Director, Payroll Operations

Job description

Job Posting Title: Director, Payroll Operations ---- Hiring Department: Dell Medical School ---- Position Open To: All Applicants ---- Weekly Scheduled Hours: 40 ---- FLSA Status: Exempt from FLSA ---- Earliest Start Date: Immediately ---- Position Duration: Expected to Continue ---- Location: AUSTIN, TX ---- Job Details: Director, Payroll Operations The University of Texas at Austin is undertaking a once-in-a-generation transformation to build a world-class academic health system in Central Texas. Anchored by Dell Medical School and the growing UT Medicine clinical enterprise, this work includes building the operational infrastructure, systems, and capabilities required to support a complex academic medical center as it continues to grow toward 2030. A critical part of that transformation is the implementation of Workday HCM and UKG and the creation of Dell Medical School’s first dedicated payroll function. The future-state payroll model must support a highly complex workforce that includes faculty, clinical staff, residents, hourly employees, multiple concurrent appointments, differentials, and shift and on-call rules while delivering accurate, compliant, timely, and auditable payroll at scale. Within this environment, Dell Medical School is seeking a Director of Payroll Operations to serve as the organization’s senior payroll subject matter leader through implementation and into ongoing operations. Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer, this leader will initially play a key role on the Workday and UKG implementation team, translating payroll requirements into future-state processes, system design, testing, reconciliation, cutover readiness, and post-go-live stabilization. Following implementation, the Director will lead the organization’s first dedicated payroll department. This is a builder role in the truest sense. The Director will establish the operating model, controls, governance, service expectations, team structure, and cross-functional processes for a new payroll function while ensuring UKG Pro/Workforce Management and Workday HCM work together as an integrated, scalable ecosystem. The successful leader will combine deep payroll expertise with hands-on UKG implementation experience, strong controls discipline, and the judgment to use automation and AI where they improve performance without compromising the deterministic and auditable nature of payroll. Why Join Us At UT and Dell Medical School, we are not simply implementing new HR technology — we are building the operational foundation for a rapidly growing academic health system. This is an opportunity to design a payroll function from the ground up, influence the architecture of two enterprise platforms, establish modern controls and service standards, and ultimately lead the team responsible for one of the organization’s most critical employee experiences. Our mission and culture are grounded in: Excellence Innovation Collaboration Compassion Stewardship Impact As Director of Payroll Operations, you will have the opportunity to: Build Dell Medical School’s first dedicated payroll function and define its future-state operating model. Lead payroll design and readiness across a major Workday HCM and UKG implementation. Shape the integration architecture between Workday and UKG for a complex academic medical center workforce. Establish rigorous payroll controls, reconciliation practices, governance, and service expectations. Use automation and AI thoughtfully to improve testing, anomaly detection, issue triage, and employee support while preserving human accountability. Transition from implementation leader to ongoing head of payroll, building and leading the team that will operate the function after go-live. What You’ll Do Lead the stand-up of Dell Medical School’s first dedicated payroll function, including operating procedures, role clarity, escalation paths, readiness criteria, payroll calendars, runbooks, issue-triage models, stakeholder touchpoints, and recurring governance routines. Define future-state payroll workflows spanning pay input, manager time approval, exception management, earnings and deduction validation, off-cycle processing, retroactivity, reconciliation, and payroll close. Establish payroll control points, audit procedures, segregation-of-duties expectations, formal sign-off requirements, and reconciliation standards appropriate for a high-risk payroll environment. Partner closely with the new payroll accounting team to ensure appropriate payroll accounting, reconciliations, filings, and ledger validation. Translate payroll operating requirements into UKG and Workday design inputs so system configuration, integrations, reporting, and controls support the future-state payroll model rather than simply recreating legacy processes. Serve as payroll’s lead partner for UKG Pro and/or UKG Workforce Management configuration, business process design, validation, and operational readiness across time, attendance, scheduling, and payroll-related functionality. Lead integration strategy between UKG and Workday, including payroll data flows, interface specifications, API or connector configuration, data mapping, end-to-end testing, error handling, and reconciliation across earnings, deductions, taxes, and general ledger outputs. Ensure the Workday-UKG design can support the complexity of an academic medical center workforce, including faculty pay, clinical and shift differentials, residents, hourly employees, multiple concurrent appointments, and on-call rules. Develop and execute comprehensive UKG testing strategies, including system, integration, regression, edge-case, and parallel payroll testing. Own parallel payroll runs, converted data validation, gross-to-net reconciliation, root-cause analysis, issue escalation, and formal business sign-off before go-live. Apply AI-assisted reconciliation, anomaly detection, test automation, and release-impact analysis where appropriate to accelerate issue identification while maintaining explainable calculations and documented human approval before funds move. Define governance for AI-enabled or agentic capabilities operating across UKG and Workday, including permissioning, logging, monitoring, approval gates, escalation paths, and end-to-end traceability. Partner with HR, Finance, IT, payroll accounting, implementation partners, and other stakeholders on data migration, cutover planning, readiness decisions, and resolution of payroll and timekeeping issues. Support end-user and manager training and establish clear manager accountability for time approval, scheduling, and other payroll-related business processes. Lead post-go-live hypercare, establishing payroll accuracy, exception rates, error rates, and time-to-resolution metrics as stabilization criteria and driving issues through resolution. Own knowledge transfer and operational handoff from implementation into steady-state operations, ensuring the payroll team has the runbooks, controls, documentation, support model, and capabilities required to operate independently. Build and lead the ongoing payroll organization, including a payroll manager, analysts, and service representatives, with a focus on accuracy, accountability, service, continuous improvement, and scalable operations. Who You Are The ideal candidate is an accomplished payroll leader who combines deep operational expertise with hands-on technology implementation experience. You understand that payroll is both an employee