Associate Director, HR Operations and Rewards, Europe

Associate Director, HR Operations and Total Rewards, Europe

Cytokinetics is a late-stage, specialty cardiovascular biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing first‑in‑class muscle activators and next‑in‑class muscle inhibitors as potential treatments for debilitating diseases in which cardiac muscle performance is compromised. As a leader in muscle biology and the mechanics of muscle performance, the company is developing small molecule drug candidates specifically engineered to impact myocardial muscle function and contractility.

The Associate Director, HR Operations & Total Rewards, will lead HR operational excellence across Cytokinetics’ European affiliates. This role works collaboratively with global colleagues in HR, Finance, and external partners to enable our company to best support our colleagues in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Benelux, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Nordics. This role reports into our Head of HR, Europe.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical HR expertise, total rewards knowledge, systems orientation (Workday is a plus), and a service‑driven mindset. This individual will play a critical role in ensuring operational rigor, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement across our global, regional and local HR processes.

• System of Record Ownership: Maintain the HRIS (Workday) as the single source of truth, ensuring accurate and timely manual data entry and ongoing data integrity across all employee records.
• Data Governance: Implement and maintain data quality standards, performing regular audits to ensure alignment between HRIS, payroll providers, and Finance systems.
• Process Optimization: Identify inefficiencies in HR workflows and design improved processes to reduce manual effort, email traffic, and administrative burden.
• Cross‑Functional
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Work closely with HR Business Partners, Talent Acquisition, Finance, Global CoEs and IT to ensure seamless data flow and operational excellence.
• Employee Support & Escalation: Act as the escalation point for complex employee inquiries related to pre‑payroll, benefits, and time‑off balances, resolving issues with professionalism and a service‑oriented approach.
• Continuous Improvement: Drive system enhancements, automation opportunities, and operational best practices to scale HR infrastructure in alignment with company growth.

• Pre‑Payroll Management: Own the end‑to‑end preparation of monthly payroll inputs for all European entities, including new hires, terminations, compensation changes, bonuses, equity events, and leaves of absence in close coordination with local HR Partners and Finance.
• Data Verification: Collate, audit, and validate payroll‑related data to ensure completeness, accuracy, and timely submission to external payroll providers.
• Finance & Provider Partnership: Serve as the primary liaison between HR, external payroll vendors, and internal Finance. Ensure providers receive accurate instructions on schedule and that Finance has the required documentation and reporting for approval.
• Audit & Validation: Partner with Finance to review and validate preliminary payroll reports (gross‑to‑net reconciliation), identifying and resolving discrepancies prior to final pay authorization.
• Compliance Oversight: Ensure payroll processes comply with applicable European labor laws, tax regulations, and reporting requirements.

• Benefits Administration: Manage day‑to‑day administration of European benefit programs (pension, private health, life insurance, and other local benefits), ensuring accurate enrollment, termination, and vendor coordination.
• Vendor & Broker Management: Partner with brokers and local leadership on annual benefit renewals, benchmarking, and harmonization efforts to ensure competitive and cost‑effective offerings across the region in coordination with Global CoE and local HR partners.
• Tax & Regulatory Advisory: Provide guidance on tax implications of compensation elements such as company cars, remote work arrangements,…