Payroll & Benefits Lead
for sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Only include sections that have real specific content. We must not repeat job title as heading. Must not include Job ID etc. Remove boilerplate. Must preserve all substantive info.
We need to parse the posting.
Key info:
- Title: Payroll & Benefits Lead (but we don't repeat as heading)
- Location: Houston, TX | On-Site, 5 Days per Week
- Travel: minimal travel, primarily standard office-based work.
- Compensation: $125,000 – $130,000 Base Salary + Benefits
- Lead U.S. Payroll Today. Help Shape Payroll & Benefits for Tomorrow. (maybe tagline)
- Description: Our client is seeking an experienced Payroll & Benefits Lead to take a leading role in U.S. payroll operations while helping build the future of the function. Supporting ~550 U.S. employees across 10 states, including corporate, field, and hourly populations, this role combines hands-on payroll expertise with oversight, systems knowledge, and process leadership. The Payroll & Benefits Lead will ensure accurate and timely payroll delivery, strengthen controls and processes, coordinate with administrators, and serve as a key partner to HR and payroll leadership. While U.S. payroll will be the primary focus, the position will increase in scope to include benefits over time. The ideal candidate brings deep payroll expertise, meaningful benefits experience, and the ability to operate across both the details and the broader processes that make payroll and benefits successful.
- Position Summary: The Payroll & Benefits Lead is responsible for overseeing and reviewing full-cycle U.S. payroll, including semi-monthly processing, taxes, employee deductions, compliance, reconciliations, and reporting. Working in Workday, this role partners with the Payroll Supervisor, administrators, HR leadership, and stakeholders to ensure payroll is accurate, timely, compliant, and supported by effective processes and controls. The position will also support benefits administration and broader responsibilities as the function evolves. Beyond payroll and benefits activities, the Payroll & Benefits Lead will contribute to Workday initiatives, reporting and analysis, system integrations and testing, process improvement, and other projects.
- Essential Responsibilities: list bullet points under Payroll Operations & Compliance, Benefits Administration, Systems, Controls & Process Improvement, Supervision & Professional Development.
- Qualifications: Required Experience list bullet points.
- Preferred Experience list bullet points.
- Skills & Capabilities list bullet points.
- Additional note: This opportunity is well suited... contact Stephanie Tiller at stiller@novasolutions.ai. (application instruction? It's contact info; maybe we keep as part of description? The instruction says remove application instructions. This is contact info for recruiter; maybe considered application instruction. Safer to drop it? It's not exactly instruction to apply but contact. Might be considered boilerplate. I'd drop it.
We need sections: About the role (maybe a summary paragraph), Responsibilities (essential responsibilities), Requirements (maybe qualifications required), Qualifications (maybe preferred?), Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule.
We have Pay: compensation range given. Schedule: On-Site, 5 Days per Week (location line). Benefits: mention "Base Salary + Benefits" but not detailed benefits. Could we create Benefits section? The posting mentions benefits but not specific benefits like health, dental etc. It says "Base Salary + Benefits". That's vague. The rule: never create Benefits section unless posting actually states them. It does state "+ Benefits" but not details. Might be considered insufficient detail? It says "Base Salary + Benefits". That is a statement that benefits are included. Could we include a Benefits section with that statement? It's not specific like health insurance etc. Might be considered filler? The rule: never emit a heading followed by filler/placeholder text (e.g., "commensurate with experience", "not specified", "N/A", "varies", "TBD"). "Base Salary + Benefits" is not placeholder; it's a statement that benefits are included. I'd include Benefits section with that line.
Pay section: we have salary range.
Schedule: we have On-Site, 5 Days per Week.
Location: maybe we can include in About the role or as a paragraph.
We must not repeat job title as heading.
We must use for section headings.
We must use - for any list of duties/requirements/benefits.
We must use
for prose.
We must preserve all substantive info; do not invent or summarize away detail.
We need to include all substantive info from the posting, but we can condense into prose where appropriate, but must not lose detail. However we can combine similar points.
We need to ensure we don't miss any important details: e.g., supporting ~550 U.S. employees across 10 states, corporate, field, hourly; Workday; partnering with Payroll Supervisor, administrators, HR leadership; ensure accurate and timely payroll delivery; strengthen controls and processes; coordinate with administrators; serve as key partner to HR and payroll leadership; increase scope to include benefits over time; deep payroll expertise, meaningful benefits experience; ability to operate across details and broader processes.
