Payroll Implementation Lead

Overview

Lead payroll implementation readiness for the transition to and operation of a future-state payroll solution, covering design, testing, controls, training, cutover and stabilization.

What you'll do

• Own end-to-end payroll readiness across people, process, technology, data, controls and vendor support.
• Establish and manage readiness gates, entry/exit criteria and go/no-go recommendations.
• Drive resolution of readiness risks, dependencies and open issues impacting payroll delivery.
• Validate future-state payroll processes, SOPs, operating procedures and service delivery model.
• Ensure clear ownership, governance, escalation paths and support structures are in place prior to go-live.
• Verify operational handover readiness between project, vendor and payroll operations teams.
• Lead payroll business testing readiness, including SIT, UAT, parallel payroll, reconciliation and control validation.
• Review testing outcomes, defect closure and business sign-off quality.
• Ensure payroll accuracy and compliance requirements are demonstrated before deployment.
• Oversee workday data quality, payroll data readiness, migration validation, reconciliations and audit evidence.
• Ensure key payroll controls, SOD, security access and compliance requirements are embedded and operational.
• Validate mitigation plans for any residual control or compliance risks.
• Coordinate payroll cutover activities, business sign-offs, contingency planning and operational acceptance.
• Lead go-live readiness reviews and recommend go/no-go decisions based on evidence.
• Establish command center governance and hyper care support structures.
• Monitor post-go-live performance, payroll accuracy, SLA achievement, defects and user adoption.
• Drive issue resolution during hyper care and stabilization.
• Confirm operational ownership transfer and readiness to move into business-as-usual support.

What you'll need

• 15+ years of HR and payroll implementation, and/or HR or payroll transformation experience.
• Proven experience leading HR and payroll deployments, migrations, managed services transitions or cloud HR and payroll implementations.
• Strong understanding of payroll controls, compliance, testing, cutover and operational readiness.
• Experience working with HR-payroll vendors, HR technology platforms and cross-functional teams including HR, Finance, IT and Operations.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex risks and deliver successful payroll go-lives in multi-country environments.

Details

• Location: Bengaluru, KA.