The Payroll / Benefits Vice President is responsible for leading the strategy, governance, compliance, and delivery of payroll and employee benefits programs for a diverse workforce of approximately 13,500 employees across multiple legal entities across the United States. This role ensures employees are paid accurately and on time, benefit programs are administered effectively, and all payroll, tax, wage and hour, retirement, health and welfare, and related compliance obligations are met. The Director serves as a senior leader and trusted partner to Human Resources, Finance, Legal, Operations, and executive leadership, with accountability for operational excellence, employee experience, vendor performance, system optimization, and continuous improvement. The position will include direct reports from HRIS IT, Payroll, Benefits, and Executive Compensation departments and be instrumental in Company’s mergers and acquisitions projects.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Lead all U.S. payroll operations for a large, multi-state employee population, ensuring accurate, timely, compliant payroll processing across multiple pay frequencies, employee types, locations, and business units.
- Oversee the administration, governance, and employee experience of health and welfare, retirement, leave, wellness, voluntary, and other benefit programs, including the administration of self-insured medical and dental plans.
- Ensure compliance with federal, state, and local payroll, tax, wage and hour, benefits, ERISA, ACA, COBRA, HIPAA, FMLA, and other applicable employment-related regulations.
- Collaborate with Human Resources, Legal, HRIS, and external advisors to resolve complex employee pay, time, tax, leave, and benefits matters.
- Manage the executive compensation program, including annual incentive, long-term incentive, deferred compensation, and executive benefit arrangements, ensuring accurate administration, documentation, approvals, payroll coordination, and alignment with plan terms and Group systems.
- Maintain strong controls over executive compensation data, calculations, eligibility, award agreements, deferral elections, vesting schedules, payout calculations, tax withholding, and payroll reporting.
- Establish, maintain, and continuously improve payroll and benefits policies, procedures, internal controls, audit practices, and documentation.
- Partner with Finance and Accounting on payroll funding, reconciliations, accruals, general ledger integrations, audits, reporting, and financial controls.
- Lead, develop, and coach payroll and benefits teams, building capability, accountability, customer service orientation, and career development across the function.
- Manage vendor and broker relationships, including payroll providers, benefits administrators, brokers, auditors, and technology partners.
- Drive annual benefits planning, open enrollment, renewal analysis, plan design recommendations, rate setting, employee communications, and implementation activities.
- Own payroll and benefits system performance, data integrity, integrations, reporting, access controls, testing, upgrades, and process automation in partnership with HRIS and IT.
- Monitor service levels, issue resolution, compliance trends, root causes, employee inquiries, and key performance indicators to improve accuracy, timeliness, efficiency, and employee satisfaction.
- Lead merger, acquisition, restructuring, new entity, and workforce expansion activities related to payroll setup, tax registrations, benefits eligibility, plan transitions, and employee communications.
- Prepare executive-level reporting and recommendations related to payroll operations, benefit costs, compliance risk, process improvement, workforce trends, and employee program effectiveness.
- Foster equitable, inclusive, and accessible payroll and benefits practices that support a geographically dispersed and diverse employee population.