Payroll Specialist

Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium 

The Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium, located in northern Vermont, was founded by Champlain College, Middlebury College and Saint Michael’s College in 2013. The Consortium aims to help its members to lower costs, increase the quality of services and add strategic value to our members. The Consortium and its members strive to leverage shared technology, create best processes and service our member organizations through shared services such as payroll, benefits, and accounts payable functions. We provide a meaningful benefits program including health, dental, vision, life, disability, retirement with a generous match, paid time off and a wellbeing program. This position provides a unique learning and career growth opportunity in an innovative environment. 

Position Summary 

The Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium (GMHEC) and its member Colleges each have Human Resource (HR) teams, which work collaboratively to provide strategic HR services across the spectrum of Human Resources and Organizational Development. Joining us, you will be a part of the GMHEC Payroll Team. As a Payroll Specialist, you will service our member institutions in regular bi-weekly payroll cycles. This will include data analysis, payroll validation, overall payroll preparation and payroll processing. 

This position will work closely with the college HR and Finance teams. Located in Burlington, Vermont, this position reports to the Payroll Shared Services Leader of the Consortium.

The successful candidate will be a part of a team oriented organization servicing three very successful higher education institutions. We are guided by our principles which recognize that our member organizations come first, continuous process improvement is a given, communication is transparent and visible and we value our unique culture which includes being innovative, flexible and focused on wellbeing.

The Payroll Specialist responsibilities include:

 • Processes regular payroll cycles for member organizations 
• Maintains payroll operations giving attention to detail and following instructions 
• Reviews, reconciles and audits payroll data • Maintains payroll information by calculating, running reports including for time and labor and absence, analyzing and entering data for processing 
• Generates reports as required to provide audit and validation 
• Prepares and runs payment runs • Prepares and submits tax filings 
• Ensures controls are in place and regularly monitored 
• Performs all assigned tasks accurately, efficiently, and in accordance with applicable policies and procedures of the Colleges including legal payroll rules and regulations 
• Validates direct deposits processing and diagnosis and resolves ACH rejections 
• Services College employees by responding to emails and phone calls on questions, issues utilizing our ticket system
• Communicates with College and consortium customers via phone calls, zoom, emails and in-person • Maintains confidentiality and privacy of employee and company       sensitive data 
• Participates in quarterly system upgrades including testing and validation 
• Provides back-up and support for other payroll personnel 
• Other duties as assigned

Ability to:

• Organize and prioritize work, take initiative, resolve problems, and manage multiple tasks simultaneously 
• Build strong, positive relationships with external and internal contacts 
• Communicate effectively both verbally and in writing 
• Manage and analyze financial data accurately
• Interpret and apply company policies and procedures 
• Maintain confidentiality and appropriately handle sensitive information with tact and discretion 
• Work closely as a team member in a small cooperative, open office environment 
• Independently achieve results and self-direct work responsibly 
• Contribute to a leading edge, creative team that is highly focused on success for our College partners

Knowledge of:

• Microsoft Office: Word, Excel (high level proficiency needed), and Outlook as well as Google Suite (Gmail, Drive, Docs) and Adobe Acrobat 
• Payroll software and basic knowledge of general accounting principles 
• Tax and payroll law 
• Payroll processing 
• Internal Review Service and federal and state regulations, W-2 processing 
• Data collection, data entry and reporting 
• Meeting deadlines for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual duties

Education and Experience:

• Two years of payroll experience 
• A Bachelor's degree (or equivalent education and work experience) in a related field