Payroll Operations Director: Compliance & Strategy

RWJBarnabas Health; Oceanport (NJ); On-site; USD 145,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO

Medical and Prescription Insurance

Dental and Vision Insurance

Retirement Plans

Tuition Reimbursement

Job summary

RWJBarnabas Health in Oceanport, NJ seeks a Director of Payroll to lead day-to-day payroll operations across the organization, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and full compliance with federal, state, and local requirements. You will drive process improvements, validate data, and partner with Finance, HR, Internal Audit, and IT to ensure scalable payroll delivery.

The role requires deep payroll expertise, strategic leadership, and the ability to translate payroll data into actionable metrics while

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive payroll experience in complex, multi-entity environments.
• 5+ years of leadership experience managing payroll operations teams.
• Experience leading end-to-end payroll in large organizations with multiple pay groups and entities.
• Strong knowledge of payroll processing, wage and hour, payroll controls, and compliance.
• Experience with internal and external audits and ensuring audit readiness.

Responsibilities

• Direct and oversee end-to-end payroll operations for all payrolls and populations.
• Ensure payrolls are processed accurately, timely, and per calendars and SLAs.
• Lead validation, audit review, balancing, funding, reconciliation, and final transmission.
• Establish standards to support consistent payroll execution across cycles.
• Monitor staffing, workload, and processing readiness to ensure continuity.
• Serve as escalation point for payroll issues and resolve risks promptly.
• Maintain visibility into dependencies, deadlines, risks, and bottlenecks.

Skills

Payroll leadership

Excel

Payroll systems

Audit readiness

Data analytics

Interpersonal communication

Tools

PeopleSoft

Workday

UKG

ADP

SAP

Oracle

Job description

RWJBarnabas Health in Oceanport, NJ seeks a Director of Payroll to lead day-to-day payroll operations across the organization, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and full compliance with federal, state, and local requirements. You will drive process improvements, validate data, and partner with Finance, HR, Internal Audit, and IT to ensure scalable payroll delivery.

The role requires deep payroll expertise, strategic leadership, and the ability to translate payroll data into actionable metrics while