Remote — High-Stakes Payroll & People Operations Stabilisation (8–12 Week Cycles)
We are hiring the person who becomes “the adult in the room” when a client’s payroll and People Services operation is on the edge of collapse. If you can walk into a chaotic, multi-system environment — Workday, Fourth, iiPay, multiple vendors, hundreds of errors, thousands of impacted employees — and immediately restore order, discipline, and governance, this role is for you.
Our consulting division delivers rapid recovery and stabilisation programmes for organisations facing:
• System-to-system failures
• Fragmented ownership across HRIS, Payroll, WFM
• Vendor breakdowns and slow remediation
• High payroll error volumes
• Overwhelmed People Services teams
• No governance, controls, or operating rhythm
You will serve as the independent oversight lead who diagnoses the truth, restores control, and rebuilds confidence at senior leadership level.
Your Responsibilities
• Run a structured 1–3 week diagnostic to uncover root causes across Workday → Fourth → iiPay.
• Replace speculation with evidence using error clustering, data lineage mapping, and issue logs.
• Produce rapid findings reports leadership can act on immediately.
• Establish clean governance: cadences, boards, SLAs, KPIs, escalation paths.
• Implement pre-payroll checks, cut-off discipline, exceptions tracking, and workflow ageing.
• Build dashboards that cut through noise and give instant visibility of risk and priorities.
• Coordinate PwC, Fourth, iiPay, HRIS, Payroll, IT, and People Services teams — with neutrality.
• Stop vendor finger-pointing; ensure delivery aligns with evidence-backed expectations.
• Assess capability, workload, and role alignment to the operating model required for stability.
• Provide leadership with objective, evidence-based recommendations.
• Deliver weekly updates and executive summaries with clarity, accuracy, and authority.
• Present risks, dependencies, decisions, and progress in a structured, leadership-friendly format.
• Create sustainability: SOPs, governance charters, handover kits, and operating rhythms that stick.
You Must Be Able To:
• Step into ambiguity and create structure fast
• Lead multiple vendors confidently and independently
• Turn complex workflows into simple narratives
• Run discovery across HRIS, Payroll, WFM, and People Services
• Keep large teams aligned under pressure
• Move fast — and keep the programme moving with you
You do not need to configure Workday or run payroll.
You must understand the landscape:
• HRIS–Payroll–WFM interdependencies
• Workday → Fourth → Payroll data chains
• Common payroll error modes (starters/leavers, absence, shifts, costing, overtime)
• Vendor governance and SLA performance
• Controls, checks, reconciliations, approvals
• PMO or operational transformation delivery
• High-stakes, deadline-driven recovery environments
Ideal Backgrounds:
• Payroll governance or oversight
• HRIS/Payroll project manager or PMO lead
• Shared services or service delivery improvement
• Vendor management or multi-system programme oversight
• Operational transformation or recovery consulting
You won’t run payroll, configure systems, or build integrations — your role is independent operational oversight, ensuring stability, governance, and sustainable control.
You’ll work directly with leadership teams supporting large organisations with tens of thousands of employees, running the full programme end-to-end with no micromanagement. These engagements build senior-level skills in governance, executive communication, and multi-system oversight, working alongside specialists across the UK, Europe, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Canada, and beyond.
We reward clarity, speed, and decisiveness. We look for people who:
• Take control instinctively
• Don’t wait for instructions
• Thrive in messy environments
• Communicate simply and directly
• Think in systems
• Stay calm under pressure
• Drive structured outcomes fast
• Lead vendors, teams, and leadership confidently
If you’re built for high-stakes stabilisation — decisive, structured, and able to bring order to chaos — we want to speak with you.
Apply now.