HR Leaders, Pay and Client Services

City of Calgary; Calgary; On-site; CAD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

The City of Calgary is seeking a senior HR leader for Pay & Client Services to guide payroll strategy across a large, unionized workforce. You will lead multiple payroll teams, drive process improvements, ensure compliance, and build strong relationships with leaders, employees, and union partners.

Reporting to the Assistant Manager of Pay and Client Services, you will champion governance, change management, and service excellence while supporting the city’s efforts to deliver quality public

Qualifications

• Two-year diploma or degree in HR, business administration or related field.
• Payroll Leadership Professional designation and 6+ years of progressive payroll management experience.
• Experience with SAP, Oracle or UKG in a multi-union environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a payroll team with accountability and continuous improvement.
• Oversee accurate, compliant payroll services for a large workforce.
• Plan workforce and resource allocation to meet service standards.
• Build relationships with leaders, HR partners, employees, and unions.
• Provide expertise in payroll legislation, policies, and collective agreements.
• Represent the organization in arbitration and assess impacts of bargaining.
• Identify opportunities to modernize processes and improve service.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives aligned with organizational goals.
• Ensure governance and audit readiness across payroll operations.

Skills

Payroll leadership experience

Communication skills

Unionized environment experience

Change management

Education

Two-year diploma or degree in HR / Business Administration

Payroll Leadership Professional designation

6+ years progressive payroll management experience

Tools

SAP

Oracle

UKG

Job description

The City of Calgary is one of Canada's largest municipalities, serving over 1.6 million residents and delivering essential services that support the city's economic, social, and environmental well-being. Governed by a Mayor and City Council, The City is responsible for a broad range of services including public transit, public safety, utilities, planning, recreation, and community services.

Guided by its vision of "a great place to make a living, a great place to make a life" and its shared purpose of "Making life better every day," The City is committed to delivering excellent public service, fostering innovation, and creating a vibrant and sustainable future for Calgarians.

The City of Calgary is seeking an HR Leader, Pay & Client Services to provide strategic and operational leadership for payroll services supporting thousands of employees across a complex, unionized environment. Reporting to the Assistant Manager, Pay and Client Services, this role is responsible for leading teams, driving process improvements, ensuring service excellence, and building strong relationships with employees, leaders, and union partners while supporting the organization's commitment to making life better every day.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of payroll professionals, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and professional growth through recruitment, succession planning, career development initiatives, performance management, and training needs assessments.
• Oversee the delivery of accurate, compliant, and customer-focused payroll services for a large and complex workforce.
• Develop and execute workforce planning and resource allocation strategies to ensure operational requirements, service standards, and organizational priorities are effectively met.
• Build strong relationships with leaders, HR partners, employees, union representatives, and external interested parties to support effective service delivery and positive labour relations outcomes.
• Provide expertise in payroll legislation, policies, collective agreements, and labour relations matters, including grievances, arbitrations, collective bargaining activities, and the interpretation of agreement provisions.
• Represent the organization in arbitration proceedings and provide analysis, strategic recommendations, and operational impact assessments related to collective bargaining and labour relations initiatives.
• Identify and implement opportunities to modernize processes, improve efficiencies, strengthen service delivery, and enhance the employee experience.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives and contribute to strategic projects that support organizational objectives and long-term organizational effectiveness.
• Ensure strong governance, internal controls, compliance, and audit readiness across payroll operations.

Ideal Candidate Profile

As the ideal candidate, you bring progressive leadership experience in payroll, employee services, HR operations, benefits administration, or another complex, high-volume service environment. Experience working in a unionized environment and navigating collective agreements is highly valued.

You are a strategic yet hands-on leader who can balance day-to-day operational excellence with long-term improvement. You bring a growth mindset, embrace change, and have a proven ability to modernize processes, improve service delivery, and lead teams through transformation.

A strong people leader, you build trust quickly, empower others to make decisions, and create high-performing, engaged teams. You remove barriers, foster collaboration, and hold people accountable while maintaining a supportive and inclusive leadership style.

You are customer-focused and understand the importance of delivering responsive, value-added service to employees, leaders, and stakeholders. Your strong relationship-building skills, sound judgment, and political acuity enable you to successfully navigate complex organizations and influence positive outcomes.

Key Qualifications

• A completed two-year diploma or degree in Human Resources, Business Administration or a related field.
• A valid Payroll Leadership Professional designation with the National Payroll Institute and at least 6 years of related progressive payroll management experience.
• Equivalent combinations of education and experience may be considered.
• Previous experience with large platforms such as SAP, Oracle or UKG and a multi-union environment will be considered an asset.
• Previous experience with change management will also be considered an asset.
• You have exceptional communication skills with the ability to build and maintain effective, lasting professional relationships accompanied by a demonstrated customer focus.

Diversity and Accessibility Statement

The City of Calgary is committed to being an organization where diversity and different perspectives are valued. The organization is inclusive, supportive, and reflective of the communities and organizations they serve and encourage applications from candidates who identify as part of a traditionally marginalized community.

KBRS will provide support in its recruitment processes to applicants with disabilities, including accommodation that considers an applicant's accessibility needs. If you require accommodation to participate as a candidate in the recruitment process, please contact [e-mail] or communicate your needs to our team.