HR Payroll & Operations Leader - Legal & General America

At Legal & General America, we aim to make a positive difference in the lives of our customers, partners, colleagues, and the communities in which they live.  As a recognized market leader of term life insurance, we’re working to transform our business through innovation and technology to provide products and solutions that help American families secure their financial futures.

We are a future-focused company, passionate about what we do and how we do it. This means working with pace and energy to reach our goals, and challenging ourselves to achieve more.  We strive to create a unique environment where balance between work and life is possible. Our employees' passion, dedication and hard work, as well as our career development opportunities, benefits, and employee activities contribute to our positive workplace culture.

The Shared Service Operations Manager fulfills a crucial role in ensuring seamless delivery of HR operations to L&G US leaders and employees. As a vital part of the US HR Shared Service leadership team, contributes to the direction, strategy, and culture of the department.

Responsible for building and fostering an empowered team, driving continuous improvement, efficiency, and ensuring smooth and effective service delivery. Assures strong customer relationships; enhances delivery of services to promote customer satisfaction; executes best practices; measures against SLAs; ensures timely and accurate payroll processing; and maintains compliance per laws, regulations, policies, and procedures.

• Lead a small team in delivering upon service level goals while managing stakeholder expectations through effective communications and interactions.
• Work with our internal customers to optimally align our service catalogue to the customer’s needs and ensure HR partners, managers and employees are aware of expectations. Work to develop SLAs, KPIs and other performance indicators that measure, monitor and can be delivered against assuring quality, optimal customer satisfaction and greater efficiency.
• Identify opportunities and potential changes needed in the department’s service catalog offerings. Work with other Shared Service leaders/team members to recommend and influence new approaches, policies, and procedures.
• Oversee Shared Service staff having responsibilities such as customer support (tier 0 and tier 1 activities and coordinate tier 2 issues to resolution with subject matter experts), US payroll, payroll-related reporting, Shared Service compliance, audit initiatives, department budgets, bill payment, business continuity and other Shared Service administrative functions.
• Manage the US payroll team (two staff). Identify and optimize routine and complex functions relating to payroll.
• With your team, serve as payroll subject matter experts to ensure proper payroll delivery and function of payroll technology, especially relating, but not limited to: upgrades, integrations, assure proper testing of new processes/configurations, implementations, customizations, custom reporting, taxability, timekeeping, regulatory compliance and reporting.
• Serve as liaison and key problem solver in working with external tax consultants, affiliate HR departments, finance, tax, and other related departments to assure accurate and timely payroll/reporting/compliance. Lead the delivery of action/mitigation plans for larger issues and engage stakeholders for support as needed.
• Plays a critical role in ensuring regulatory compliance by actively monitoring and implementing policies, procedures, and practices that align with legal and regulatory requirements. Stay up to date with evolving labor/pay laws, employment regulations, and guidelines to ensure adherence to all applicable pay regulations. Manage audit-related functions for the Shared Service team and ensure compliance to relevant policies, laws and regulations.
• Oversee the regulatory, reporting and recordkeeping function and audits relating to employment and salary actions, benefit deduction/taxability/enrollment, tax withholdings, reporting and other legal requirements such as W-2 creation/distribution, EEO reporting, new hire reporting, garnishments, etc.
• Serve as the business continuity and disaster recovery owner on behalf of shared services. Work to assure continuity of services, especially for the US payroll function.
• Adopt continual improvement strategies, use data to improve processes and seek automation wherever possible.
• Assist in driving HR technology adoption with our customers while maintaining a positive employee experience. Balance satisfaction with the minimization of disruption to processes while driving future adoption where necessary.
• Actively participate in cost analysis and budget planning. Monitor HR-related expenses, analyze cost drivers, and identify areas where cost-saving measures may be implemented. 
• Conduct regular stakeholder engagement meetings and drive other programs and initiatives to deliver exceptional customer service.
• Develop and promote change strategies and create communication plans for our customers. Create and disseminate necessary training so that our customers have the necessary knowledge to adapt to new processes.
• Oversee delivery and/or development of recurring reports for internal users and conduct regular audits to ensure accuracy of information.
• Assure top-notch documentation is maintained for new and existing processes/ procedures and manage Shared Service team’s access to vendor sites.
• Ensure all vendors, existing and new, meet or exceed vendor requirements as per the vendor management policies. Ensure due diligence has been conducted and appropriate documentation is on file.
• Provide support to multiple projects
• May perform other duties of a highly confidential nature requiring knowledge of organizational practices, policies, and procedures.

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant work experience may be considered in lieu of a degree
• 7+ years of HR and payroll-related experience with a strong systems background, preferably with Dayforce or similar SAAS design. Work with Oracle cloud is helpful
• 4+ years prior management experience of technical teams, preferably including payroll

Knowledge and Skills:

• Experience in process and workflow automation and systems implementation
• Hands-on, highly organized, and excellent at maintaining organization
• Excellent at creating formal documentation and understanding technical solutions
• Highly effective communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional teams and work with internal and external customers
• Innovative and resourceful in using technology to improve processes
• Proficiency in related technology, plus Microsoft Office products
• Well-developed organizational skills
• May travel between corporate locations on occasion
• The ability to lead and deliver accurate results through other people as with day-to-day operations and/or projects.
• Outstanding numerical and problem-solving skills. Strong analytical background with attention to detail.
• Effectively work in time-sensitive environments. Ability to meet regular, tight deadlines, prioritize workload, and be flexible to changing demands.
• Ability to provide outstanding customer service and motivate others to do so as well.
• Strong relationship building skills and demonstrated ability to influence all levels of the organization.
• Assist in implementing processes from across different L&G organizations.
• Ability to learn complex processes quickly and complete with precision.
• Excellent listening, verbal, written and presentation communication skills.
• Ability to see connections and discern where processes can best change to affect better
• Resourceful problem-solver that can troubleshoot issues independently and drive impactful solutions
• Ability to work independently or in teams; build and nurture relationships
• Proven ability to coach, mentor and manage staff
• Solid sense of confidentiality and discretion
• Solutions-oriented problem solver with preference to work in a dynamic, fast-paced, hands-on environment
• Must be self-assured, independent, self-directed and proactive

What’s in it for you?

The expected hiring compensation range for this position is $121,000 - $166,450 annually.

This position will work in a hybrid environment with 3 days in office per week.

The total compensation package for this position may include other elements, such as a sign-on bonus, long term incentives, and annual bonuses.  This role is eligible to participate in the Legal & General America Annual Incentive Plan. The current target payment for the position is 20% of base salary, modified for corporate and individual performance. Bonuses are pro-rated based on start date.  This role has 20 vacation days and 10 sick days that are accrued on a bi-weekly basis. Employees also have 9 paid holidays throughout the calendar year.

We have a competitive compensation and benefits package focused on your overall wellbeing.  Employee benefits include health, life, and dental insurance; 401K with company match up to 6% as well as a pension package; generous time off; and wellbeing initiatives throughout the year (we like doing fun stuff).  We’re big on professional development and we’ll support and mentor you in your career progression and expect you to help us pay it forward by helping us develop tomorrow's leaders and growth-focused professionals. We value our teams and our communities and believe in giving back. Enjoy time off to volunteer for those causes that matter most to you!

If hired, employee will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors. The Company reserves the right to change benefits plans at any time.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.