Payroll Specialist

The Payroll Senior Specialist is responsible for ensuring all payrolls are delivered timely, accurately, and in compliance with company policies and regulatory requirements in Italy.

This role will maintain processes to support the preparation of payroll processing, including data collection, data validations, reviewing and approving payroll results, and supporting employee and manager inquiries.

The Payroll Senior Specialist role will be responsible for supporting the Payroll Lead with the development and maintenance of payroll requirements, practices, and procedures for the country, as well as ensuring accurate and updated documentation of these requirements.

This role will also support the Payroll Lead on interactions with internal and external stakeholders (e.g. HR, Finance, third party payroll provider, etc.)

Key Responsibilities
- Processing of country payroll inputs ensuring the timely and accurate processing of all payroll cycles
- Manage payroll inputs related to base pay, disability and leaves, new hires, employee movement, separations (final pay, severance), organization changes (e.g., M&A), job and pay changes, and one-time payment requests.
- Support Payroll Lead with collaboration across HR in-country and other functions to ensure all data is complete and received within payroll deadlines for processing
- Manage payroll calculation process with third-party payroll provider or in-house processing team
- Support the development of internal and external communications for specific payroll processes.
- Ensuring month-end, quarter-end, and year-end payroll returns are complete, accurate and submitted to Government agencies, in a timely manner.
- Ensuring month-end, quarter-end, and year-end payroll returns are complete, accurate and submitted to Finance J&J hub in a timely manner the General Ledger files.

This role will be the point of contact with the Finance stakeholders/service center.
- Responsible for annual payroll calendar, payroll elements, year-end update.
- Liaison with payroll vendor (TPV) regarding upgrades/changes to payroll system when required.
- Execute, in accordance with globally established standards, processes for SOX compliance, internal controls, and required regulatory/statutory requirements (including payroll record data maintenance)
- Update and maintain payroll process and administration documentation
- Serve as the owner for internal audits
- Support payroll projects and cross-functional projects with payroll dependency

**Qualifications**:
A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent is required
- A minimum of 3-5 years of prior experience in payroll processing / payroll operations is required Strong knowledge of payroll processing in Italy is required (processes, regulations, vendor landscape, etc.)
- Prior Experience with payroll processes, procedures, controls, regulations, and compliance is preferred
- English language proficiency is required
- Italian language proficiency is required
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Attention to detail a must.
- A high degree of confidentiality, data protection assurance, conformity with J&J policies, procedures, external regulations, and agencies is required
- A sense of urgency in resolving customer requests
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Strong research skills required
- Prior experience in a multi-national company, and/or experience in a Service Center Environment preferred
- Salesforce Service Cloud, Workday, ADP is preferred

Knowledge and/or Experience with Knowledge Management artifacts such as Desktop Procedures (DTPs) is preferred