Sr Workday Payroll & HCM Analyst

Position Overview

We are seeking a Senior Workday Payroll & HCM Analyst to serve as a strategic and hands‑on systems partner across Payroll, Core HCM, Absence, Benefits, and Time Tracking. This role sits at the center of our Workday ecosystem, ensuring payroll accuracy, data integrity, and scalable system design across the employee lifecycle.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Workday Payroll (US/Canada required; global integrations preferred), combined with strong Workday HCM and security knowledge. This individual understands how upstream transactions—such as hiring, job changes, compensation updates, benefits enrollment, and leave events—directly impact payroll calculations, integrations, reporting, and compliance outcomes.

This role blends architecture‑level systems thinking with tactical execution. You will partner closely with Payroll, People & Places COEs, PDS, ESE, and other functional stakeholders to design, configure, optimize, and govern Workday solutions that protect payroll integrity and enhance operational efficiency.

Payroll Systems Leadership & Integrity:

• Maintain deep expertise in the end‑to‑end payroll lifecycle within Workday, including US/Canada payroll and global payroll integrations (e.g., iiPay or similar vendors)
• Ensure upstream HCM data, business processes, and security configurations align with payroll requirements and compliance standards
• Proactively identify and mitigate payroll‑impacting system risks across modules and integrations
• Serve as a functional escalation point for complex payroll‑system issues requiring cross‑module troubleshooting

Workday HCM & Security Architecture:

• Maintain deep expertise in Workday Core HCM, business process framework, and security model (role‑based, user‑based, domain, and business process security)
• Evaluate how security configurations impact payroll visibility, data integrity, and reporting access
• Partner with stakeholders to ensure appropriate data governance and compliance controls across payroll‑sensitive fields

Cross‑Module HCM & Business Process Optimization:

• Design, configure, and optimize Workday business processes that impact payroll, including conditional to‑do triggers, required step prompts and validations, streamlined notifications and inbox management
• Improve workflow efficiency to reduce manual payroll intervention and correction
• Ensure seamless interaction between Hire, Change Job, Absence, Benefits Enrollment, Compensation, and Payroll processes
• Drive best‑practice alignment across HCM, Benefits, Talent, and PATT to improve data accuracy and system performance

Workday Security & Data Governance:

• Maintain strong expertise in Workday security configuration (role-based, domain, and business process security)
• Evaluate security changes for downstream payroll and reporting impacts
• Provide guidance on required payroll‑impacting data fields (e.g., legal name, personal identifiers, tax data, pay group alignment) to ensure compliance and accuracy
• Support governance standards that protect payroll‑sensitive data integrity

Business Process Optimization:

• Reduce manual payroll corrections through improved upstream controls and automation
• Optimize Workday business processes that impact payroll through conditional to‑do triggers, required step prompts, streamlined notifications, and inbox actions

Reporting & Integrations:

• Develop and maintain advanced payroll reporting, including calculated fields, custom reports, and audit‑focused reporting
• Understand and support Workday payroll integrations and upstream/downstream data flows
• Anticipate, troubleshoot, and resolve integration issues impacting payroll
• Partner with technical teams to ensure payroll considerations are included in system enhancements and project development

Release And Innovation Management:

• Lead or support evaluation and implementation of Workday releases impacting Payroll, Absence, and Time Tracking (PATT)
• Assess new feature functionality and determine business and payroll impact
• Drive ongoing tenant optimization efforts to improve scalability, automation, and user experience
• Partner with ESE on Workday Extend solutions that address payroll‑impacting workflows or…