The Workday Absence Specialist leads the design, configuration, support, and continuous improvement of Workday Absence processes, ensuring accurate time off, leave of absence, accrual, eligibility, and balance management. While the primary focus of the role is Absence, this position will also provide cross-functional support for Payroll and Time Tracking as the organization expands and stabilizes its Workday capabilities. You, as a Workday Absence Specialist will: • Own the end-to-end design, governance, support, and continuous improvement of Workday Absence and related business processes. • Partner with HR, Payroll, Benefits, Compensation, Operations, and IT stakeholders to gather requirements, assess impacts, and deliver scalable Absence solutions aligned to business needs, policy requirements, and Workday best practices. • Provide cross-functional Absence expertise and support for Payroll and Time Tracking design, testing, data validation, user readiness, and decision-making by assessing how absence events, work schedules, holiday calendars, overtime rules, time entry, and approvals affect payroll accuracy and downstream processing. • Maintain and optimize Workday Absence configuration, including eligibility and accrual rules, calculation logic, time off and leave plans, work schedule dependencies, business process routing, condition rules, and security touchpoints. • Resolve complex Absence incidents by performing root-cause analysis, assessing downstream impacts, and coordinating solutions cross-functionally. • Monitor absence data quality and system integrity through audits, testing, balance reviews, exception reporting, and recurring issue analysis, and recommend process or configuration improvements to strengthen accuracy, compliance, and operational efficiency. • Lead impact assessment, testing, and deployment activities for Workday releases, enhancements, change requests, and implementation decisions related to Absence and connected functional areas such as Payroll, Time Tracking, HCM, Benefits, and Reporting. • Develop documentation, training materials, test scenarios, and provide guidance to analysts, stakeholders, and end users on Workday Absence functionality, business processes, and best practices. Is this role right for you? • 3+ years of hands-on experience configuring and supporting Workday Absence, including time off plans, leave of absence, accruals, eligibility, validations, and related business processes. • Strong understanding of how Workday Absence connects with Core HCM, Payroll, Benefits, Time Tracking, Reporting, Security, and integrations. • Experience supporting Payroll or Time Tracking is strongly preferred, particularly in areas such as payroll impacts of absence, work schedules, holiday calendars, time entry, overtime rules, approvals, and pay result validation. • Demonstrated sound judgment, strong organizational skills, and attention to detail when managing competing priorities, sensitive information, and business-critical activities. • Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal. • Ability to prioritize tasks, manage time effectively, and work under pressure in a fast-paced environment, including implementation, testing, release, and production support cycles. • Demonstrated troubleshooting and root-cause analysis skills for Absence configuration issues, business process challenges, balance discrepancies, eligibility concerns, and data integrity issues. • Ability to translate absence policy requirements and business needs into clear Workday configuration guidance, functional design decisions, testing scenarios, and user-friendly support for stakeholders and end users. • Ability to work minimum of two days per week in the Mississauga office • Flexible to occasionally support after-hours during system updates, critical incidents, release testing, payroll processing deadlines, major project milestones, or high-traffic periods. • The salary for this job is $100,000 - $120, 000 CAD EllisDon is proud to provide this unique career opportunity that provides continuous learning, opportunity for growth, and a competitive compensation package within an environment that is committed to inclusion and respects diversity. Go ahead and be yourself. We'll pay you for it!