Payroll Specialist and HR Operations (Bilingual in Korean)

Cesna Recruitment; Troy (MI); On-site; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Cesna-Recruitment is seeking a Payroll Administrator to manage multi-state payroll processing and HR operations for employees in the United States, including onboarding/offboarding and benefits coordination.

The role emphasizes maintaining accurate records, ensuring payroll compliance, and providing confidential support to employees on pay and HR processes. Strong Excel skills and experience with HRIS/payroll platforms are preferred.

Qualifications

• Requires a Bachelor's degree in HR, Business, Accounting, or related field.
• 3+ years of payroll administration experience across multiple states in the U.S.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate and process regular and off-cycle payrolls across multiple U.S. states.
• Enter payroll changes, including new hires, terminations, bonuses, and deductions.
• Review payroll reports and reconcile changes before approval.
• Maintain payroll calendars, SOPs, and audit trails.
• Respond to employee payroll questions with confidentiality and professionalism.
• Collaborate with Finance for payroll funding, GL reporting, and year-end activities.
• Support W-2 coordination, notices, audits, and vendor follow-up.

Skills

Payroll processing

Multi-state payroll

Data accuracy

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in HR/Business/Accounting

Tools

HRIS/payroll platform

Microsoft Excel

Time & attendance systems

Job description

Payroll Administration

• Coordinate and process regular and off-cycle payrolls accurately and on schedule for employ-ees in multiple U.S. states.
• Collect, validate, and enter payroll changes, including new hires, terminations, pay changes, bonuses, allowances, deductions, garnishments, time-off activity, and other approved adjust-ments.
• Review payroll registers and exception reports; reconcile employee changes and investigate dis-crepancies before payroll approval.
• Maintain payroll calendars, approval documentation, audit trails, and standard operating pro-cedures; ensure a trained backup can follow the process.
• Respond to employee payroll questions professionally and confidentially, escalating complex tax, legal, or employee-relations matters appropriately.
• Partner with Finance/Accounting on payroll funding, general-ledger reporting, reconciliations, accrual information, and year-end activities while maintaining appropriate separation of duties.
• Support quarterly and year-end payroll activities, including W-2 coordination, tax notices, au-dits, and vendor follow-up.

HR Operations, HRIS & Employee Records

• Maintain accurate employee records in the HRIS, payroll system, personnel files, and organiza-tional reports, including hires, transfers, promotions, leave status, and separations.
• Coordinate onboarding and offboarding transactions, including offer-document administration, background checks, Form I-9 completion, benefit enrollment, and final-pay notifications.
• Coordinate directly with the HQ IT team and hiring manager for each new hire's laptop, equipment, email, and system-access setup; submit requests on time, follow up across time zones, confirm readiness before the start date, and coordinate equipment return at separation.
• Administer routine HR workflows and track deadlines for probationary periods, required docu-ments, policy acknowledgments, training, and employment-status changes.
• Prepare recurring headcount, turnover, payroll, benefit, and workforce reports for HR leadership and authorized business partners.
• Maintain organized, audit-ready files and apply record-retention, privacy, and confidentiality re-quirements.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, document, and automate HR processes while maintaining ap-propriate controls.

Benefits & Employee Support

• Support employee benefit enrollment, life-event changes, eligibility updates, invoice reconcilia-tion, and vendor issue resolution.
• Serve as a responsive first point of contact for routine questions regarding pay, benefits, PTO, policies, and HR processes.
• Provide clear, respectful service to a culturally diverse workforce, including office, warehouse, expatriate, and visa-status employee populations.
• Assist with employee communications, HR programs, open enrollment, surveys, and other team initiatives.

Compliance & Controls

• Support compliance with applicable federal, state, provincial, and local payroll and employ-ment requirements; monitor assigned filing and notice deadlines.
• Help ensure timely final-pay processing, lawful deductions, accurate time and attendance rec-ords, and appropriate documentation across operating locations.
• Protect confidential payroll, compensation, immigration, medical, and employee-relations in-formation using role-based access and sound judgment.
• Support internal and external audits and promptly correct documented data or process errors.
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Accounting, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
• Three or more years of experience in payroll administration and HR operations; hands-on multi-state U.S. payroll experience is required.
• Working knowledge of payroll controls, wage-and-hour fundamentals, payroll taxes, deduc-tions, garnishments, and year-end payroll processes.
• Experience using an HRIS and payroll platform, with strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel, in-cluding lookups, pivot tables, reconciliation, and data validation.
• Demonstrated accuracy, follow-through, discretion, customer service, and ability to meet firm payroll deadlines.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills and the ability to explain payroll and HR pro-cesses to employees and managers.

The following skills and qualifications are preferred for this position:

• Experience supporting employees across several states and working with geographically dis-persed office and warehouse populations.
• Experience with benefit administration, HR reporting, audits, and Canadian payroll coordina-tion.
• Payroll or HR certification, such as Fundamental Payroll Certification (FPC), Certified Payroll Professional (CPP), aPHR, PHR, or SHRM-CP.
• Experience working in a Korean-headquartered, international, manufacturing, logistics, or au-tomotive-related organization.
• Korean-English bilingual