Manager, Payroll Operations - Sub Saharan

<div class="content-intro"><h2><strong>About Remote</strong></h2> <div><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Remote is solving modern organizations’ biggest challenge – navigating global employment compliantly with ease. We make it possible for businesses of all sizes to recruit, pay, and manage international teams. With our core values at heart and future focused work culture, our team works tirelessly on ambitious problems, asynchronously, around the world. You can find Remoters working from 6 different continents (Antarctica left to go!) and all of our positions are fully remote.<br><br><span class="discussion-id-2f7cb4da-dab4-8068-a80f-001c50b2d808 suggestion-update notion-enable-hover" data-token-index="0">With Innovation as one of the core values, we have built Automation and AI capabilities into the requirements for every role.</span><br><br>We encourage every member of the Remote team to bring their talents, experiences and culture to the table to help us build the best-in-class HR platform.</span></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">If you are energetic, curious, motivated and ambitious, be part of our world. Apply now and define the future of work!</span></div></div><h2><strong>What this job can offer you</strong></h2> <p>The Manager, Payroll Operations is responsible for ensuring accurate, compliant, and timely payroll delivery across a defined portfolio of countries or regions. This role combines people leadership with operational ownership, enabling your team to consistently meet or exceed payroll expectations while developing their skills and capabilities.</p> <p>As part of the Global Payroll Operations leadership group, you will lead a team of payroll specialists, supporting them through complex operational challenges and helping them prioritize work to maximize impact. You are accountable for translating strategic guidance into clear operational expectations, ensuring the team is aligned to processes, knowledge, and support needed to execute at a high level.</p> <p>This role requires balancing oversight and autonomy: you drive resolution of escalated payroll issues, apply policies consistently, recommend hiring and performance decisions, and partner with cross-functional stakeholders. At the same time, you foster a high-performing, engaged team capable of delivering results reliably and scaling their impact as the business grows.</p> <p>You will also contribute to critical global payroll implementation initiatives, providing market-specific expertise and operational input to ensure new country launches, vendor transitions, or process in-housing efforts succeed and maintain operational excellence.</p> <h2><strong>What you bring</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Proven experience owning payroll outcomes for a team in regional or multi-country environments.</li> <li>Demonstrated people leadership capability, including coaching, feedback, and performance input.</li> <li>Comfortable leading investigations and driving operational resolution.</li> <li>Able to clarify and consistently apply policies and controls.</li> <li>Experience recommending hiring profiles, team changes, and performance actions.</li> <li>Strong operational judgment with the ability to balance speed, accuracy, and customer impact.</li> <li>Clear, structured written and verbal communicator, particularly effective in async environments.</li> <li>Experience working in remote-first or globally distributed teams is a strong advantage.</li> <li>Fluent in English; additional languages are a plus.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Key Responsibilities&nbsp;</strong></h2> <ul> <li> <p><strong>Team Leadership &amp; Performance</strong></p> <ul> <li>Own payroll outcomes for your team, holding accountability for accuracy, timeliness, and compliance within your scope.</li> <li>Provide coaching, feedback, and day-to-day leadership to your assigned team of payroll specialists</li> <li>Lead operational investigations into payroll issues and drive resolution within defined authority.</li> <li>Provide input into performance ratings and recommend performance actions when required.</li> <li>Foster a psychologically safe, high-accountability team environment.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Payroll Operations Ownership</strong></p> <ul> <li>Own end-to-end payroll delivery for a defined group of countries, ensuring regulatory compliance and operational consistency.</li> <li>Sustain operational working knowledge of country-specific payroll requirements within your scope.</li> <li>Ensure payroll processes are followed, documented, and auditable.</li> <li>Manage relationships with external payroll vendors relevant to your portfolio.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Global Payroll Implementations</strong></p> <ul> <li>Actively support critical global payroll implementation initiatives, including new country launches, vendor transitions, or in-housing efforts.</li> <li>Contribute market- and country-specific payroll expertise to ensure implementations are operationally sound and sustainable.</li> <li>Identify execution risks early and partner with implementation and cross-functional teams to mitigate them.</li> <li>Own payroll outcomes for your scope post-launch, ensuring stability after go-live.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Operational Excellence &amp; Improvement</strong></p> <ul> <li>Identify operational risks, recurring issues, and process gaps within your payroll scope.</li> <li>Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve team capacity.</li> <li>Support the rollout of new tools, automation, and standardized workflows.</li> <li>Track and contribute to KPIs, service levels, and quality metrics.</li> <li>Manage operational support for service arm of the business - including team performance and engagement in Zendesk</li> </ul> <p><strong>Cross-Functional Collaboration</strong></p> <ul> <li>Partner with People Operations, Finance, Legal, Product, and Service Operations to support effective payroll delivery.</li> <li>Translate payroll complexity into clear, actionable guidance for stakeholders.</li> <li>Communicate proactively on risks, delays, or changes that may impact payroll outcomes.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2><strong>Practicals</strong></h2> <ul> <li><strong>Reports to:</strong> Senior Manager, or Manager, Payroll Operations</li> <li><strong>Team:</strong> Payroll Operations</li> <li><strong>Location:</strong> Anywhere in the world</li> <li><strong>Start date:</strong> As soon as possible</li> </ul> <h2><strong>Application process</strong></h2> <ol> <li>Async profile review</li> <li>Interview with recruiter</li> <li>Interview with Hiring Manager</li> <li>Interview with Senior Director, Payroll Operations</li> <li>Bar Raiser Interview</li> <li>Async offer</li> <li><a href="https://www.notion.so/Veremark-Remote-96e108c037b8423cbd4c3f07a1f9b38b">Prior employment verification check</a>&nbsp;</li> </ol> <p>#LI-DNP</p><div class="content-pay-transparency"><div class="pay-input"><div class="description"><p>Remote's <a href="https://www.notion.so/remotecom/people-Total-Rewards-1945bce8d3924ece9421ba8630f57b0c">Total Rewards philosophy</a> is to ensure fair, unbiased compensation and fair <span class="link-annotation-unknown-block-id-1691622878">equity</span><span class="discussion-level-1 discussion-id-f2a82bc4-09e4-4a71-ad93-755b1d26a690 notion-enable-hover" data-token-index="3"> pay </span>along with competitive benefits in all locations in which we operate. We do not agree to or encourage cheap-labor practices and therefore we ensure to pay above in-location rates. We hope to inspire other companies to support global talent-hiring and bring local wealth to developing countries.