, and workflow activities across advisors, clients, TPA partners, and internal teams. This role helps ensure onboarding tasks are completed accurately, timely, and in alignment with established procedures and retirement plan requirements. The associate reviews plan-related documents and data for completeness, follows up on missing items, and helps resolve routine onboarding questions or discrepancies. Success in this role is measured by accurate work, timely completion of assigned onboarding milestones, responsive communication, and a consistent service experience for advisors and clients.

This role is hybrid and requires regular, in-person attendance during scheduled workdays in accordance with the Company’s Hybrid Workplace Policy.

What You'll Do: 

• Scope of Influence: 

  • This role primarily influences the retirement plan onboarding experience for advisors, clients, recordkeepers, TPA partners, and internal operations teams by ensuring required information and documentation are complete, accurate, and moving through the appropriate workflow. 

  • The role supports day-to-day coordination and service quality within defined onboarding processes and escalates issues that require additional review.

• Decision Authority & Impact

  • The role makes routine decisions within established onboarding procedures, including identifying missing or inconsistent information, determining appropriate follow-up, updating task status, and escalating items that fall outside standard guidelines. 

  • The role impacts onboarding cycle time, documentation quality, advisor/client experience, and the accuracy of retirement plan setup and maintenance records.

• Strategic Accountability 

  • The role is accountable for accurate documentation review, timely communication, proper task tracking, and effective escalation of issues that require guidance from more experienced team members or subject matter experts.

• Complexity & Problem-Solving 

  • Problems are typically routine to moderately varied and are resolved by applying established procedures, checklists, and workflow guidance.

  •  Common issues include missing documentation, inconsistent plan or agreement information, data entry discrepancies, and questions about onboarding status or next steps.

  • The associate is expected to recognize patterns, resolve known issues independently when procedures are clear, and escalate non-routine or compliance-sensitive matters for additional review.

• Coordinate assigned retirement plan onboarding activities by tracking required documents, data, and approvals through established workflow tools and procedures.
• Review onboarding forms, plan documents, agreements, and related materials for completeness, accuracy, and consistency with internal requirements.
• Follow up with advisors, clients, recordkeepers, TPA partners, and internal teams to obtain missing information and keep onboarding milestones moving forward.
• Maintain accurate plan onboarding records, task status, and supporting documentation in designated systems and repositories.
• Support new account setup and plan maintenance activities by entering, validating, and updating plan information in applicable systems.
• Respond to routine onboarding inquiries from internal and external stakeholders with clear, timely, and professional communication.
• Identify discrepancies, incomplete submissions, or process issues and escalate items that require additional review or subject matter expertise.
• Contribute to onboarding process improvements by sharing recurring issues, documentation gaps, and opportunities to improve efficiency or the advisor/client experience.

What You Need to Have: 

•  High school diploma or GED.

• 1+ year of experience in financial services, retirement plan administration, onboarding, operations, document review, or related administrative support. 

What's Nice to Have: 

• Associate’s or bachelor’s degree in business, finance, accounting, or a related field

•  Experience with qualified retirement plans, 401(k) plans, third-party administration, PensionPro, DocuSign, Salesforce, or other workflow/document management systems.

#LI-Hybrid

About Us

What we give you in return:

Not many teams can say that they support people’s dreams coming to life. We happen to do that every day. And as important as we know your career is, we recognize that there’s a whole lot more to life. To ensure that our employees can make the most of their time outside of working hours, we offer a competitive salary and for full-time roles, a benefits package including:

• Inclusive health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans built to support diverse lifestyles, offer preventative care, and protect against hardship.
• Easy access to mental health benefits to meet our team members and their families where they are.
• 20+ days of paid time off (PTO), paid holidays, and 2 paid wellness days to give our employees the time they need to stay close with their loved ones, recharge, and give back to their communities.
• 401(k) savings plan with a generous company contribution (up to 5%), and access to a financial professional to offer our employees the opportunity to plan-ahead for a strong financial future well beyond their working years.
• Paid parental leave to support all team members with birth, adoption, and fostering.
• Health Savings and Flexible Spending Account options to help you save money on healthcare, daycare, commuting, and more.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP), LifeLock, Pet Insurance and more.
• Paid caregiver leave to provide time away from work when caring for an ill or recovering family member.
• Additional benefits such as an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), identity theft protection (LifeLock), pet insurance, and other voluntary benefits to provide extra peace of mind

About Cetera

Cetera Financial Group® (Cetera) is a leading network of independent retail broker-dealers and registered investment advisers empowering the delivery of objective financial advice to individuals, families, and company retirement plans across the country through trusted financial advisors and financial institutions. Cetera is one of the largest independent financial advisor networks in the nation and a leading provider of retail services to the investment programs of banks and credit unions.

Advisor support resources offered through Cetera include award-winning wealth management and advisory platforms, comprehensive broker-dealer and registered investment adviser services, practice management support, and innovative technology.

Cetera Financial Group (Cetera) is a network of independent retail firms, including those that are members of FINRA/SIPC: Cetera Advisors LLC; Cetera Wealth Services, LLC (formerly known as Cetera Advisor Networks); Cetera Investment Services LLC (marketed as Cetera Financial Institutions or Cetera Investors); and Cetera Financial Specialists LLC. Entities registered as investment advisers with the Securities and Exchange Commission include Cetera Investment Management LLC and Cetera Investment Advisers LLC. Cetera's principal office is located at 655 W. Broadway, 11th Floor, San Diego, CA 92101. Avantax Planning Partners, Inc. is an SEC registered investment adviser within the Aretec Group, Inc. (dba Cetera Holdings, an affiliate of Cetera). All the referenced entities are under common ownership.

Cetera Financial Group is committed to providing an equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees. For us, this is the only acceptable way to do business. Accordingly, all employment decisions at Cetera Financial Group, including those relating to hiring, promotion, transfers, benefits, compensation, and placement, will be made without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, age, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic characteristics, religion, religious dress and/or grooming, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, U.S. military status, political affiliation, or any other class protected by state and/or federal law.

Agencies please note: this recruitment assignment is being managed directly by Cetera’s Talent Acquisition team. We will reach out to our preferred agency partners in the rare instance we require additional talent options. Your respect for this process is appreciated.

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