Apac Regional Payroll Specialist

Job Description

About the department

abrdn’s Human Resources function is globally led by Tracey Hahn, our Chief People Officer (CPO) and has a vision that positions our Culture and Talent as a market differentiator. The HR function has a lead role to play in making our brand meaningful for colleagues. This encompasses creating the right culture, development opportunities, remuneration principles and organisational structures to attract, reward, retain, develop, and successfully deploy a high-calibre, impactful, diverse, and inclusive workforce.

About the role

Reporting to the Head of Global Payroll, the Regional Payroll Lead role is responsible for the successful planning, execution, and delivery of regional payroll services. Covering 8 jurisdictions - Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia.

The regional payroll lead is responsible to work with our payroll vendors to ensure e2e payroll process is efficient and accurate.

The role holder should understand and adhere to compliance and local legislative requirements linked to the region they support. The role holder should be an analytical thinking and able to demonstrate initiative.

The role also requires the ability to manipulate data and analyse data and reports. The role holder should be able to manage escalations and comfortable challenging where required.

In addition, the role holder will be required to contribute as part of the global payroll team to deliver against the required metrics and internal management reporting requirements, to ensure that the current payroll model continues to be delivered on time and correctly first time.

Activities required to perform in this role:

- Engage with key stakeholders across the business and geographies to ensure processes and over-arching governance and design is appropriate and fit for purpose.
- Delivery of payroll processing for each jurisdiction inclusive of out of cycle payments
- Responsible for delivery of controls and risk management framework for our end to end global Payroll processes.
- Successful delivery of Finance posting files ensuring delivery is stable, supporting finance team with reports and reconciliation
- Support and manage escalations related to payroll and tax issues.
- Ensure that our colleagues are paid according to regional pay dates, right first time, on time.
- Help ensure that abrdn are up to date with local payroll laws, regulations, and reporting requirements in each country of deployment, and that we are compliant in all payroll activities.
- Undertake quality assurance processes / requirements to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and integrity of payroll data and related processes in line with internal and external audit requirements.
- Support with delivery of payroll metrics and analytics to provide insights on payroll performance, costs, and trends.
- Work closely with the reward team in ensuring all pay related benefits are processed accurately via payroll where legislation requires.
- Looking to continuously improve current processes, ensuring SOP’s are reviewed and updated

To be successful in this role you will need:

- Experience working in a global organisation. Finance Services is preferred.
- 5 years of progressive experience working in regional payroll or in a similar role, managing payroll across multiple countries, working in a global payroll function.
- Extensive experience in the Workday Payroll module, as the UK payroll is run in-house from Workday
- Subject matter expert on complex payroll related issues including share-based compensation, employee mobility and local statutory requirements, and non-exempt employee pay
- Strong understanding of upstream and downstream processes such as HR functions and payroll accounting
- Strong communication skills
- Knowledge of payroll processes, regulations, and compliance requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
- Internal stakeholder and external supplier management skills.
- Analytical and problem-solving abilities, with high attention to detail.
- Good communication and people skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with diverse stakeholders across multiple functions such as HR and Finance
- Proficient in using payroll software, HRIS systems, and Microsoft Office Suite.

Moreover, we recognise that supplementary skills beyond the minimum criteria can greatly enhance your success in this position. These skills are:

- Good communication skills, both verbal and written in English and local language.
- A team player - able to collaborate effectively with colleagues and virtual team members, consistently putting the teams’ goals and interests ahead of personal ones and actively contributing to the wider teams shared objectives.
- Excellent time management skills - the ability to demonstrate exceptional time management skills by efficiently planning and prioritising tasks to meet payroll and period closing deadlines.
- Self-motivation - exhibiting a high level of self-mot