Payroll Team Leader

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join a world leading global organisation, our Global FMCG Client are currently seeking an experienced UK Payroll Team Leader. The role will be based in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.

This is a full time temporary role for a period of 12 months (Maternity Cover) ideally to start ASAP, working a 36.25 hour week. This role is paying between £36,800 up to £42,750 per annum, depending on experience.

Main job purpose:

UK payroll is responsible for paying approximately 7,500 employees in the UK, split into three monthly payrolls and two weekly payrolls. The UK is an extremely complex payroll landscape, including many senior employees and expats as well as collective agreement set ups. Although the day to day payroll operations are outsourced to a third party payroll provider, the payroll team lead will be expected to communicate with senior HR stakeholders on all matters relating to UK Pay.

Key Accountabilities & Responsibilities:

• Extensive liaison with UK HR, outsourced HR services, Pensions, Reward and Global Mobility teams
• * Answering vendor queries and holding the payroll vendor accountable for payroll service delivery
• Ensuring that SAP payroll is correctly updated by the Work Day HR system through a monthly reconciliation and correction process including review of daily error logs
• Work with the payroll IT team to identify, test and fix Interface issues/gaps in the interface process
• Reviewing payroll instructions and results, identifying errors, ensuring all instructions are input into payroll
• Create CRs to request system enhancement or changes required in payroll system including new wage types and configuration. Also required to review and sign off testing on these.
• Signing off all BACs and Faster payments (including third party payments)
• Working with stakeholders such as pensions and finance to allocate costs and outputs
• Working with HMRC to answer queries and provide statutory reporting
• Providing retroactive corrections to HMRC via the EYU process
• Managing exceptions, late payments and escalations
• Work closely with the UK Service Delivery team to identify areas for improvement and gaps which need to be reviewed and improved.
• Produce the monthly payroll bulletin for HR and meet with the UK HRVP to explain payroll status
• Work closely with the European Payroll Team Lead and attend European payroll team meetings and participate in improvement and simplification suggestions
• Ensuring that company complies with all UK legislation, e.g. SMP/SPP/SAP, SSP, Tax & NI, Pensions, Redundancy and Data Protection
• Ensure FAQs and training materials both for the outsourced payroll provider and internal HR teams are current and up to date
• Work with Deloitte to provide all compensation data requests for IA and STA populations on the UK payroll
• Support and manage two team members
• Work with all HR, Global Mobility and Global Reward teams to ensure that employee payroll data is correct and setup in time for cut off
• Be the key point of contact for all matters payroll in the UK
• Review payroll files / instructions
• Providing training and guidance to HR, Global Mobility and local payrolls
• Sign off payrolls
• Maintain in depth knowledge, interpretation and implementation of statutory pay and pension changes ensuring that payroll systems, processes and procedures are fully compliant with the statutory requirements
• Download payroll information from systems and cross-check against instructions, Work Day system and prior month calculations
• Contact UK employees, GM or HR where there are errors or clarifications required
• Ensure in detailed understanding of HR, pensions and finance policies and processes

Skills/ Experience/ Qualifications:

• Clear understanding of UK tax and social security legislation
• Experience running a large payroll (5,000+ employees), end to end
• Detailed knowledge of payroll legislation including PAYE, NIC, EOY processes, P11Ds, RTI, pension auto-enrolment, statutory payments (SMP, SSP etc.)
• Experience managing third party payroll vendors, preferably experience of working with ADP

Key Skills & Relevant Experience

• Highly numerate
• Strong communication skills, being able to explain complex scenarios to senior employees and stakeholders
• Advanced excel skills to interrogate large volumes of data
• Ability to operate and report from SAP and Work Day
• Proven team leadership skills
• Work well under time pressure
• Strong analytical / problem solving skills
• History of self-managing projects end to end from business case to implementation, including emphasis on employee and stakeholder communications