Payroll Operations and Systems Manager (SAMpeople)

Job title: Payroll Operations & Systems Manager

Working hours: 37.5 hours per week

About the Role: The Payroll Operations & Systems Manager is the strategic engine behind our payroll delivery. While the Head of Payroll ensures compliance, accuracy, and legislative adherence, you are responsible for the operational machinery that allows the department to function efficiently and at scale.

In this pivotal role, you will bridge the gap between technical systems and operational delivery. You will own the resource planning, integration strategy, and workflow optimisation, ensuring that our HRIS connects seamlessly with our payroll software and that our teams are utilised effectively to meet customer requirements.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Operational Operations & Resource Planning

• Strategic Capacity Management: Take ownership of the department’s resource modeling. You will analyse sales forecasts, onboarding pipelines, and seasonal peaks to ensure the team is appropriately staffed and skilled to meet demand.
• Work Allocation Strategy: Collaborate with the Head of Payroll to design data-driven work allocation models. You will move the team away from reactive assignment to proactive capacity planning, ensuring deadlines are met without team burnout.
• Efficiency & Utilisation: Implement metrics to track team utilisation and identifying operational bottlenecks. You will constantly analyse the "time-to-process" and drive initiatives that reduce manual intervention.
• Process Engineering: Lead the design of standardised operational workflows. You are responsible for identifying friction points in the payroll cycle and implementing lean processes that maximise speed and consistency.

2. Systems Integration & Technical Strategy

• Integration Architecture: Define and own the operational strategy for integrating customer HRIS platforms with our payroll systems. You ensure the "pipes" that carry data are robust, secure, and scalable.
• Data Integrity & Automation: Establish rigorous automated controls to ensure the synchronisation of data between systems. Your goal is to create a "zero-touch" data transfer environment where the system acts as the source of truth, minimising manual data entry for the payroll team.
• Technical Troubleshooting: Act as the escalation point for complex data transfer or system configuration issues, preventing technical blockers from impacting payroll delivery deadlines.
• Product Liaison: Act as the bridge between the Payroll Department and internal Product/Engineering teams, ensuring that software updates and new features support operational efficiency.

3. Financial Infrastructure & Control

• Payment Systems (BACS): Lead the operational management of payment integration protocols. You will oversee the technical setup and reliability of BACS (or equivalent) transmissions, ensuring the mechanism for payment is fail-safe.
• Statutory & Third-Party Connections: Standardise and manage the integration methods for pension providers and HMRC data exchanges. You ensure the file transfer protocols are compliant, secure, and fully automated where possible.
• Risk & Security: Proactively identify operational risks related to data security and file handling. You will implement the systems-based controls required to protect sensitive client data during transit.

4. Leadership & Stakeholder Partnership

• Partnership with Head of Payroll: Work in lock-step with the Head of Payroll. While they focus on the what (accuracy/legislation), you focus on the how (process/systems), forming a unified leadership front.
• Working alongside the Head of Payroll, foster a culture of technical precision and operational excellence.