Working closely and reporting into the Payroll Manager and the firm's HR operations team this is a fantastic opportunity to join a busy and well-respected HR team. The role will provide support in managing all aspects of the firm's payroll function through the firm's HR and payroll software, People-XD. This involves the delivery of the end-to-end payroll process of £40m annually with circa 1000 monthly paid employees, all associated administration and liaison with the Finance team
The activities:
- Processing of payroll
- Inputting, processing and administering all aspects of payroll and benefits including overtime, tax code changes, starters, leavers, all type of absences, season ticket loans, student loans, benefit and salary approvals/changes, with transparent processes and effective audit trails.
- Assisting with the checking of monthly payroll for sign off which will include producing reports, BACS salary submissions and all third-party payments ensuring all transactions are auditable.
- Undertaking thorough checking of payroll to ensure the integrity of our data and communicating with relevant internal and external clients where issues arise.
- Liaising with third parties such as HMRC, Benefex and P11D Organiser & uploading/exporting accurate data to or from their software.
- Assisting in finalising the tax year end in accordance with all timetables and deadlines.
- Interpreting and applying all internal policies and Government Legislation to ensure payroll transactions are made in accordance with them.
- Maintaining payroll processing documentation, spreadsheets and guidance notes.
- Supporting in the accurate recording and submission of all statutory information (such as RTI).
- Dealing with any payroll queries and offering guidance and assistance to employees and managers and dealing with manual pay adjustments as and when required.
- Working collaboratively with the wider HR team to improve knowledge and awareness of payroll related process.
- Supporting the effective implementation of annual payroll system upgrades and testing new functionality to support enhanced internal processes.
Benefits:
- Processing employees who have been auto enrolled.
- Reviewing, processing and reconciling monthly flexible benefits through payroll.
- Submitting third party reports to benefit providers promptly following the BACs submission.
The person:
This role would be a great opportunity to start your career in payroll working for a leading law firm. Alternatively, if you are experienced and enjoy a busy working environment this could also be for you.
This is a busy and challenging role, and your background will include previous payroll experience and/or knowledge or experience of working within a financial role together with a proven history of building strong stakeholder relationships. To be successful a high level of attention to detail is imperative as is your ability to deal quickly and accurately with a high volume of work with conflicting deadlines. You will have excellent analytical skills along with strong excel knowledge including formulae, pivot tables and VLOOKUP.
Given the challenges of this role, it is likely that your back and experience will include:-
- Ability to work with the utmost confidentiality and discretion.
- An approachable, proactive and professional working style, with a calm and methodical approach to your work and excellent attention to detail. You will have a common-sense approach to problem solving and be able to explain more complicated matters to staff and partners in a simple and straight forward way either verbally or in writing.
- In addition, you will be a self-starter. You will take accountability for your own tasks ensuring they are completed accurately and on time. You will possess strong communications skills and have an appetite for learning.
The role additionally requires someone who is:-
Self-managed and confident in setting and prioritising their own work agenda.
has excellent written as well as verbal communication skills and so is able to demonstrate that they can convey complex matters in a way that different audiences can understand.
Career structure:
They have a firm wide Business Services career structure and a published career progression framework. Within the firm wide career structure there are five career levels. For the purposes of the framework, this role is at an Assistant level and the role profile that details the outcomes and activities expected of across the firm is included with this job description. Further information on the firm's Business Services career structure is available from the HR team.
The package:
- Equal all staff bonus based on the firm's financial performance (which in 2023 came to £2,327.20 for every full time employee who has been with the firm for at least a year. The bonus is pro-rated so part-time employees also receive a bonus as well as staff who have been with the firm for less than a year.)
- Generous pension including the option to salary sacrifice
- Five weeks' annual leave and the option to buy or sell a week each year
- Extra day of leave for wedding/civil partnership, religious holiday and house moving
- Bonus week leave every 11th year of continuous service
- Enhanced family forming pay. Up to 4 weeks for paternity leave and up to 26 weeks for adoption, maternity or shared parental pay.
- Income protection after two years' service
- Life assurance with the choice of covering between two and 10 times annual basic salary
- Confidential employee assistance programme providing guidance on every day issues to more complex matters and both telephone and face to face counselling.
- Through our award-winning benefits technology, you can tailor your reward package to suit you, access an up to date total reward statement and review what your reward package is worth.