SR. Payroll Business Analyst

The Lead Payroll Business Analyst is a strategic partner within the Payroll organization, responsible for driving complex initiatives that support payroll operations, compliance, analytics, and continuous improvement. This role collaborates with Payroll, HR, Finance, Tax, Total Rewards, IT, and external partners to analyze processes, evaluate data, and deliver scalable solutions that improve payroll accuracy, efficiency, and audit readiness. This role operates with enterprise-level scope, managing cross-functional priorities and influencing decision-making across Payroll, Benefits, HRIS, and Technology.

This role serves as a functional lead, owning the end-to-end lifecycle of business initiatives while ensuring alignment with organizational goals, compliance requirements, and operational standards. In addition to hands‑on analysis and execution, this role provides leadership in process governance, requirements management, and cross‑functional alignment.

• Own and manage the intake, prioritization, and delivery of payroll and cross‑functional initiatives, ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities and strategic objectives
• Analyze payroll processes, systems, audit findings, ticket trends, and operational data to identify risks, inefficiencies, and improvement opportunities; translate insights into actionable recommendations supporting payroll operations, compliance, and decision‑making
• Lead cross‑functional working sessions with Payroll, HR, Finance, Benefits, and Technology stakeholders to define requirements, align priorities, and drive solution design
• Manage and lead the end‑to‑end requirements lifecycle, ensuring completeness, accuracy, and alignment across systems and workflows
• Create and maintain business requirements, SOPs, process maps, workflows, control documentation, KPIs, dashboards, and reporting to support consistent, scalable, and audit‑ready payroll operations, including identifying opportunities for automation, standardization, and control enhancements
• Lead advanced data analysis and translate complex payroll and system data into actionable insights that inform operational and leadership decision‑making
• Analyze data trends, anomalies, and root causes (e.g., over payments, retro activity, recurring errors) to drive process improvement and risk mitigation
• Drive development and use of dashboards, KPIs, and data storytelling to provide visibility into performance, compliance, and strategic opportunities
• Identify inefficiencies and lead automation and optimization efforts (e.g., Excel models, Power Automate) to improve scalability and reduce manual effort
• Act as a liaison between business, technology, and external partners to ensure solutions are scalable, compliant, and aligned with enterprise standards
• Manage cross‑functional dependencies, timelines, and risks across multiple initiatives; proactively escal…? drive resolution
• Support payroll initiatives and system changes by partnering with project, system, and QA teams; assist with UAT, deployment, adoption, training, job aids, and communications; and support internal and external audits through documentation, testing, issue tracking, and remediation
• Ensure all deliverables are compliant with regulatory requirements, aligned with internal controls (SOX), and audit‑ready
• Lead and support payroll transformation initiatives and strategic projects, coordinating cross‑functional teams to deliver outcomes aligned with scope and timelines
• Serve as a subject matter expert and trusted advisor, influencing decisions and guiding stakeholders
• Provide guidance and support to analysts or stakeholders, promoting best practices and adoption of tools, processes, and solutions
• Provide backup support for designated payroll…