General Purpose

The Director of Payroll serves as the senior operational leader for Payroll, reporting to the Vice President of HR Operations and Payroll, and is responsible for leading and scaling a high-performing, compliant payroll function across a large, multi-state, multi-facility healthcare organization. This role owns the full payroll lifecycle — including payroll processing, payroll compliance, wage and hour adherence, payroll operations, and service delivery excellence — and is expected to strengthen controls, develop payroll leadership capacity, and create the operational confidence needed for senior leadership to focus on broader HR Operations priorities. Partnering closely with HR, Finance, Legal, and facility leadership, the Director of Payroll ensures accurate, timely, and legally compliant compensation delivery to a workforce of 47,000+ employees, escalating material risks, strategic decisions, and significant compliance or service issues as appropriate.

The ideal candidate is a people-first payroll leader who has built and led payroll teams at scale, understands the nuances of multi-state and union payroll environments, and brings a strong compliance and operational maturity mindset to every process and decision. This leader should establish clear ownership and decision rights, disciplined escalation paths, standard operating procedures, root-cause analysis, payroll issue prevention practices, service metrics, data quality controls, and cross-training that reduce dependency on individual leaders and make the payroll function more self-sufficient over time.

KEY OUTCOMES (0–12 MONTHS)

• Accurate, timely, and compliant payroll delivery across all entities

• Payroll function operates with clear leadership, thoughtful escalation, and strong day-to-day operational ownership

• Standardized, scalable payroll processes and controls with clear ownership, decision rights, and documented procedures

• Strong federal, state, and local tax compliance, audit readiness, and measurable service performance

• Payroll team has stronger leadership depth, clearer succession readiness, and documented processes that support measurable service and compliance outcomes.

• Trusted partnership with HR, Finance, Legal, HRIS, operations, and facility leaders.

Essential Duties

Payroll Processing & Service Delivery

• Direct end-to-end payroll processing for all entities, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and compliance across multiple pay groups, frequencies, unions, and states.

• Establish clear ownership, decision rights, and tiered escalation paths across the payroll function to support disciplined operations and appropriate risk escalation.

• Establish and maintain payroll processing calendars, standard operating procedures, checklists, and quality assurance checkpoints to ensure consistent and error-free pay cycles.

• Oversee garnishment processing, voluntary deductions, retroactive pay calculations, and off-cycle payment requests with appropriate controls and documentation.

• Drive root-cause analysis and payroll issue prevention by identifying recurring errors, strengthening upstream data quality, reducing manual touchpoints, and improving process reliability.

• Deliver an outstanding service experience to employees across the organization through responsive, accurate, and people-centered payroll support.

• Develop and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), service level agreements (SLAs), and control measures to assess payroll accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and team performance.

Payroll Compliance

• Ensure full compliance with federal, state, and local wage and hour laws, tax regulations, and reporting requirements across all operating jurisdictions.

• Monitor legislative and regulatory changes impacting payroll and proactively implement process or system updates to maintain compliance.

• Lead payroll audit readiness activities, including documentation, internal controls, sample preparation, and remediation tracking for internal and external audits.

• Manage relationships with payroll service providers and ensure accuracy of tax registrations, rates, and filings across all jurisdictions.

People Leadership & Team Development

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing payroll team through clear expectations, coaching, continuous feedback, and professional development opportunities.

• Build the next generation of payroll leaders by developing managers and team leads, creating leadership depth, and strengthening succession readiness across the function.

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