Senior Global Payroll Specialist

Department: Global Payroll Solutions, FAAS

Location: Dublin or Cork

Job Purpose

The Senior Global Payroll Coordinator plays a key role in the delivery of high‑quality global payroll services to multinational clients. The role combines advanced payroll operations, Payzaar platform expertise, client coordination, and team leadership responsibilities.

The Senior acts as the primary operational owner for assigned client engagements, overseeing end‑to‑end payrun delivery across multiple jurisdictions, managing complex issues, and ensuring payroll accuracy, compliance, and service excellence. While remaining hands‑on, the Senior also provides technical guidance, review, and support to Analysts, and acts as a key escalation point prior to Manager involvement.

Key Responsibilities

1. Gloal Payroll Delivery & Payzaar Platform Leadership

Take end‑to‑end ownership of global payroll delivery for assigned clients, coordinating weekly, fortnightly, and monthly payruns across multiple countries.
Act as a subject‑matter expert on the Global Payroll Platform (Payzaar), overseeing complex configurations, mappings, and workflows.
Review and validate payroll outputs, journals, statutory tasks, and reconciliations prepared by Analysts.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues, including GL imbalances, FX application, statutory filings, and cross‑border payroll challenges.
Lead entity onboarding activities, including pay group setup, calendar creation, GL mapping, and integration support.
Maintain accurate payroll calendars, workflow status, and dashboard visibility within the platform.
Oversee statutory filing updates in coordination with local offices and monitor regulatory changes impacting supported countries.

2. Client & Local Team Coordination

Act as the primary operational point of contact for assigned clients, managing day‑to‑day communication with minimal supervision.
Lead client operational calls, prepare agendas, and present payroll updates, risks, and action items.
Coordinate closely with local payroll providers and internal global teams to ensure timely and accurate payroll delivery.
Manage issue escalation, applying judgement to resolve matters independently or escalate appropriately to the Manager.
Provide clear guidance to clients on payroll processes, timelines, deliverables, and system functionality.
Monitor shared mailboxes and ensure high‑quality, professional responses to client and internal queries.

3. Review, Quality & Risk Management

Perform detailed reviews of payroll outputs, journals, statutory deliverables, billing inputs, and payment files prepared by Analysts.
Ensure payroll results are accurate, compliant, and delivered in line with agreed SLAs and internal controls.
Identify risks, control gaps, and process inefficiencies, and propose practical mitigation or improvement actions.
Act as an escalation point for payment data validation and support resolution of exceptions before Manager approval.

4. Team Support & Development

Provide day‑to‑day guidance, mentoring, and technical support to Analysts and trainees.
Review work prepared by junior team members and provide structured feedback to support development.
Support onboarding and training of new joiners, including documentation of processes and best practices.
Promote consistent standards, ways of working, and quality across engagements.
Act as a role model for professionalism, client service, and operational excellence.

5. Financial & Administrative Responsibilities

A) Billing & Commercial Support

Maintain billing trackers, including headcount changes and additional fee items.
Support billing reviews and provide inputs to Managers where scope or pricing changes are identified.
Assist with creation and annual review of PO templates and billing structures.

B) Payments

Collate and review payment data, including bank details, FX rates, and backup documentation.
Validate payment files and ensure readiness for Manager approval.
Support payment platform uploads and internal approval workflows in line with controls.

Required Skills & Competencies

Strong expertise in global payroll operations and multi‑country compliance.
Advanced knowledge of payroll journals, GL logic, FX application, and statutory reporting.
Proven ability to manage client relationships and coordinate complex payroll engagements.
Strong review, problem‑solving, and risk awareness skills.
Experience supporting and mentoring junior team members.
Advanced Excel skills (data validation, comparison tools, reconciliations).
Highly organised, with the ability to manage multiple clients and deadlines.
Clear, professional communicator with a client‑focused mindset.

Career Progression

Senior Global Payroll Specialist are positioned to progress into Global Payroll Assistant Manager roles, with increased responsibility for:

Full engagement leadership and client ownership
Final review and approval authority
Commercial decision‑making and pricing input
Broader people leadership and strategic client management

#LI-RS

We are Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton Ireland is rapidly approaching 3,000 people, in 9 offices across Ireland, Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Bermuda. With a presence in over 149 countries around the world and a global network of 73,000 people, we bring our clients the local knowledge, national expertise and global presence to help them succeed – wherever they’re located.

At GT, we work as trusted advisors, bringing local knowledge and national expertise, with a global presence, to help businesses succeed – wherever they are located. We make business more personal by investing in building relationships and empowering our clients to make the right decisions for their organisation now and for the future. Whether that is working with the public sector to build thriving communities, with regulators and financial institutions to build trust, or with a diverse range of businesses to help them achieve their goals, Grant Thornton Ireland work hard to support clients to act on the issues that matter.

At GT Ireland we don’t just predict your future, we build it.

A Career at GT

Looking for a more fulfilling role in professional services? One where fresh thinking, collaboration and diversity are valued? At Grant Thornton we do things differently.

What does this mean for you?

A career in a more inclusive working environment, a more collaborative work culture, a more supported, flexible working role, more possibilities to grow and more opportunities to help shape the future for your clients. We respect and value your experience. And we want you to bring your authentic self to work and be at your best. It is how it should be.

Grow with us

At Grant Thornton, we care about our people and work hard to make you feel valued. If you are looking to deepen and develop your skills, knowledge, and experience throughout your career, then that is what you will get, and more.

Our Benefits

Please follow this link for information on our generous benefits package.

Equity, diversity and inclusion
At Grant Thornton, we provide equitable opportunities for all our colleagues. We are a responsible, sustainable business where equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) is at the forefront of our workplace culture agenda, and today, we continue to build and develop on our existing ED&I structure and strategy to meet our workplace culture needs. People are at the heart of our business and teams built with varied individuals present diverse viewpoints, which need to be heard and valued.

We are all at our best when we are able to be ourselves and we view integrity and authenticity as integral values to bring to our day-to-day work-life at the firm. We are excited to see the personality and perspectives you will bring to our team because we know we will all benefit from them. Diversity of thought, background and experience enables better decision-making, improves the quality of our delivery, and helps us to meet the needs of our clients. Our firm is built on people and their ideas, so we want to hear all the new perspectives and fresh thinking you have to offer. You form the bedrock of our firm’s best-practice principles and we will champion you as leaders from day one.

Reward and benefits
Our reward and benefits are designed to create an environment where our people can flourish. We are committed to building a culture where our people have access to the necessary benefits to help promote a healthy lifestyle and thrive.

Recognition
We want to create a culture of recognition and celebrating success, by saying thank you to people who surpass our expectations and recognising the right values and behaviours. Our Shout Out recognition scheme is our way of highlighting and promoting achievements. Whether you simply want to say thank you, celebrate a special occasion or give an award for doing something exceptional, you can do all of this and more through the scheme.

Advisory – FAAS Global Payroll Services – Senior – Dublin/Cork

Job Description