Position Summary: overseeing and reviewing full-cycle U.S. payroll, semi-monthly processing, taxes, employee deductions, compliance, reconciliations, reporting; Workday; partner with Payroll Supervisor, administrators, HR leadership, stakeholders; ensure payroll accurate, timely, compliant, supported by effective processes and controls; also support benefits administration and broader responsibilities as function evolves; contribute to Workday initiatives, reporting and analysis, system integrations and testing, process improvement, other projects.
Essential Responsibilities broken down:
Payroll Operations & Compliance:
- Oversee and review semi-monthly U.S. payroll for approx 550 employees across 10 states, ensuring accurate and timely processing and all required withholdings
- Coordinate day-to-day U.S. payroll activities and maintain consistent high-quality service delivery
- Review payroll activity for new hires, terminations, transfers, changes, and other transactions
- Review and maintain federal and state tax withholding requirements, including applicable state tax reciprocity documentation
- Review and maintain employee benefit deductions, garnishments, 401(k) contributions, and other payroll-related deductions
- Maintain payroll audit controls and support applicable payroll compliance requirements
- Lead year-end payroll activities, including W-2s, 941s, 1099s, and payroll reconciliations
- Research and resolve payroll issues and support payroll-related reporting, analysis, and modeling
Benefits Administration:
- Support administration of U.S. employee benefits in partnership with HR and payroll leadership
- Ensure accurate coordination between benefit elections, deductions, payroll, and related systems
- Support 401(k) administration and related compliance activities
- Assist with annual benefits enrollment, plan setup, employee changes, and related processes
- Serve as a knowledgeable resource for payroll and benefits-related questions and issue resolution
- Assume benefits administration and operational responsibilities as the role and function evolve
Systems, Controls & Process Improvement:
- Maintain payroll and benefits controls, checklists, procedures, and training documentation
- Partner with payroll leadership and other stakeholders on Workday and related payroll and benefits technology initiatives
- Support system implementations, integrations, testing, and business process or workflow changes
- Identify opportunities to improve payroll and benefits processes, controls, documentation, and service delivery
- Develop and support management and ad hoc reporting as needed
- Participate in special projects and other initiatives supporting Payroll, Benefits, and HR operations
Supervision & Professional Development:
- Reports to the Payroll Supervisor
- Works closely with payroll administrators supporting U.S. and Canadian payroll operations
- Provides day-to-day coordination and oversight of U.S. payroll activities and processes
- Partners closely with HR leadership as the position's benefits responsibilities expand
- Provides broad exposure to payroll, benefits, Workday, compliance, controls, reporting, and process improvement within a North American operating environment
Qualifications Required Experience:
- 8+ years of full-cycle U.S. payroll experience
- 4+ years of Workday experience, including full-cycle payroll processing
- Experience with Workday business processes and workflow setup, modification, and maintenance
- 3+ years of experience overseeing administrators and/or coordinating full-cycle payroll operations
- Experience supporting benefits administration, including deductions and 401(k) processes
- Demonstrated experience with multi-state payroll and state tax reciprocity
- Experience with payroll implementations, system integrations, and testing
- Working knowledge of payroll-related general ledger activity
- Experience preparing management and ad hoc payroll reporting
- U.S. payroll certification or related post-secondary payroll credential
Preferred Experience:
- Experience supporting annual benefits enrollment and benefits plan setup
- Experience with employee group benefits and 401(k) administration and compliance
- Experience within a publicly traded and SOX/CSOX-controlled environment
- Experience within oilfield services, manufacturing, or a similar operational environment
- Experience supporting North American or global operations
Skills & Capabilities:
- Strong knowledge of payroll operations, controls, and compliance
- Strong organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail
- Analytical and process-oriented approach to problem solving
- Ability to manage competing priorities and consistently meet critical payroll deadlines
- Ability to provide oversight while remaining comfortable working through detailed payroll and benefits issues
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to collaborate effectively across Payroll, HR, Finance, and other business functions
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office and SharePoint
Additional: contact info (maybe drop).
Now we need to decide sections.
We have:
- About the role: could be the introductory paragraphs (first paragraph after tagline). Could include location, travel, etc.
