Global Payroll Implementation Lead - Workday

GB.540 Houlihan Lokey UK Limited

Greater London

On-site

GBP 80,000 - 110,000

Full time

14 days+

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Job summary

Houlihan Lokey UK Limited seeks a Global Payroll Project Manager for a two-year fixed-term assignment in the Human Capital Group to drive the global payroll rollout integrated with Workday HCM. You will partner with regional teams, MSPs, and vendors to plan, execute, and deliver data migrations, system integrations, and change management while maintaining data integrity and compliance.

The role requires 5+ years of global payroll project experience, strong MS project tools, and excellent English

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Human Resource Management, Management Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience.
5+ years of dedicated project management or operational implementation experience, with at least 3 years focused on end‑to‑end global payroll migrations, implementations, client transitions, and strong vendor management to meet timelines and project milestones.
Practical experience with Workday HCM and Global Payroll implementations with managed service partners via Workday connectors and relays of information from Workday HRIS to vendor payroll platforms.
Proven experience managing project rollouts and adhering to payroll project road maps across multiple international jurisdictions and multiple in‑country entities, languages, and time zones.
High proficiency in project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, Lean Six Sigma) and project tracking tools (e.g., Asana, Jira, SmartSheets).
Strong written and verbal English communication skills, with a track record of articulating complex technical timelines and issues to diverse audiences and global country‑level stakeholders.
Detail‑oriented, highly organized, and capable of working independently with active stakeholder project stage gate updates under pressure in a fast‑paced environment.

Responsibilities

Project Planning, Governance & Execution: Collaborate with VP Global Payroll & Strategic Initiatives, IT PM, MSP team to implement Global Payroll across international entities.
Drive development with MSP Project Managers for each country to create detailed plans, timelines, resource allocations, and deliverables.
Manage project scope and milestone tracking; advise on resource allocations for the implementation.
Identify and raise potential project risks; design robust mitigation strategies.
Monitor, track, and report project status, milestones, challenges, and solutions to senior stakeholders.
Manage project escalation processes and risk-aware decisions.
System Integration & Data Migration: Coordinate with Workday Solutions and IT configurations and integrations between Workday HCM and Global Payroll systems.
Lead data migration initiatives: planning, cleansing, transforming, validating payroll data prior to migration.
Oversee quality assurance, system testing, and parallel payroll cycles to ensure data integrity and zero-defect payroll.
Stakeholder, Vendor & Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Serve as main liaison for HCG; foster relationships with IT and external vendors.
Manage vendor performance and ensure delivery aligns with contracts and timelines.
Navigate requirements across jurisdictions, aligning local statutory requirements with centralized payroll standards.
Change Management, Training & Post‑Implementation Support: Support payroll team in SOPs, system specs, and post‑implementation transition.
Identify opportunities to automate and standardize payroll activities; reduce manual intervention.
Lead payroll team cutover planning, deployment readiness, contingency, rollback, and production transition.
Oversee post‑go‑live hypercare and BAU handover to operations.