Description We are looking for a Payroll Manager to join a retail organization on a Long-term Contract basis in Saint Louis, Missouri. This position will support a complex payroll transformation for a large employee population, helping ensure payroll accuracy, compliance, and continuity throughout critical implementation phases. The ideal candidate brings strong experience with Workday payroll operations, testing, and reconciliation, along with the ability to collaborate across payroll, HR, finance, and project teams in a high-visibility environment.

Responsibilities:

• Direct payroll conversion efforts tied to a large-scale Workday implementation, ensuring readiness across multiple phases of employee transition.
• Manage parallel payroll testing by reviewing outputs across systems and confirming accurate results before key deployment milestones.
• Conduct in-depth reconciliations and analyze payroll variances to identify issues, assess impact, and support timely resolution.
• Review gross-to-net calculations, deductions, taxes, and benefit-related payroll components to confirm processing accuracy.
• Partner with payroll leadership, HR, finance, and external implementation stakeholders to coordinate activities and reduce operational risk.
• Support user acceptance testing by validating payroll scenarios, documenting findings, and escalating defects when needed.
• Maintain clear records of payroll procedures, control points, test outcomes, and project decisions to support auditability and stabilization.
• Provide ongoing guidance during rollout and post-conversion periods to help ensure smooth payroll operations for newly integrated employee groups. Requirements
• At least 3 years of experience in payroll, including hands-on involvement with full-cycle payroll processing.
• Demonstrated expertise supporting Workday payroll implementations, payroll conversions, or enterprise payroll transformation initiatives.
• Strong knowledge of payroll reconciliations, tax withholding, deductions, benefits administration, and multi-state payroll practices.
• Proven experience leading parallel payroll validation, user testing, and issue investigation in large employee environments.
• Ability to troubleshoot payroll calculation discrepancies and resolve complex processing issues with a high degree of accuracy.
• Experience working with payroll platforms such as ADP Workforce Now, UKG Pro, or UKG Ready is highly valued.
• Strong analytical, documentation, and cross-functional communication skills in a remote or distributed team setting.

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