- Responsibilities: essential responsibilities (maybe combine all sub-sections into one list? But we could keep subheadings? The rule only says use
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). It doesn't forbid additional headings? It says use for section headings (e.g. those). Likely we should only use those headings. So we should not add extra headings like Payroll Operations & Compliance etc. Instead we should put all responsibilities under a single Responsibilities section, using - for each duty. We can keep the detailed bullet points as list items.
- Requirements: maybe the Required Experience? Could be "Requirements". Qualifications could be "Qualifications" (maybe preferred). But we have both Required and Preferred. Could combine under Qualifications? The rule says we can have both Requirements and Qualifications sections. We'll put Required Experience under Requirements, and Preferred Experience under Qualifications (or vice versa). But we also have Skills & Capabilities separate section.
- Benefits: we have "Base Salary + Benefits" statement; we can put that in Benefits section as a
maybe.
- Pay: compensation range.
- Schedule: On-Site, 5 Days per Week.
We also have location and travel info; could be part of About the role.
We must not repeat job title as heading.
We must not include Job ID/requisition numbers.
We must remove boilerplate like cookie/navigation/legal/EEO etc. Not present.
We must not include application instructions; we will drop contact info.
Now craft HTML.
Structure:
About the role
Location: Houston, TX | On‑Site, 5 Days per Week. Travel: minimal, primarily standard office‑based work. The Payroll & Benefits Lead will take a leading role in U.S. payroll operations while helping build the future of the function, supporting ~550 U.S. employees across 10 states (corporate, field, and hourly populations). This role combines hands‑on payroll expertise with oversight, systems knowledge, and process leadership, ensuring accurate and timely payroll delivery
- for any list of duties/requirements/benefits.
We must use
for prose. We must preserve all substantive info; do not invent or summarize away detail. We need to include all substantive info from the posting, but we can condense into prose where appropriate, but must not lose detail. However we can combine similar points. We need to ensure we don't miss any important details: e.g., supporting ~550 U.S. employees across 10 states, corporate, field, hourly; Workday; partnering with Payroll Supervisor, administrators, HR leadership; ensure accurate and timely payroll delivery; strengthen controls and processes; coordinate with administrators; serve as key partner to HR and payroll leadership; increase scope to include benefits over time; deep payroll expertise, meaningful benefits experience; ability to operate across details and broader processes. Position Summary: overseeing and reviewing full-cycle U.S. payroll, semi-monthly processing, taxes, employee deductions, compliance, reconciliations, reporting; Workday; partner with Payroll Supervisor, administrators, HR leadership, stakeholders; ensure payroll accurate, timely, compliant, supported by effective processes and controls; also support benefits administration and broader responsibilities as function evolves; contribute to Workday initiatives, reporting and analysis, system integrations and testing, process improvement, other projects. Essential Responsibilities broken down: Payroll Operations & Compliance: - Oversee and review semi-monthly U.S. payroll for approx 550 employees across 10 states, ensuring accurate and timely processing and all required withholdings - Coordinate day-to-day U.S. payroll activities and maintain consistent high-quality service delivery - Review payroll activity for new hires, terminations, transfers, changes, and other transactions - Review and maintain federal and state tax withholding requirements, including applicable state tax reciprocity documentation - Review and maintain employee benefit deductions, garnishments, 401(k) contributions, and other payroll-related deductions - Maintain payroll audit controls and support applicable payroll compliance requirements - Lead year-end payroll activities, including W-2s, 941s, 1099s, and payroll reconciliations - Research and resolve payroll issues and support payroll-related reporting, analysis, and modeling Benefits Administration: - Support administration of U.S. employee benefits in partnership with HR and payroll leadership - Ensure accurate coordination between benefit elections, deductions, payroll, and related systems - Support 401(k) administration and related compliance activities - Assist with annual benefits enrollment, plan setup, employee changes, and related processes - Serve as a knowledgeable resource for payroll and benefits-related questions and issue resolution - Assume benefits administration and operational responsibilities as the role and function evolve Systems, Controls & Process Improvement: - Maintain payroll and benefits controls, checklists, procedures, and training documentation - Partner with payroll leadership and other stakeholders on Workday and related payroll and benefits technology initiatives - Support system implementations, integrations, testing, and business process or workflow changes - Identify opportunities to improve payroll and benefits