Manager – Client Service/Payroll - Your Payroll Department

Kaizen CPAs + Advisors • Antioch, IL

5d • $75,000 - $85,000

About The Position

Are you passionate about developing people and building strong teams? Do you thrive in creating clarity, supporting growth, and keeping others energized and motivated? We’re looking for a Manager to join our growing firm and help lead our nine-member payroll department. In this newly redesigned role, you’ll focus on the people side of leadership—providing coaching, training, and clear communication to ensure our payroll team thrives. You’ll hold regular 1:1s, coordinate workflow, and be the first point of contact for staff support and development. Partnering closely with our Director of Payroll, who leads technical operations, you’ll bring balance to the department by keeping the team aligned, engaged, and growing. You’ll also serve as a key communicator with clients and vendors, ensuring positive relationships and smooth collaboration.

Requirements

• Proven experience in people leadership; strong track record of mentoring, coaching, and developing staff
• Commitment to delivering exceptional client service, with a strong desire to consistently exceed expectations and hold others accountable to the same standards
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to convey complex information clearly
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate workflows in a deadline-driven environment
• Solid organizational skills and the ability to keep the team focused under pressure
• Highly adaptable to change and a strong desire to progress technologically
• Ability to build and maintain strong relationships with internal teams (including accounting), clients, and vendors, while effectively communicating with stakeholders at all organizational levels—from entry-level staff to C-suite executives.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor's degree in business, accounting, HR, or related field; or
• 3–5+ years in payroll, accounting, or operations management
• Previous experience managing a multi-faceted payroll operations team
• Experience with isolved payroll platform
• CPP (Certified Payroll Professional) designation or pursuit of certification
• Experience with EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) tools and practices
• Familiarity with payroll tax laws and multi-state compliance requirements

Responsibilities

• Provide day-to-day leadership, coaching, and support for payroll team members
• Monitor and coordinate team workflow to ensure timely and accurate payroll delivery
• Interview, select, and train new employees
• Foster open communication and collaboration across the department
• Support a culture of accountability, development, and continuous improvement
• Perform monthly one-on-one meetings and quarterly conversations with all team members to guide performance, address challenges, and celebrate wins
• Serve as the first point of contact for client and vendor communication, ensuring issues are addressed promptly and relationships stay strong
• Hold a seat on the payroll leadership team—meeting weekly in an EOS L10—to partner with the Director of Payroll and COO on departmental goals and initiatives
• Oversee the daily processing workflow to ensure all payrolls are processed, taxes are paid, bank accounts are reconciled, ACH file sent, and package fulfillment timely and accurately completed
• Work with vendors to resolve issues and reconcile vendor invoices
• Process voids, client corrections, service bureau corrections and supplemental runs
• Manage the YPD calendar so that all daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual processes are timely and accurately completed
• Create technical solutions to resolve payroll issues that arise with processing software and related technology
• Conduct weekly team meetings to address operations related issues/goals ensuring that the agenda and meeting minutes are memorialized
• Oversee client communications via isolved or Qount, cover letter notes, and email tag lines
• Ensure adequate staffing to complete daily processing/tax & finance needs
• Research payroll law related issues
• Assist in setting up new clients when needed
• Perform and analyze internal payroll processing audits
• Handle the daily Tax/Finance/ACH functions as backup when Tax Specialist is out
• Approve draw-down requests with banking institutions
• Approve/deny vacation requests; maintain minimal staffing needs

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability and Life Insurance
• Cafeteria/Section 125 Plan
• Retirement/401(k): Employer match with 100% vesting on day one of eligibility
• Paid Vacation: Starting at 2 weeks, available for use from day one
• Paid Personal Time (PTO): 32 hours available to use from day one
• Paid Holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve (if it falls during the work week), and Christmas Day

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees