University of Waterloo

Manager, Payroll

University of Waterloo$95K — $119K *
Education, Government & Non-Profit
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • University degree preferred in Commerce, Human Resources, or related field
  • Canadian Payroll Association Certified Payroll Manager (CPM) certification required
  • 7-10 years of progressive payroll and management experience
  • 2-3 years’ experience in the Higher Education sector preferred
  • Strong knowledge of Canadian tax provisions and employment standards
  • Proven management skills with a customer service focus
  • Experience with Workday or similar payroll systems

Responsibilities

  • Oversee the administration and processing of all payroll aspects for the University
  • Ensure payroll is delivered accurately and on time
  • Manage and develop payroll processes focusing on compliance and quality improvement
  • Provide guidance to payroll team and resolve complex payroll issues
  • Act as a Subject Matter Expert for the payroll module in Workday
  • Ensure effective communication of payroll processes to all stakeholders
  • Coach and develop payroll staff, conducting performance reviews

Benefits

  • Full-time, permanent position
  • Participation in special projects to enhance payroll practices
  • Opportunity for professional development
  • Work in a collaborative environment with diverse stakeholders
  • Engagement with innovative payroll technologies and processes
  • Ability to influence payroll policies and guidelines
Full Job Description
Job Requisition ID:


Time Type:
Full time

Employee Group:
Staff

Job Category:
Human Resources Operations

Employment Type:
Permanent

Department:
Human Resources - Total Rewards

Hiring Range:
$95,538.29 - $119,422.87

Posting Information:This posting is for an existing vacancy.

The internal posting deadline for this position is Thursday, August 3rd at 11:59PM.

Job Description:

Primary Purpose

The Manager, Payroll oversees all functions related to the delivery of compensation (domestic and international) and corresponding payroll services in adherence with strict deadlines and in accordance with government legislation and University policy and procedures. In collaboration with Director, Total Rewards participates in special projects to ensure effective, efficient, and compliant payroll practices are developed and maintained; contributes to the achievement of Human Resources' departmental goals and professional services delivery.

Key Accountabilities

Remain Current and Conversant with Compliance Requirements, Trends, and Best Practices
  • Maintain awareness of legislation, regulations, and standards related to payroll to ensure compliance within area of responsibility
  • Maintain awareness of best practices and emerging issues related to payroll
  • Participate in professional development to aid in ongoing knowledge and skills acquisition
  • Provides senior level payroll expertise, advice and guidance to all University stakeholders (Employee, Management, Leadership, Committee) in complex and sensitive matters and policy interpretation related to payroll
  • Support the creation of, and give feedback on, policies and guidelines affecting payroll, ensuring compliance with government legislation


Manages the Effective and Accurate Execution of Payroll
  • Oversee the administration and processing of all aspects of payroll for the University, ensuring payroll is delivered accurately and on-time through monthly and biweekly standard cycles, with off cycle payments as required
  • Provide final sign-off to monthly and year-end processing and filing, ensuring completeness and compliance with strict deadlines; oversee the coordination of year-end reconciliation of government remittances (i.e. CPP, EI, Income Tax, WSIB, EHT) with HR Financial Officer
  • Develop and maintain all payroll processes/procedures and documentation, focusing on best practice, compliance and continuous quality improvement
  • Coordinate training of payroll team to ensure consistent application of University policies and standard operating procedures and compliance with legislative requirements
  • Manage the payroll team, providing guidance and direction when higher level issues arise, and ensuring standard procedures are followed and service standards are achieved
  • Ensure all complex, unique, and sensitive issues are investigated and resolved, working with external entities (i.e. CRA, Service Canada, auditors, consultants, etc.) and campus partners or other HR colleagues as required
  • Participate in audits, providing support to the Assistant Payroll Manager and HR Financial Officer and acting as primary contact when necessary; design and implement internal controls to meet audit requirements; coordinate with Human Resources Data Analytics (HRDA) team to design and obtain audit reports in Workday as required to support the payroll function
  • Continuously leads the analysis, measurement, review, development, and implementation of effective and efficient processes, practices and system capabilities to govern all payroll activities to ensure quality and consistency and delivery against defined targets


Support the Effectiveness of the HR/Payroll System Application

As the Subject Matter Expert for the payroll and time tracking modules in the HR/Payroll system (Workday), work with Information Systems Technology (IST) Teams to:
  • Define requirements in accordance with the University policies and legislative requirements;
  • Test configuration changes to ensure achievement of requirements;
  • Evaluate and test the system and ongoing releases/updates on an ongoing basis to ensure functionality achieves requirements;
  • Ensure appropriate controls are in place to maintain system security; and,
  • Request that access be granted or restricted, as needed.