experience and a high-risk financial process, and you bring the rigor necessary to ensure every payroll is accurate, timely, compliant, explainable, and auditable. You are equally comfortable designing a future-state operating model, working through detailed UKG configuration and integration decisions, reviewing complex test scenarios, reconciling payroll variances, and building the team and processes that will ultimately own the function. You are energized by building rather than maintaining. You can operate effectively when processes are still being defined, make sound decisions with incomplete infrastructure, challenge unnecessary legacy practices, and create disciplined, scalable ways of working that will support a growing academic medical center. You also bring practical judgment about automation and AI. You recognize where AI-assisted analysis, anomaly detection, test automation, and employee self-service can add value, while understanding that payroll calculations, controls, reconciliation, and certification must remain deterministic, traceable, and subject to appropriate human oversight. You bring: Deep hands-on experience with UKG Pro and/or UKG Workforce Management, including time, attendance, scheduling, and payroll-related processes. Demonstrated ownership of at least one full-cycle UKG implementation with accountability for workstream delivery, testing, readiness, and outcomes. Experience designing integrations between UKG and Workday or another HCM platform, including data mapping, APIs/connectors, interface specifications, testing, and reconciliation. Strong knowledge of complex payroll structures such as faculty pay, clinical and shift differentials, multi-rate employees, residents, multiple appointments, retroactivity, off-cycle payrolls, and garnishments. Strong grounding in payroll controls, segregation of duties, audit procedures, reconciliation, exception management, and operational reporting. The ability to build modern payroll workflows and service models rather than defaulting to legacy or distributed processes. Experience defining payroll KPIs and dashboards and using data to monitor accuracy, exceptions, service levels, and operational performance. Working knowledge of AI and agentic capabilities in payroll and workforce management, with the judgment to establish appropriate human approval gates, traceability, and governance. Strong analytical, organizational, communication, and cross-functional leadership skills in deadline-driven environments. Required Qualifications Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Human Resources, or a related field. At least 7 years of experience leading a payroll function. Minimum of 1 year of experience with UKG Pro and/or UKG Workforce Management. Demonstrated experience leading complex payroll operations and working across HR, Finance, IT, and related functions. Experience developing payroll controls, reconciliations, testing, exception management, and operational reporting. Ability to manage multiple priorities in a deadline-driven environment and proactively escalate integration, configuration, and payroll risks. Ability to satisfy applicable security requirements for positions with access to critical infrastructure, as required by Texas law and institutional policy. Preferred Qualifications 10 or more years of experience leading a payroll function, with increasing responsibility for complex payroll operations and transformation. End-to-end UKG implementation ownership with responsibility for integration design, testing, cutover, and stabilization. Experience in a university, health system, or academic medical center payroll environment. Experience deploying, configuring, or governing AI or agentic capabilities within a payroll or workforce management platform, including human approval gates, escalation paths, and audit logging. UKG certification strongly preferred; Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) certification preferred. Experience building or significantly transforming a payroll function, operating model, or service delivery structure. Leadership Relationships The Director of Payroll Operations reports to the Chief Human Resources Officer and will work closely with Finance, payroll accounting, Information Technology, HR leadership, implementation partners, managers, and other stakeholders across Dell Medical School and UT. During implementation, the Director will serve as the senior payroll and UKG workstream leader. Following go-live and stabilization, the role will transition into leadership of the ongoing payroll function and supervise a team expected to include a payroll manager, analysts, and service representatives. Salary Range $186,189+ depending on qualifications Required Materials Resume/CV 3 work references with their contact information; at least one reference should be from a supervisor Letter of interest ---- Employment Eligibility: Regular staff who have been employed in their current position for the last six continuous months are eligible for openings being recruited for through University-Wide or Open Recruiting, to include both promotional opportunities and lateral transfers. Staff who are promotion/transfer eligible may apply for positions without supervisor approval. ---- Retirement Plan Eligibility: The retirement plan for this position is Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), subject to the position being at least 20 hours per week and at least 135 days in length. This position has the option to elect the Optional Retirement Program (ORP) instead of TRS, subject to the position being 40 hours per week and at least 135 days in length. ---- Background Checks: A criminal history background check will be required for finalist(s) under consideration for this position. ---- Equal Opportunity Employer: The University of Texas at Austin, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer , complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. ---- Pay Transparency: The University of Texas at Austin will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. ---- Employment Eligibility Verification: If hired, you will be required to complete the federal Employment Eligibility Verification I-9 form. You will be required to present acceptable and original documents to prove your identity and authorization to work in the United States. Documents need to be presented no later than the third day of employment. Failure to do so will result in loss of employment at the university. ---- E-Verify: The University of Texas at Austin use E-Verify to check the work authorization of all new hires effective May 2015. The university’s company ID number for purposes of E-Verify is 854197. For more information about E-Verify, please see the following: E-Verify Poster (English and Spanish) [PDF] Right to Work Poster (English) [PDF] Right to Work Poster (Spanish) [PDF] ---- Compliance: Employees may be required to report violations of law under Title IX and the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act). If this position is identified a Campus Security Authority (Clery Act), you will be notified and provided resources for reporting. Responsible employees under Title IX are defined and outlined in HOP-3031 . The Clery Act requires all prospective employees be notified of the availability of the Annual Security and Fire Safety report. You may access the most recent report here or obtain a copy at University Compliance Services, 1616 Guadalupe Street, UTA 2.206, Austin, Texas 78701.