{"id":1156391,"url":"https://alion.io/job/university-of-british-columbia-senior-manager-payroll","title":"Senior Manager, Payroll","company":{"id":20798,"name":"University of British Columbia","domain":"ubc.ca","url":"https://alion.io/company/pacific-laboratory-for-artificial-intelligence","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Finance","role_family":"Finance","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Vancouver, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":10459,"max":15675,"currency":"CAD","period":"month","gross":null,"usd_annual":134052},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":9,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-23T21:46:51Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-23","last_verified_at":"2026-09-24T16:33:05Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Staff - Non UnionJob Category\nM&P - Excluded M&PJob Profile\nXMP - Accounting, Level FJob Title\nSenior Manager, PayrollDepartment\nPayroll Operations & Control | Finance & Integrated Services | VP Finance and OperationsCompensation Range\n$10,459.67 - $15,675.58 CAD MonthlyThe Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.\nPosting End Date\nOctober 13, 2026Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.\nJob End Date\nOngoingPlease include a cover letter which includes the rationale of why you are interested in this position, why you would be a good fit for this role, and how you meet the required qualifications.\nAt UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.\nJob Summary\nThe Senior Manager, Payroll provides strategic and operational leadership in the delivery of payroll services across the University of British Columbia. Supporting a diverse employee population, including multiple unionized groups and complex compensation structures, this role ensures payroll is administered accurately, timely, and in compliance with applicable legislation, collective agreements, and institutional policy. This position plays a key role in financial reconciliation, labour relations support, internal controls, and payroll system development, while fostering a culture of service excellence, equity, and continuous improvement. The Senior Manager acts as a subject matter expert and escalation point for payroll issues, collaborating with Human Resources, Finance, Labour Relations, and Information Technology Services to support institutional priorities and employee experience. Key aspects of the role will include leading the team to deliver a high level of service and various projects, business engagement, change management and analysis of emerging trends to ensure that the University is enabled to deliver its mission. They are expected to be a subject matter expert, providing expertise on all regulatory and contractual obligations on payroll matters. An emphasis on managing risk exposure and strong control environment is expected.\nOrganizational Status\nThe Senior Manager, Payroll is a key position for internal controls and governance over the payroll function. This role is a key position for governance over the payroll function by developing and executing a payroll transformation strategy aligned with the University’s goals and objectives. This position will collaborate with Human Resources, Finance, the Integrated Service Center Teams and business units to gather payroll requirements and define payroll transformation initiatives by accessing current payroll processes and systems, identifying areas of improvement, and implementing best practices to streamline workflows.\nThis position will also support the Director in representing the University and leading interactions with audit, banks relating to payroll, government and other external stakeholders. The Senior Manager will liaise with senior faculty, staff, and teams within the Finance, Tax, Risk Management and Human Resources departments. This position also plays a key role in ensuring that these Clients receive excellent customer service, appropriate system support, and service level agreements in order to achieve their mandates and objectives.\nWork Performed\nManages day-to-day payroll operations for a large and complex workforce including unionized staff, faculty, students, and administrative personnel. Ensures workforce plans encompasses essential services performance.\nOversees accurate and timely processing of semi-monthly payrolls and related financial transactions.\nEnsures full compliance with federal and provincial legislation, collective agreements, UBC policies, and audit requirements.\nLeads a team of payroll professionals, providing mentorship, coaching, and technical guidance to support professional development and high performance.\nInterprets and applies provisions of multiple collective agreements and employment policies related to pay, leaves, and entitlements.\nServes as a payroll advisor on labour relations matters, supporting grievance resolution and bargaining processes with payroll data and insight.\nMaintains internal controls, manages risk, and ensures privacy and confidentiality of payroll data.\nOversees preparation of statutory filings such as T4s, T4As, and ROEs; coordinates with Financial Reporting on year-end reconciliation.\nCollaborates with Human Resources, Integrated Resource Center and Information Technology on Workday configuration, payroll integration, and automation initiatives.\nResponds to complex payroll inquiries and escalated issues from employees, department administrators, and senior leadership.\nProvides training and communications on payroll processes, policies, and changes to the UBC community. Partners with comms and change teams to ensure change readiness and successful execution.\nContributes to university-wide initiatives that support employee engagement, operational efficiency, and financial stewardship.\nDevelops strategies for ensuring procedures, methods, standards and controls are created and followed to foster operational efficiency, monitor compliance, mitigate risks, and achieve desired results.