Director of HRIS & Payroll

livingHR•Tampa, FL

About The Position

This organization is a fast-growing portfolio company that owns and operates a collection of businesses across 40 states in the United States. Intentionally multi-brand and multi-location, each business maintains its own identity and local market focus — supported by centralized operational leadership, technology, HR, finance, marketing, and other shared services. The organization completes approximately 10–15 acquisitions per year. The Director of HRIS & Payroll owns the organization’s HCM/HRIS system, UKG, end-to-end and is accountable for accurate, timely, and compliant payroll execution across a multi-entity, multi-state portfolio. The Director is the lead UKG practitioner — designing system configuration and architecture, building SOPs, deploying new modules, optimizing existing ones through workflow automation, producing reports and dashboards, and serving as the escalation point for manager-level help-desk questions. The Director also serves as the source of truth on UKG and payroll best practices for downstream HR partners, producing the SOPs, training materials, and process documentation the broader HR team relies on. This role is the primary owner of payroll: hands-on directly for the first six months, then transitioning transactional execution to offshore payroll specialists while retaining ultimate accountability and final sign-off authority on every pay cycle. Given the organization’s acquisition pace, the Director maintains a clean, auditable, and scalable UKG environment that absorbs newly integrated operating companies without configuration sprawl. The role partners cross-functionally with HR, Finance, IT, Legal, and M&A leadership.

Requirements

5+ years of direct, hands-on UKG Pro and Workforce Management experience (configuration, administration, integrations, and BI reporting) — non-negotiable prerequisite for this role
10+ years of progressive payroll and HRIS experience
Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Finance, Information Systems, or related field required
Proven experience operating in multi-state, multi-entity environments
Experience in high-growth and/or acquisition-driven organizations, regularly onboarding and integrating large numbers of new employees
Multi-state payroll tax compliance fluency, including SUI, SIT, local taxes, garnishments, multi-state withholding, reciprocity, and ACA
Comfort with hands-on payroll execution — someone who runs cycles personally, not just oversees others running them
Strong process and SOP discipline; able to produce documentation that an offshore team can execute against without supervision
Working knowledge of worker classification standards (ABC test, IRS common-law test, multi-state implications)
Direct, clear communication with executives, business partners, and frontline payroll staff
Comfort with ambiguity and rapid change in an acquisition-driven environment
High integrity and discretion when handling sensitive employee and financial data

Nice To Haves

Experience leading UKG implementations, transformations, or major module builds
Experience managing offshore or distributed payroll teams
Experience in private equity-backed, roll-up, or acquisition-driven environments, including integrating acquired companies’ payroll and HR data into UKG
Experience supporting seasonal and 1099-heavy workforce populations
CPP (Certified Payroll Professional) or equivalent certification

Responsibilities

Serve as system owner and primary practitioner for UKG Pro (HCM and Payroll) and UKG Pro Workforce Management (timekeeping and scheduling)
Lead enterprise configuration strategy: earnings codes, pay rules, work rules, business rules, org structure, security roles, workflows, and integrations
Design and deploy new UKG modules and system enhancements; evaluate and adopt platform releases
Produce SOPs, training materials, and rollout communications for managers, employees, and downstream HR partners
Manage the manager-level UKG help-desk and serve as the escalation point for system issues
Define and execute the 12-month UKG roadmap, balancing optimization work, new module deployment, and acquisition integration
Maintain configuration governance and change-control standards to prevent sprawl as the portfolio grows
Personally execute multi-state, multi-entity bi-weekly payroll for the first six months in role
Transition transactional payroll execution to payroll specialists over a structured 90-day plan, retaining final sign-off authority on every cycle
Onboard, train, manage, and oversee the offshore payroll team; design the control structure, KPIs, and escalation thresholds that govern the function
Resolve escalated payroll issues, exceptions, and off-cycle items requiring judgment
Manage payroll tax accounts and ensure timely, accurate filings (federal, state, and local)
Ensure multi-state payroll compliance across 40 active states, including SUI, SIT, local taxes, garnishments, ACA, multi-state withholding, and reciprocity rules
Oversee quarterly and year-end processing (W-2s, 941s, state filings, ACA 1095-C) and any required amendments
Partner with HR, Legal, and Finance on worker classification matters (W-2 vs. 1099) and lead remediation as needed
Lead internal and external payroll audits; maintain audit readiness year-round
Design and build proactive compliance monitoring within UKG — configuration controls, automated audit reports, and exception alerts that surface multi-state tax, classification, and wage-and-hour issues before they become liabilities
Build and maintain reporting infrastructure in UKG Pro BI, including operational dashboards and KPI metric reporting on payroll accuracy, integration health, compliance status, and headcount
Establish and enforce data integrity standards across UKG Pro and Workforce Management
Deliver reporting to HR, Finance, and business operations leaders — including dashboards that give individual business operators visibility into their own headcount, payroll, and HR metrics
Partner with the integration team on each new operating company’s UKG onboarding, ensuring data, configuration, and processes are migrated cleanly and that newly acquired employees are set up correctly for HR and payroll
Design configuration patterns that scale to 10–15 acquisitions per year without creating earnings code, pay rule, or org structure sprawl
Maintain a clean, auditable system of record as the portfolio grows