Payroll Analyst

Manulife John Hancock; Southwestern Ontario; On-site; CAD 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Manulife John Hancock is seeking an experienced Payroll Analyst to support complex Canadian payroll operations for about 13,000 employees across all provinces and multiple legal entities. The role emphasizes accuracy, compliance, and process improvement while collaborating with Payroll, HR, Finance, Benefits, Tax, Technology, vendors, and business teams.

Top candidates will prevent errors, identify root causes, lead testing, strengthen controls, and reduce manual effort.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive Canadian payroll experience with increasing levels of responsibility.

Responsibilities

• Independently process, audit, and validate complex, high-volume Canadian payroll across provinces, entities, pay groups, and cycles.
• Research and resolve payroll, tax, benefits, employee, and vendor issues; investigate discrepancies and implement sustainable solutions.
• Lead complex payroll activities including executive compensation, equity, bonuses, taxable benefits, disability, leaves, and special payments.
• Lead quarterly and year-end payroll activities, including reconciliations, adjustments, audits, reporting, and amended filings.
• Investigate payroll discrepancies, determine root causes, and recommend sustainable solutions.
• Identify trends, risks, and opportunities through payroll, benefits, tax, and reporting data.

Skills

Canadian payroll

ADP GlobalView

SAP

Excel

Tools

SAP

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Payroll Analyst to support complex Canadian payroll operations for approximately 13,000 employees across all provinces and six legal entities. This role helps deliver accurate and compliant payroll while strengthening controls, reducing risk, improving processes, and enhancing the employee experience.

The successful candidate will bring strong payroll expertise, sound judgment, analytical curiosity, and the ability to work across Payroll, Human Resources, Finance, Benefits, Tax, Technology, vendors, and business teams to solve complex problems.

Top candidates will have a record of preventing errors, identifying root causes, leading testing, improving controls, reducing manual work, and delivering measurable results. The best Payroll Analysts do more than process payroll. They improve it.

Key Responsibilities

• Payroll Operations, Compliance & Analysis
• Independently process, audit, and validate complex, high-volume Canadian payroll accurately and on time across multiple provinces, legal entities, pay groups, and payroll cycles.
• Research and resolve complex payroll, tax, benefits, employee, and vendor issues; investigate discrepancies, identify root causes, evaluate risks and alternatives, and implement sustainable solutions that prevent recurrence.
• Lead complex payroll activities, including executive compensation, equity, bonuses, taxable benefits, disability, leaves, mobile employees, and special payments.
• Lead quarterly and year-end payroll activities, including reconciliations, adjustments, audits, reporting, and amended filings.
• Investigate payroll discrepancies, determine root causes, and recommend sustainable solutions.
• Analyze payroll impacts related to benefits programs, including short and long term disability, paid and unpaid legislated leaves, taxable wages and taxable benefits, imputed income, and year-end reporting.
• Identify trends, risks, and opportunities through payroll, benefits, tax, and reporting data.

Testing, Controls & Continuous Improvement

• Lead structured testing of payroll system, configuration, integration, and process changes, including test planning, edge cases, end-to-end validation, defect documentation, and confirmation of business requirements.
• Identify and implement opportunities to automate, simplify, standardize, and strengthen payroll processes and controls, reducing errors, risk, manual effort, and rework.

Technology & AI Enablement

• troubleshoot payroll system, data, and integration issues in partnership with Technology, Benefits, Finance, Tax, vendors, and other business teams.
• Use approved technology, automation, reporting, and AI tools responsibly to improve payroll analysis, testing, controls, documentation, and delivery while protecting confidential information and validating results.
• Support inbound and outbound payroll-related integrations, including retirement plans, deferred compensation, benefits, withholding, garnishments, tax filings, and workers' compensation reporting.
• Apply sound judgment when using AI by protecting confidential employee information, validating outputs, and ensuring all payroll decisions remain human-reviewed and compliant.

Partnership & Team Impact

• Build strong partnerships with Benefits, Pension, Compensation, Finance, Tax, Technology, and external vendors.
• Communicate complex payroll concepts in clear, business-friendly language.
• Share knowledge, support teammates, and contribute to a culture of learning and continuous improvement.
• Influence positive change through expertise, credibility, and collaboration.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of progressive Canadian payroll experience with increasing levels of responsibility.
• Strong analytical thinking, curiosity, troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis skills, including the ability to independently research and solve complex or unfamiliar payroll, tax, and benefits issues.
• Experience with payroll audits, reconciliations, quarterly and year-end activities, adjustments, taxable benefit reporting, and employee year-end reporting.
• Experience developing test scenarios, testing payroll system or configuration changes, validating end-to-end results, documenting defects, and identifying unintended impacts.
• Experience contributing to payroll projects and documenting business requirements, decisions, risks, controls, and test results.
• Experience with ADP GlobalView , SAP, or a similar enterprise payroll system, with strong knowledge of gross-to-net payroll processing, statutory requirements, employer liabilities, funding, general ledger impacts, and payroll accounting reconciliations.
• Advanced Excel and data analysis skills, including the ability to analyze large data sets, reconcile results, identify exceptions and trends, and explain findings clearly.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, work independently with minimal direction, and collaborate effectively across teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Canadian p