Demo

Director, North America Payroll Operations

Morgan Stanley
Alpharetta, GA Full Time
POSTED ON 9/19/2025
AVAILABLE BEFORE 10/16/2025
Morgan Stanley is a leading global financial services firm providing a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment, and wealth management services. The Firm's employees serve clients worldwide, including corporations, governments, and individuals from more than 1,200 offices in 43 countries.

We are searching for a director that will support and manage our North American Payroll Operations team. The candidate will have 5 to 8 years of hands-on payroll operational experience supporting US and Canadian workforce. The role will serve as a steward to deliver on our 3 Pillars of Success: 1). Timely and accurate payroll processing; 2). Foster and extend our service-first approach; 3). Promote and advocate continual progression of our capabilities. The candidate must leverage their exceptional organizational skills to manage both individual and team assignments, deliver timely payroll processing, and be sincerely passionate about Customer Service. The candidate will use their critical and analytical thinking skills to resolve issues and be comfortable in situations where details may be limited and/or ambiguous - realizing how the pieces of the payroll puzzle fit.

Key RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Own and manage the firm’s Payroll Incident Management area to ensure requests and inquiries are fulfilled in accordance to defined SLAs; triage and assign cases to team members, as applicable, which could include our cross-functional partners.
  • Support auditing of “preview” payroll registers and delegate required actions to the Morgan Stanley Payroll Production team surrounding corrections/adjustments of identified variances.
  • Be hands-on by supporting the team with preparing necessary documentation and pay data templates for payroll transactions such as, but not limited to: employee withholding, check/payment adjustments, tax withholding and garnishments
  • Continuously improve the firm’s Payroll processes by realizing and developing enhancements to existing or build new solutions to prepare, audit, balance and reconcile pay data.
  • Identify and prepare trending analysis in payroll and employee master data audits per pay period as part of our continuous improvement initiative.
  • Partner with the VP of Payroll, NA Ops to deliver on strategic initiatives and drive business enhancements in accordance with the guidance from the Head of Payroll, NA

How You’ll Be SUCCESSFUL

With your analytical thinking abilities and operational expertise, you will have the opportunity to create, empower and enrich an essential part of Morgan Stanley’s business. In this role, your responsibilities will span across both functional and technical areas; involve various internal and external stakeholders with a focus and drive to support and deliver on the complex payroll needs for our customers.

You will lean into your 3 to 5 years of direct experience (min) using ADP Globalview or SAP ECC (PA and Payroll); complimented by the 2 years of experience (min) leading an outsourced payroll environment (ADP Managed Services preferred) to bring impactful contributions from your 1st day!

Qualifications And Success Factors

  • Advanced skills using Excel to analyze data as well as demonstrated proficiency using the full suite of MS Office applications
  • Advanced knowledge of wage and hour laws and taxability of wages – especially for California-based employees (EDD)
  • Knowledge of Canadian payroll concepts such as, but not limited to: ROE, RRSP, and provincial tax filing (e.g., Quebec)
  • Direct experience processing end-to-end payroll lifecycle for Canadian workforce
  • Exemplary customer service skills with a genuine desire to provide exceptional customer service to our business partners and most importantly, our employees
  • Min. of 3 years of direct supervisory experience manage 3-4 direct reports
  • Self-driven with exceptional time management skills and the ability to work collaboratively within a team setting with minimal supervision

How You’ll Standout

  • Experience with business process modeling; develop/document payroll process diagrams/flows, standard operating procedures, and job aids.
  • Written and verbal skills to effectively partner and interact at all levels within Morgan Stanley and external service providers
  • HR IT/systems experience including Workday HCM, ADP applications such as: ADP4ME, SmartCompliance, eTime/Kronos, and Alight CRM.
  • Understanding of system integration and data exchange concepts (source to target)
  • Bachelor’s degree; advanced degree in lieu of experience
  • CPP or FPC designation is ideal

Morgan Stanley's goal is to build and maintain a workforce that is diverse in experience and background but uniform in reflecting our standards of integrity and excellence. Consequently, our recruiting efforts reflect our desire to attract and retain the best and brightest from all talent pools. We want to be the first choice for prospective employees.

It is the policy of the Firm to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, sex stereotype, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, disability, marital and civil partnership/union status, pregnancy, veteran or military service status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversifying its workforce (M/F/Disability/Vet).

What You Can Expect From Morgan Stanley

We are committed to maintaining the first-class service and high standard of excellence that have defined Morgan Stanley for over 89 years. Our values - putting clients first, doing the right thing, leading with exceptional ideas, committing to diversity and inclusion, and giving back - aren’t just beliefs, they guide the decisions we make every day to do what's best for our clients, communities and more than 80,000 employees in 1,200 offices across 42 countries. At Morgan Stanley, you’ll find an opportunity to work alongside the best and the brightest, in an environment where you are supported and empowered. Our teams are relentless collaborators and creative thinkers, fueled by their diverse backgrounds and experiences. We are proud to support our employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey, offering some of the most attractive and comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry. There’s also ample opportunity to move about the business for those who show passion and grit in their work.

To learn more about our offices across the globe, please copy and paste https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices into your browser.

Morgan Stanley's goal is to build and maintain a workforce that is diverse in experience and background but uniform in reflecting our standards of integrity and excellence. Consequently, our recruiting efforts reflect our desire to attract and retain the best and brightest from all talent pools. We want to be the first choice for prospective employees.

It is the policy of the Firm to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, sex stereotype, gender, gender identity or expression, transgender, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, disability, marital and civil partnership/union status, pregnancy, veteran or military service status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversifying its workforce (M/F/Disability/Vet).

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