Payroll Officer at British Council

Role purpose

The Payroll Officer at British Council will support the administration of lean transactional payroll operations and for ensuring payroll operations are run efficiently across the hub, its compliance, efficiency, and accuracy.

This includes ensuring the continuous accuracy of MyHR payroll master data, employee records and monthly staff payroll by maintaining relevant records across the hub.
This role will support the Hub Payroll consultant to review and deliver payroll operational and administrative service, ensuring excellent implementation in the deployment of payroll operational process and procedures.
The role requires a systematic, integrated approach with a focus on continuous improvement.

Role context

The British Council Professional Services are undergoing significant transformation. For the People function, this means significant change to the delivery of HR services to business leaders, line managers and employees.
The British Council has entered a contract with a professional services partner to provide People function services covering areas such as HR Admin, Learning and Development, Pre-Appointment Screening, Pre-Payroll administration.
This partner provides an important operational and tactical component to HR operations and, as such, it is important to the British Council that this is integrated with the People function services performed by British Council to deliver value and cost effectiveness to the HR organization and excellent service to the wider organization and our employees.
The Payroll officer is a member of the People Solutions team, which exists to enable business leaders to make good decisions within policy and process frameworks and to ensure that the fundamentals of people administration are delivered efficiently and effectively for all colleagues.
The People Solutions hubs ensure compliance with local legislation as well as meaningful interpretation of global policy to local context. The team has a key role to play in developing organizational capability in people management through advisory services and building a continuous improvement approach to delivery of operations services.
The role reports to the Payroll Consultant.

Main Accountabilities Include But Not Limited To

Relationship & stakeholder management

Support the collaborative efforts with the People function to ensure a seamless employee experience.
Handling payroll related queries from staff liaising with vendor and internal stakeholders, and timely management of queries adhering to Service Level Agreements.
Strive to understand stakeholder queries and resolve tickets in a customer centric manner.

Data management

Ensure information in MyHR (Global HRIS) is accurate and updated regularly and maintain annual dashboard.
Master data in payroll software is updated on monthly basis.
Prepare monthly reconciliation and various reports for respective stake holders.
Support the review of data sourced from multiple countries.
Assist with the review of employee data (new hires, changes, additional earnings) from MyHR to inform payroll run(s) and escalate any issue to Line Manager.

Records Management

Assist with the maintenance rigorous filing of all payroll related documentations (payslips and payroll reports especially).
Support with archiving/ destroying payroll records in line with data protection policies and practices in the country.
Support audits where required.
Verifying the reports generated by the vendor and carrying out accuracy checks
Setting up the annual payroll calendar with the inputs from internal teams and the vendor and ensure strict adherence to the agreed timelines

Payroll Officer at British Council

Professional services expertise:

Where appropriate work in conjunction with the MSP and Payroll Consultant to:

Support the regional payroll operations strategy, including review of existing delivery model and practices to ensure compliance, efficiency and accuracy.
Assist with completing payroll calculations manually (through excel templates) or through a payroll system.
Follow up with payments and contributions to statutory bodies (pension, social security particularly).
Ensure system generated pay slips are distributed to employees accurately and in time.
Consolidate payroll register report and other payroll related reports and seek appropriate vetting and approvals for payroll processing.
Prepare all journals and accruals related to payroll in the countries allocated to this role.
Assist with the accurate, timely payment and compliance with all statutory requirements.
Assist with the timely and accurate preparation of annual tax returns and remind staff of the annual tax submissions deadlines.
Assist with the follow up and timely processing of final settlement for leavers.
Support overtime process payments and reimbursements were required.
Ensure timely processing of Purchase Request (PR) and Purchase Orders (PO) for HR related vendor payments i.e. medical insurance, medical claims, payroll vendor fees, etc.

Teamwork

Proactively support and offer help to other team members when their workload requires additional support.
Show flexibility in delivering activities that are not strictly in this role scope.

Role Specific Skills

There are three proficiency levels for HR skills: novice, developing and exemplary. The relevant proficiency level for this role is listed against each skill.
Data literacy: Data driven – Grasps & uses data to make decisions and inform practice (novice)
Digital Agility: Digital aptitude – motivated to learn and experiment with digital ways of working (novice)
People Advocacy: Risk mitigation & ethics – ensure ethical conduct and compliance and mitigates people risks (novice)
Executional Excellence: Action orientation – Implements actionable and adaptive plans to achieve results (novice).
Problem solving – Finds practical solutions to navigate and overcome obstacles (novice).

Minimum/essential

Role specific knowledge and experience

Experience of working with multiple datasets and confidential employee information
Experience of delivering payroll operations processes and practices.
Proven ability in solving process and technical issues.

Desirable

Knowledge of automation in payroll
Expertise/Experience of payroll operations across several countries in the region, including operation of tools, processes and procedures.

Language Requirements

The British Council systems and global processes operate in English. Written and verbal proficiency in English is required
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