Payroll & Workforce Analytics Manager

Position Overview

The Payroll & Workforce Analytics Manager owns accurate, timely, and compliant execution of the company's end-to-end payroll operations and serves as the primary financial and systems expert connecting payroll data to labor cost reporting, workforce analytics, and external audit support. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role: the first 90 days are focused on stabilizing and modernizing payroll processing, with the opportunity to then build out a broader analytics and reporting function from the ground up. This is an excellent fit for a payroll professional who wants ownership of the full function, not just a piece of it, and who is energized by solving problems at the source rather than managing around them.

Key Responsibilities

Payroll Stabilization & Process Improvement (First 90 Days)

• Conduct a full audit of current payroll processing, identify root causes behind recurring errors (e.g., benefit deduction funding, 401(k) contribution and match discrepancies, leave and PTO coding mismatches), and correct them at the source.
• Establish clean, documented, repeatable payroll controls and reconciliation processes, closing the gap between what processes in the payroll system and what posts correctly to the general ledger and to employees.
• Partner directly with the payroll platform's account team to resolve open system configuration issues and confirm root-cause fixes rather than temporary workarounds.
• Build a reliable, current inventory of every payroll-adjacent data feed (benefits deductions, leave codes, tax jurisdictions, retirement contributions) and confirm each is accurate before treating it as business as usual.

Payroll Architecture & Operations

• Manage full-cycle processing of bi-weekly and monthly multi-state (and, as the company's international footprint requires, multi-country) payrolls for hourly and salaried employees across multiple entities.
• Own the integrity of time clock data as the source input driving hourly payroll calculations, ensuring accurate, validated feeds into downstream payroll processing.
• Execute accurate calculation, posting, and auditing of payroll adjustments, variable bonuses, equity awards, and severance packages.
• Own accurate calculation and payment of sales commission plans, ensuring structures are correctly configured and payouts are auditable and tied directly to underlying sales performance data.
• Lead all year-end payroll processing routines, including W-2 balancing, tracking taxable fringe benefits, and final state and federal adjustments.
• Own reconciliation of payroll outputs to the general ledger; partner closely with Corporate Accounting to research and clear variance anomalies.

Workforce Analytics & Labor Cost Reporting

• Design, build, and run advanced custom reports delivering labor cost metrics, headcount data, and workforce cost trends to Finance leadership, feeding the same reporting cadence as broader FP&A.
• Partner with FP&A on labor cost forecasting and budget-to-actual analysis as part of the annual operating plan process.
• Partner with FP&A and sales leadership to translate commission payout data into a clear view of sales team performance trends.
• Track overtime trends across the workforce and flag material patterns to Operations leadership, supporting proactive workforce-sizing decisions.
• Provide accurate payroll and census data to support benefit utilization analysis, in partnership with HR.

Compliance & Audit Support

• Ensure strict compliance with federal, state, and local payroll-related regulatory requirements, including FLSA and applicable state and local leave and wage laws such as Minnesota PFML.
• Serve as the primary operational point of contact for external auditors on payroll-related matters; pull, clean, and validate payroll registers, census files, and deduction schedules for annual 401(k) compliance testing and corporate financial audits.
• Provide the underlying payroll data required for compliance filings such as ACA 1095-C, EEO-1, and Form 5500.
• Manage payroll-side vendor integrations and EDI feeds, including payroll tax authority and general ledger feeds; monitor for errors and resolve discrepancies.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a closely related field.
• Minimum of 5 years of progressive experience directly executing multi-state corporate payroll.
• Demonstrated experience diagnosing and fixing a broken or error-prone payroll process, not just operating a stable one.
• Expert-level proficiency configuring and navigating ADP Workforce Now, with the ability to manage complex system structures, workflows, reporting, security, and data.
• Expertise in advanced Excel functions (VLOOKUPs, XLOOKUPs, pivot tables, and nested logic formulas) for heavy auditing and data analysis.
• Strong general ledger reconciliation and financial-controls background.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• Approachable, highly collaborative team member who interacts effectively with employees, Finance, and HR at all levels of the organization.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) designation.
• Direct experience with international payroll processing.
• Proficiency navigating additional HRIS/payroll platforms such as Workday, UKG Pro, Oracle, or Ceridian Dayforce.

This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of all activities, duties, or responsibilities required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice..