The Manager, Payroll, Center of Expertise serves as a strategic consultant, execution leader, and governance owner, responsible for ensuring payroll compliance and continuous improvement across U.S. and Canadian payroll operations. This role is designed for a leader who can translate strategy into structured, executable plans, drive complex initiatives to completion, and lead sustained change across multiple stakeholders. Success requires disciplined planning, accountability, and follow‑through.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and own multi‑year and annual payroll roadmaps, prioritizing initiatives, sequencing work, and actively managing dependencies and risks.
- Design, implement, and sustain continuous improvement initiatives, supported by defined KPIs, effective risk management definition, and documented monitoring plans.
- Establish, govern, and support maintenance of standardized payroll policies and processes. Ensure operational excellence within internal controls followed by operations team in HRS per Central Directives, ensuring consistent application and sustained compliance.
- Partner with Payroll Operations, HR, Finance, IT, and external vendors to drive adoption and execution of changes.
- Translate regulatory and legislative changes into actionable implementation plans, ensuring timely and scalable adoption across payroll operations.
- Act as a design and governance expert within SAP Payroll, influencing configuration, controls (in alignment with risk management), enhancements, and system integrations.
- Manage and support payroll audits and compliance assessments, including development and execution of remediation plans with clearly defined owners, milestones, and timelines.
- Provide payroll expertise within M&A activity, including due diligence, integration planning, execution, and post‑merger stabilization.
- Hold self and partners accountable for results, including progress tracking, risk escalation, and delivery against commitments.
What Success Looks Like in This Role
- Stakeholders have clear understanding of scope, timing, and ownership
- Initiatives move forward through planned milestones
- Changes are embedded and intentionally planned, communicated, and reinforced
- Risks are surfaced early and proactively
- Ensure sustainable compliance of payroll, resilient, and scalable over time