</p> <p>At first glance our salary bands seem quite wide - here is some context. At Remote we have international operations and a globally distributed workforce.&nbsp; We use geo ranges to consider geographic pay differentials as part of our global compensation strategy to remain competitive in various markets while we hiring globally.<br><br>Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location, and our job titles may span more than one career level. The actual base pay for the successful candidate in this role is dependent upon many factors such as location, transferable or job-related skills, work experience, relevant training, business needs, and market demands. The base salary range may be subject to change.<br><br><em data-stringify-type="italic">At Remote, we foster internal mobility as a key element of our culture of employee growth and development, supported by a compensation philosophy that guarantees pay equity and fairness. Therefore, all compensation changes associated with an internal move will be reviewed by the Total Rewards &amp; People Enablement team on a case by case basis.</em></p></div><div class="title">The annual salary range for this full-time position is</div><div class="pay-range"><span>R990,700</span><span class="divider">&mdash;</span><span>R1,114,500 ZAR</span></div></div></div><div class="content-conclusion"><h2><strong>Benefits</strong></h2> <div class="p-rich_text_section"> <div class="p-rich_text_section"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Our full benefits &amp; perks are explained in our handbook at&nbsp;<a class="c-link" href="http://remote.com/r/benefits" target="_blank" data-stringify-link="http://remote.com/r/benefits" data-sk="tooltip_parent">remote.com/r/benefits</a>. As a global company, each country works differently, but some benefits/perks are for all Remoters:</span></div> <ul class="p-rich_text_list p-rich_text_list__bullet" data-stringify-type="unordered-list" data-indent="0" data-border="0"> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">work from anywhere</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">flexible paid time off</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">flexible working hours (we are&nbsp;<a class="c-link" href="https://remote.com/async" target="_blank" data-stringify-link="https://www.notion.so/remotecom/Working-Async-at-Remote-80c01cd443ad4c77a8ceaef7c5fba5d0" data-sk="tooltip_parent">async</a>)</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">16 weeks paid parental leave</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">budget towards <a href="https://app.notion.com/p/remotecom/Benefits-Perks-1e48a5869c274f40910b76d405b92f63?source=copy_link#3accb4dadab48025b7a6dbc23bc47504" target="_blank">co-working spaces, learning and wellness</a> (including gym memberships)</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">mental health support services</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">stock options</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;" data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">home office budget &amp; IT equipment</span></li> </ul> </div> <h2><strong>How you’ll plan your day (and life)</strong></h2> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">We work async at Remote which means you can plan your schedule around your life (and not around meetings). Read more at <a href="https://remote.com/async" target="_blank">remote.com/async</a>.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">You will be empowered to take ownership and be proactive. When in doubt you will default to action instead of waiting. Your <strong>life-work balance</strong> is important and you will be encouraged to put yourself and your family first, and fit work around your needs.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">If that sounds like something you want, apply now!</span></p> <h2><strong>How to apply</strong></h2> <ol> <li style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Please fill out the form below and upload your CV with a PDF format.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><strong data-stringify-type="bold">We kindly ask you to submit your application and CV in English, as this is the standardised language we use here at Remote.</strong></span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">If you don’t have an up to date CV but you are still interested in talking to us, please feel free to add a copy of your LinkedIn profile instead.</span></li> </ol> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Not only do we encourage folks from all ethnic groups, genders, sexuality, age, abilities, disability status and any other under-represented group to apply, but we prioritize a sense of belonging. We have 4 ERGs (Women, Disability, Queer, Minorities in Tech) who meet regularly with the People team. During your interviews and beyond, we ask &amp; encourage anybody who needs an accommodation to request one from their recruiter.<br></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">We will ask you to voluntarily tell us your pronouns at interview stage, and you will have the option to answer our anonymous demographic questionnaire when you apply below. As an equal employment opportunity employer it’s important to us that our workforce reflects people of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences and this data will help us to stay accountable. We thank you for providing this data, if you chose to.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">At Remote, we embrace AI as a valuable tool while prioritizing human creativity and authenticity.&nbsp;We look forward to meeting candidates who balance innovation with genuine expertise and experience.&nbsp;To learn more about Remote's AI guidelines check see&nbsp;<a href="https://www.notion.so/remotecom/Guidelines-on-using-AI-when-applying-for-a-job-at-Remote-11ccb4dadab4805f80a7c73b6567bd8f" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.notion.so/remotecom/Guidelines-on-using-AI-when-applying-for-a-job-at-Remote-11ccb4dadab4805f80a7c73b6567bd8f&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1733927526443000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2sIVooKuyGfRra1PtGXreV">here</a>.&nbsp;</span><br><br><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><em>Please note we accept applications on an ongoing basis.&nbsp;</em></span></p></div>