Manager, Unified Communications

Location: Warrenville, IL or Skokie, ILFull Time

Hours: Monday-Friday, [hours and flexible work schedules]

Job Summary: The Manager of Unified Communications provides leadership and operational accountability for enterprise voice, collaboration, contact center, and related communications technologies within a complex, 24x7x365 healthcare environment. This role is responsible for the full lifecycle of a hybrid architecture, encompassing on-premises and cloud Voice Technologies, Microsoft Teams voice integrations, cloud and on prem contact center (CCaaS), and mission-critical paging, cellular, and faxing platforms. This role leads two specialized, multidisciplinary groups—the Voice & Infrastructure Group and Contact Center Group—and works closely with clinical, operational, business, patient access, and technology leaders. The role establishes priorities, manages vendors and financial resources, promotes standardization at the SIP transit layer, and ensures services meet strict clinical, regulatory, and service-level requirements. The Manager leads the execution of contact center and communications modernization initiatives, optimizing and standardizing voice operations through automation and enabling responsible AI capabilities. Success requires demonstrated experience managing complex hybrid voice routing, supporting 24x7x365 life-safety platform survivability, maintaining secure enterprise communication boundaries, and delivering measurable operational outcomes through technology implementation and effective change management. Responsibilities and Essential Functions: Manage the dual-group engineering structure (20%) – Direct employees, contractors, and vendors across both the Voice Group and Contact Center Group. Manage performance expectations, workload prioritization, coaching, and succession planning. Promote cross-training between the Voice and Contact Center teams at the SIP transit layer to reduce key-person dependencies, while establishing strict boundaries between UC infrastructure and desktop/M365 client support. Manage the enterprise Unified Communications portfolio (15%) – Oversee day-to-day operations and execution for the on-premises multi-vendor PBX environment, Microsoft Teams Voice integration, cloud CCaaS, carrier SIP trunking, clinical paging, faxing, Cellular Services (DAS), and related clinical and business communications. Provide full lifecycle ownership and execute approved roadmaps and plans (10%) – Manage assigned platforms from planning and solution evaluation through implementation, support, optimization, dial-plan normalization, and legacy Equipment retirement, in alignment with established technology direction and standards. Translate established Unified Communications direction into actionable projects, priorities, and implementation plans that align hybrid voice capabilities with organizational priorities, patient access objectives, and enterprise technology standards. Lead 24x7x365 service delivery, availability, and major-incident readiness (10%) – Manage the Session Border Controller layer and core PBX infrastructure, support resilient architectures, ensure effective fault isolation, and coordinate maintenance approaches that minimize service disruption. Provide technical and operational leadership during critical outages to protect 24x7x365 clinical operations, coordinating escalation to senior leadership as appropriate. Ensure effective Tier-3 escalation matrices, on-call rotations, local branch survivability (SRST), and disaster recovery procedures are maintained and tested. Ensure enterprise-grade security and compliance (10%) – Implement and maintain secure voice protocols (e.g., SIP TLS, SRTP, mTLS for Direct Routing), and ensure assigned platforms operate in accordance with established HIPAA, ePHI, clinical data privacy, and security requirements. Lead contact center modernization and manage AI and automation implementation (10%) – Manage migrations from legacy platforms to cloud-based omnichannel solutions (CCaaS), ensuring these platforms integrate with the core voice routing fabric while maintaining voice quality requirements. Partner with contact center and patient access leaders to evaluate, prioritize, and implement approved CCaaS features, automation, and enhancements that improve patient experience and operational efficiency. Support the responsible adoption and implementation of approved automation and AI-enabled capabilities across voice and digital contact center channels, including virtual agents, agent assist, interaction analytics, intelligent routing, and digital self-service. Ensure required technical, operational, security, and governance controls are followed and track measurable improvements in patient access, service quality, workforce productivity, and cost. Manage vendor performance, contracts, and financial resources (10%) – Govern contracts, licensing, renewals, and service escalations. Maintain structured 24x7 vendor SLAs. Manage assigned telecommunications, carrier, software, and contractor expenses within approved budgets. Maintain monthly audit and reconciliation processes for voice and data circuit billing to identify carrier discrepancies, support contractual compliance, and control operational spending. Partner with enterprise technology teams and establish clear technical ownership (5%) – Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Network Engineering, and Information Security to implement and maintain clear RACI matrices, SLAs, network QoS requirements, firewall SIP inspection policies, and vulnerability management processes for the voice infrastructure. Promote clear ownership and appropriate boundaries across Unified Communications, network, security, and desktop/M365 support functions. Define, monitor, and optimize service, operational, and resource metrics (5%) – Track service availability, call quality, platform capacity, change success, operational performance, and customer experience. Actively manage and monitor team resource capacity and utilization to balance operational ticketing, project deliverables, and on-call demands, ensuring sustainable 24x7x365 engineering coverage. Drive continuous improvement and maintain current knowledge (5%) – Standardize team operations across the enterprise, automate MACD (Moves, Adds, Changes, Deletes) provisioning, reduce technical debt, and mature operational processes. Stay abreast of hybrid voice architectures, MS Teams Voice Integrations, UCaaS, CCaaS, automation, voice security threat vectors, and healthcare industry best practices. Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications: Minimum Education Level:

Required: Bachelor's degree in information technology, telecommunications, computer science, engineering, business administration, or a related field, OR equivalent relevant work experience.

Preferred: Master's degree in information technology, business administration, healthcare administration, or a related field.

Preferred: Role-specific professional or technical licensure, if applicable.

Preferred: Certification in Unified Communications, contact center technologies, cloud technologies, IT service management, project management, or a related technology discipline. Minimum Work Experience:

Required: Five (5) or more years of progressively responsible experience supporting or leading enterprise communications, contact center, collaboration, telecommunications, or related technology services. Two (2) or more years of leadership, supervisory, or management experience. Experience managing technology services in a large, complex, multisite organization. Experience managing employees, contractors, vendors, or managed service partners.

Preferred: Seven (7) or more years of relevant technology experience and three (3) or more years of management experience. Previous healthcare technology leadership experience. Experience leading a combined Unified Communications and Contact Center Technologies function. Experience managing or delivering enterprise contact center transformation, cloud migration, platform consolidation, or legacy technology retirement initiatives. Experience with enterprise voice, collaboration, SIP, carrier services, contact center platforms, workforce engagement, call recording, and related integrations. Demonstrated experience delivering measurable automation or AI-enabled outcomes in a production contact center environment across voice and digital channels. Experience contributing to business cases, managing assigned budgets and contracts, and reporting project and operational outcomes to senior leadership.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (KSAs):Knowledge: Strong understanding of Unified Communications, enterprise voice, contact center, collaboration, cloud communications, and service management practices. Maintain current knowledge of hybrid voice architectures, MS Teams Voice Integrations, UCaaS, CCaaS, automation, voice security threat vectors, and healthcare industry best practices. Understanding of healthcare operations, patient access, privacy, security, regulatory, and business continuity requirements. Ability to track measurable outcomes and demonstrate the operational, financial, patient, and workforce value of technology initiatives.

Skills: Demonstrated ability to build, engage, develop, and retain high-performing technical teams. Strong verbal, written, presentation, and stakeholder communication skills. Demon