Temporary Payroll Operations Assistant / Payroll Coordinator

Houlihan Lokey•Los Angeles, CA

About The Position

Houlihan Lokey, Inc. (NYSE:HLI) is a leading global investment bank recognized for delivering independent strategic and financial advice to corporations, financial sponsors, and governments. With uniquely deep industry expertise, broad international reach, and a partnership approach rooted in trust, the firm provides innovative, integrated solutions across mergers and acquisitions, capital solutions, financial restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory. Our unmatched transaction volumes provide differentiated, data-driven perspectives that help our clients achieve their most critical goals. To learn more about Houlihan Lokey, please visit HL.com. We are seeking an Interim / Temporary Payroll Assistant to provide immediate operational support for our US payroll team. This contractor role is focused on high-volume ticket resolution, basic data entry, new-hire setups, and transactional administrative tasks to ensure seamless day-to-day payroll execution.

Requirements

1–3 years of hands-on US payroll, HR operations, or data entry experience in a fast-paced environment.
Prior working exposure to Workday (or similar enterprise HRIS) and ServiceNow (or similar ticketing platform) is strongly preferred for immediate ramp-up.
Solid working knowledge of Microsoft Excel (data filtering, formatting, basic VLOOKUPs).
Self-starter capable of executing structured workflows with minimal supervision, meeting strict daily cutoffs, and handling confidential employee data with discretion.

Responsibilities

Triage and action daily incoming payroll tickets in ServiceNow, providing standard tier-1 answers and escalating complex policy/tax cases to full-time staff.
Populate and format standard Workday EIB templates for routine ad-hoc earnings, deductions, and adjustments based on daily cutoff deadlines.
Execute assigned batch updates and data entry with high accuracy.
Audit incoming new hire profiles for complete tax forms, verified addresses, and valid direct deposit details.
Conduct direct outreach to employees regarding ACH returns / Notices of Change (NOC) to correct banking records quickly.
Execute standard payroll checklist items for employee status changes and Leaves of Absence (LOA).
Collect and organize supporting documentation from Benefits partners for retroactive adjustments.
Route time-sensitive Payroll Change Notices (PCNs) (e.g., final pay, urgent off-cycles) to designated senior leads.
Pull routine reports and assemble audit backup files as requested by the payroll lead.