processes, controls, documentation, and service delivery - Develop and support management and ad hoc reporting as needed - Participate in special projects and other initiatives supporting Payroll, Benefits, and HR operations Supervision & Professional Development: - Reports to the Payroll Supervisor - Works closely with payroll administrators supporting U.S. and Canadian payroll operations - Provides day-to-day coordination and oversight of U.S. payroll activities and processes - Partners closely with HR leadership as the position's benefits responsibilities expand - Provides broad exposure to payroll, benefits, Workday, compliance, controls, reporting, and process improvement within a North American operating environment Qualifications Required Experience: - 8+ years of full-cycle U.S. payroll experience - 4+ years of Workday experience, including full-cycle payroll processing - Experience with Workday business processes and workflow setup, modification, and maintenance - 3+ years of experience overseeing administrators and/or coordinating full-cycle payroll operations - Experience supporting benefits administration, including deductions and 401(k) processes - Demonstrated experience with multi-state payroll and state tax reciprocity - Experience with payroll implementations, system integrations, and testing - Working knowledge of payroll-related general ledger activity - Experience preparing management and ad hoc payroll reporting - U.S. payroll certification or related post-secondary payroll credential Preferred Experience: - Experience supporting annual benefits enrollment and benefits plan setup - Experience with employee group benefits and 401(k) administration and compliance - Experience within a publicly traded and SOX/CSOX-controlled environment - Experience within oilfield services, manufacturing, or a similar operational environment - Experience supporting North American or global operations Skills & Capabilities: - Strong knowledge of payroll operations, controls, and compliance - Strong organizational skills with exceptional attention to detail - Analytical and process-oriented approach to problem solving - Ability to manage competing priorities and consistently meet critical payroll deadlines - Ability to provide oversight while remaining comfortable working through detailed payroll and benefits issues - Strong written and verbal communication skills - Ability to collaborate effectively across Payroll, HR, Finance, and other business functions - Proficiency with Microsoft Office and SharePoint Additional: contact info (maybe drop). Now we need to decide sections. We have: - About the role: could be the introductory paragraphs (first paragraph after tagline). Could include location, travel, etc. - Responsibilities: essential responsibilities (maybe combine all sub-sections into one list? But we could keep subheadings? The rule only says use
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule). It doesn't forbid additional headings? It says use
for section headings (e.g. those). Likely we should only use those headings. So we should not add extra headings like Payroll Operations & Compliance etc. Instead we should put all responsibilities under a single Responsibilities section, using
- for each duty. We can keep the detailed bullet points as list items.
- Requirements: maybe the Required Experience? Could be "Requirements". Qualifications could be "Qualifications" (maybe preferred). But we have both Required and Preferred. Could combine under Qualifications? The rule says we can have both Requirements and Qualifications sections. We'll put Required Experience under Requirements, and Preferred Experience under Qualifications (or vice versa). But we also have Skills & Capabilities separate section.
- Benefits: we have "Base Salary + Benefits" statement; we can put that in Benefits section as a
maybe. - Pay: compensation range. - Schedule: On-Site, 5 Days per Week. We also have location and travel info; could be part of About the role. We must not repeat job title as heading. We must not include Job ID/requisition numbers. We must remove boilerplate like cookie/navigation/legal/EEO etc. Not present. We must not include application instructions; we will drop contact info. Now craft HTML. Structure:
About the role
Location: Houston, TX | On‑Site, 5 Days per Week. Travel: minimal, primarily standard office‑based work. The Payroll & Benefits Lead will take a leading role in U.S. payroll operations while helping build the future of the function, supporting ~550 U.S. employees across 10 states (corporate, field, and hourly populations). This role combines hands‑on payroll expertise with oversight, systems knowledge, and process leadership, ensuring accurate and timely payroll delivery
- for each duty. We can keep the detailed bullet points as list items.
- Requirements: maybe the Required Experience? Could be "Requirements". Qualifications could be "Qualifications" (maybe preferred). But we have both Required and Preferred. Could combine under Qualifications? The rule says we can have both Requirements and Qualifications sections. We'll put Required Experience under Requirements, and Preferred Experience under Qualifications (or vice versa). But we also have Skills & Capabilities separate section.
- Benefits: we have "Base Salary + Benefits" statement; we can put that in Benefits section as a