\nPartners with others to implement a continuous improvement lifecycle: gathering University requirements, understanding user experiences, identifying areas for improvement, evaluating and prioritizing and assists with implementing product enhancements.\nEnsures strategic alignment between teams within Payroll Operations.\nDevelops and fosters influential partnerships across the organization, including internal and external customers and stakeholders to improve payroll operations. \nPartners with IT to lead, design and enhance Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to help solve process issues.\nDevelops and monitors the Payroll operational performance framework and service portfolios, and Service Level Agreements.\nDesign and maintain a set of managerial & operational metrics that define performance of the business, opportunities, and progress to goals.\nDevelop and foster the team's ability for \"out-of-the box\" thinking by developing new solutions through collaboration with payroll team members and internal customers.\nKey resource on the Workday product and strategic roadmap; engages in Workday Community groups to ensure UBC’s perspective on enhancements are well understood. \nLearn the Director's role to be back up [ emergency and vacations]\nLeading paymaster payroll processing and escalations [ i.e. Unions, Triumf]\nConsequence of Error/Judgement\nPayroll errors can result in financial loss to the university, legal exposure, non-compliance with legislation, damage to labour relations, or a loss of trust among employees. The Senior Manager must exercise sound judgment, ensure accuracy, and maintain confidentiality while managing sensitive and high-impact processes. Poor decisions or lack of oversight could compromise the university’s financial integrity, reputation, and employee satisfaction. Due to the incumbent's responsibility for financial systems, the decisions and recommendations made will have a significant effect on departmental standards and operations.\nErrors could result in serious significant risks and inaccuracies in the University's records, which could result in any of the following: in errors in the financial statements, in the University being heavily fined, and/or an employee not being paid or covered for benefits they are entitled to. These records are subject to audit. Due to the incumbent's responsibility for financial systems, the decisions and recommendations made will have a significant effect on departmental standards and operations.\nSupervision Received\nThe Senior Manager, Payroll autonomously under broad directives received from the Director, Payroll. Expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy and accountability for day-to-day decisions and leadership of payroll operations.\nSupervision Given\nDirectly supervises a team of Payroll Managers, Analysts, and Payroll Specialists. Provides direction, performance feedback, and support for development planning. May oversee temporary staff or project teams related to system enhancements and operational initiatives.\nMinimum Qualifications\nUndergraduate degree in a relevant discipline (business, finance, marketing, etc.). \nA minimum of 9 years of related experience or the equivalent combination of education and experience.\nPayroll Compliance Professional and Payroll Leadership Professional (PLP) designation from the National Payroll Institute or equivalent.\nWillingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own.\nDemonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.\nPreferred Qualifications\nExtensive experience with data analysis in large ERP systems and/or large data sets is required, including demonstrated ability to build reporting tools, performance indicators and other analytical tools. Experience working with Workday is an asset.\nExperience in a large, unionized public-sector organization, preferably in higher education or government.\nDemonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.\nIn-depth knowledge of Canadian payroll legislation, pension plans, and benefits administration.\nDemonstrated experience managing payroll teams and processes within a complex ERP environment (Workday, SAP, or similar).\nExcellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to lead teams, manage conflict, and foster collaborative working relationships.\nStrong analytical and problem-solving skills, with attention to accuracy and risk management.\nAbility to work effectively with diverse stakeholder groups, including faculty, union representatives, senior administrators, and technical teams.\nCompletion of the CPA accounting program (CA, CGA or CMA)·\nPrior experience as subject matter expert in Payroll for a large, complex organization and people management experience as it relates to hiring, training, evaluating, disciplining, and terminating staff.\nDemonstrate ability to think strategically and lead cross functional teams.\nBroad knowledge and experience in payroll and benefits practices and related business processes.\nAbility to solicit ideas and opinions from others to efficiently and effectively accomplish specific objectives targeted at defined business outcomes.","description_format":"text","description_chars":11194,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":9,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Professional development"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Education","Higher Education"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-23T21:46:51Z"}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":11,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-09-24T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":134052,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/university-of-british-columbia-senior-manager-payroll","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/university-of-british-columbia-senior-manager-payroll.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-24T19:27:57Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers"}}