As the Payroll Manager, work with HRDA, IST, and all HR users of Workday, to ensure the system's configuration allows for accurate and compliant payroll processing; identify issues that are impacting the effectiveness, efficiency, or accuracy:
  • Identify upstream issues that are impacting payroll processing (e.g. pending events, missing information, timeliness of approvals, etc.)
  • Provide suggestions (data, coding, processing, configuration) suggestions that might be viable solutions to address and resolve the production issues
  • Support the testing of such configuration changes to ensure achievement of requirements
  • Support the Assistant Payroll Manager with working with departments on campus to resolve integration and data issues (e.g. Finance, Student Accounts, Alumni, Plant Operations, Food Service, etc.)
  • Train and educate the Payroll team on processes within the Workday application on an ongoing basis; cooperate with other teams to ensure understanding of payroll requirements


Communication of Payroll Processes to all Stakeholders
  • Ensure all communication material is current, accurate, and understandable by stakeholders
  • With assistance from the payroll team, prepares and presents information at sessions
  • As necessary, meets or corresponds with employees who have complex payroll questions and answers all their questions
  • Assist HR Partners as needed in preparing severance packages and meet or correspond with terminated employees who have been given severance packages to explain payroll implications
  • Oversee preparation of reports, as well as past trends and special analysis to University stakeholders
  • Develops and implements appropriate and effective communication processes and approaches to meet and exceed the needs of various stakeholders


Ensure Effective Utilization, Deployment, and Development of Staff
  • Define and communicate internally set payroll standards and procedures to ensure quality and consistency of services delivered
  • Deploy staff to most productively meet department goals and objectives in area of responsibility
  • Coach, train and develop employees to assure growth and development of those individuals
  • Conduct annual performance appraisal and conduct regular reviews with direct reports; ensure adherence to annual process within the payroll team
  • Approve and control the hiring, staffing, promotion, discipline and termination of payroll employees
  • Monitor and schedule vacations, overtime and other absences for the payroll team and redistribute work as necessary to ensure customer service levels are maintained


Other duties as required
  • Participates in HR cross functional review of processes and procedures to provide payroll impacts, especially Workday configuration considerations
  • Resource to University committees and provides consultative assistance to HR teams and campus managers on payroll related matters


Required Qualifications

Education
  • Three-year Post-secondary education (university degree preferred) in Commerce, Human Resources, or similar course of study
  • Canadian Payroll Association Certified Payroll Manager (CPM) certification required


Experience
  • 7-10 years of progressive payroll and management experience in a large-scale, fast-paced environment with a proven track record of achievement and success within the payroll field
  • 2-3 years of experience in the Higher Education sector preferred


Knowledge/Skills/Abilities
  • Strong knowledge of Canadian federal tax provisions, provincial/federal programs including CPP, EI, provincial healthcare, workers compensation, etc., and provincial employment standards
  • Proven management skills and strong customer service focus
  • Accuracy and attention to detail in work, proven analytical and problem-solving skills
  • Strong oral and written communication skills, including process documentation development and delivery
  • Ability to multi-task and prioritize work, at times with conflicting priorities
  • Experience with Workday or other in-house payroll system
  • Intermediate skills in Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook)

About University of Waterloo

The University of Waterloo is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on 404 hectares of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates three satellite campuses and four affiliated university colleges. The university offers academic programs administered by six faculties and thirteen faculty-based schools. Waterloo operates the largest post-secondary co-operative education program in the world, with over 20,000 undergraduate students enrolled in the university's co-op program. Waterloo is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada. The institution originates from the Waterloo College Associate Faculties, established on 4 April 1956; a semi-autonomous entity of Waterloo College, which was an affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. This entity formally separated from Waterloo College and was incorporated as a university with the passage of the University of Waterloo Act by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1959. It was established to fill the need to train engineers and technicians for Canada's growing postwar economy. It grew substantially over the next decade, adding a faculty of arts in 1960, and the College of Optometry of Ontario, which moved from Toronto in 1967. The university is a co-educational institution, with approximately 36,000 undergraduate and 6,200 postgraduate students enrolled there in 2020. Alumni and former students of the university can be found across Canada and in over 150 countries; with a number of award winners, government officials, and business leaders having been associated with Waterloo. Waterloo's varsity teams, known as the Waterloo Warriors, compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of the U Sports.
Learn more about University of Waterloo

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