Sr. HCM Payroll Analyst

About the role

The Sr. HCM Payroll Analyst is a senior-level Workday Payroll professional responsible for leading multiple Workday Payroll implementations into an established Workday environment, onboarding and transitioning companies across a multi-company payroll structure. This role partners directly with the Senior Director, Payroll, and is accountable for hands-on solution design, configuration, data conversion, testing, and go-live execution within the current Workday tenant across successive implementation efforts.

Responsibilities

• Workday Payroll Implementation Leadership & Configuration – 40%
• Leads end-to-end Workday Payroll implementations, including discovery, design, configuration, testing, and go-live support for multiple companies transitioning from UKG into an established Workday environment.
• Conducts current-state assessments of legacy UKG payroll processes, configurations, and data, and reviews existing Workday Payroll tenant configuration to align new requirements with established design standards.
• Recommends and executes Workday Payroll solutions balancing compliance, accuracy, scalability, and sustainability through hands-on configuration of earnings, deductions, taxes, balances, retro calculations, and year-end processing.
• Led payroll-owned Workday Timekeeping implementation, ensuring accurate time-to-pay integration.
• Extracts, transforms, validates, and loads payroll data using Workday EIBs, performing pre- and post-load data integrity checks and reconciliations.
• Leads unit, integration, and parallel payroll testing with reconciliation and variance analysis; identifies discrepancies and partners with stakeholders to resolve issues.
• Owes post-go-live stabilization and continued system optimization, including hyper-care issue triage and root cause analysis.
• Payroll Operations & Compliance – 25%
• Partners with the Senior Director, Payroll to identify opportunities for process improvement and configuration optimization across the Workday tenant.
• Contributes to payroll calendar planning, compliance monitoring, and year-end readiness across all operating companies.
• Maintains working knowledge of federal, state, and local payroll tax laws, FLSA, wage garnishment, and benefits-related compliance requirements, applying them to system design and operational decisions.
• Leads cross-functional collaboration with Payroll, Benefits, HRIS, Finance, and IT teams to ensure seamless coordination of payroll inputs and outputs.
• Communicates with employees, managers, HR, Benefits, and operating company stakeholders in an empathetic and professional manner to research and resolve payroll inquiries with accuracy and efficiency.
• Team Development & Knowledge Management – 10%
• Serves as a subject matter expert on Workday Payroll configuration and design standards, providing guidance to payroll operations staff.
• Mentors junior payroll systems staff and contributes to team knowledge-sharing and documentation standards.
• Maintains thorough implementation documentation including design specifications, test plans, processing guides, and lessons-learned summaries, upholding strict data confidentiality standards.
• Conducts job duties in accordance with the Corporate Values and Culture: Others First | Wisdom | Growth.
• Continuous Improvement – 25%
• Identifies and recommends opportunities to streamline and optimize payroll processes through Workday automation and adoption of underutilized platform capabilities.
• Reviews Workday bi-annual release notes for payroll impact, performs sandbox testing of new features, and recommends adoption of applicable enhancements.
• Contributes to the development and maintenance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and processing checklists on an ongoing basis.

Qualifications

• Required: Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field required; equivalent combination of education and experience considered.
• 7+ years of experience in payroll operations, payroll systems, or Workday implementation—candidates with a payroll operations foundation who have developed Workday configuration expertise are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Hands-on Workday Payroll configuration experience.
• Multi-company, multi-state payroll experience.
• Experience leading or significantly contributing to payroll system implementations, including data conversion and parallel testing.
• Above-average proficiency in Microsoft Excel and the Microsoft Office 365 suite.
• Preferred: Workday Payroll certification preferred.
• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) preferred.
• Experience implementing payroll into an existing Workday tenant.
• Experience with UKG Pro (UltiPro), ADP, Ceridian, or similar systems.
• Experience with multi-company or multi-EIN payroll structures.
• Experience supporting or managing payroll operations during and after system transitions.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Payroll & Technical Skills: Deep payroll operations knowledge that informs sound system design—understands why configuration choices matter, not just how to execute them. Ability to apply payroll judgment to system design decisions, balancing compliance, accuracy, scalability, and long-term sustainability. Strong Workday EIB and reconciliation skills; working knowledge of payroll-to-general-ledger mapping and costing. Ability to author and execute requirements-based payroll test scripts and to lead parallel testing and regression testing following releases or configuration changes. Familiarity with Workday Payroll processing, pay components, period schedules, run categories, and payroll business processes (proficiency required).
• Professional Skills: Adaptability: Ability to embrace change and shift focus when unexpected work arises across multiple simultaneous implementations. Leadership: Ability to informally lead, coach, or mentor others in a team setting, with an interest in growing into a formal leadership role. Time Management: Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced implementation environment with strong discernment on where to focus for maximum impact. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with high attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy. Excellent written and verbal communication skills; dependable, reliable, honest, and respectful of others while maintaining the highest levels of confidentiality. Strong partnership and cross-functional collaboration skills across Payroll, HR, Benefits, Finance, and IT. Advanced Excel proficiency.

Performance Measurements

• Workday Payroll implementations are delivered on schedule and meet quality and compliance standards across all assigned companies.
• Configuration decisions are well-documented, defensible, and aligned with established Workday design standards.
• Parallel runs and data conversions are validated and reconciled accurately, with pre- and post-load data integrity maintained.
• Post-go-live stabilization is achieved efficiently, with issues triaged and resolved with minimal payroll disruption.
• Payroll SOPs, processing documentation, and knowledge-sharing materials are current, complete, and accessible to the team.
• Junior staff report meaningful mentoring and knowledge transfer from this role.