Sr. Workday Payroll Systems Analyst

Jackson Healthcare•Alpharetta, GA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Jackson Healthcare and its family of companies provide healthcare systems, hospitals, and medical facilities with skilled labor and technologies. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, the company employs over 2,600 associates and over 20,000 clinician providers across the U.S. Their mission is to improve patient care and the lives of everyone they touch. The Sr. Workday Payroll Systems Analyst is a senior-level role responsible for leading multiple Workday Payroll implementations, onboarding, and transitioning companies within a multi-company payroll structure. This role partners with the Senior Director, Payroll, and is accountable for solution design, configuration, data conversion, testing, and go-live execution within the Workday tenant. The analyst applies deep payroll knowledge, compliance expertise, and operational judgment to ensure accurate and sustainable integration of payroll requirements, aligning with existing Workday payroll design standards. This individual also serves as a senior resource for payroll systems, guiding payroll operations staff and contributing to team development.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field required; equivalent combination of education and experience considered.
7+ years of experience in payroll operations, payroll systems, or Workday implementation.
Hands-on Workday Payroll configuration experience.
Multi-company, multi-state payroll experience.
Experience leading or significantly contributing to payroll system implementations, including data conversion and parallel testing.
Above-average proficiency in Microsoft Excel and the Microsoft Office 365 suite.
Deep payroll operations knowledge that informs sound system design.
Ability to apply payroll judgment to system design decisions, balancing compliance, accuracy, scalability, and long-term sustainability.
Strong Workday EIB and reconciliation skills; working knowledge of payroll-to-general-ledger mapping and costing.
Ability to author and execute requirements-based payroll test scripts and to lead parallel testing and regression testing following releases or configuration changes.
Familiarity with Workday Payroll processing, pay components, period schedules, run categories, and payroll business processes (proficiency required).
Adaptability: Ability to embrace change and shift focus when unexpected work arises across multiple simultaneous implementations.
Leadership: Ability to informally lead, coach, or mentor others in a team setting, with an interest in growing into a formal leadership role.
Time Management: Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced implementation environment with strong discernment on where to focus for maximum impact.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with high attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; dependable, reliable, honest, and respectful of others while maintaining the highest levels of confidentiality.
Strong partnership and cross-functional collaboration skills across Payroll, HR, Benefits, Finance, and IT.
Advanced Excel proficiency.

Nice To Haves

Workday Payroll certification preferred.
Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) preferred.
Experience implementing payroll into an existing Workday tenant.
Experience with UKG Pro (UltiPro), ADP, Ceridian, or similar systems.
Experience with multi-company or multi-EIN payroll structures.
Experience supporting or managing payroll operations during and after system transitions.

Responsibilities

Leads end-to-end Workday Payroll implementations, including discovery, design, configuration, testing, and go-live support for multiple companies transitioning from UKG into an established Workday environment.
Conducts current-state assessments of legacy UKG payroll processes, configurations, and data, and reviews existing Workday Payroll tenant configuration to align new requirements with established design standards.
Recommends and executes Workday Payroll solutions balancing compliance, accuracy, scalability, and sustainability through hands-on configuration of earnings, deductions, taxes, balances, retro calculations, and year-end processing.
Leads payroll-owned Workday Timekeeping implementation, ensuring accurate time-to-pay integration.
Extracts, transforms, validates, and loads payroll data using Workday EIBs, performing pre- and post-load data integrity checks and reconciliations.
Leads unit, integration, and parallel payroll testing with reconciliation and variance analysis; identifies discrepancies and partners with stakeholders to resolve issues.
Owns post-go-live stabilization and continued system optimization, including hyper-care issue triage and root cause analysis.
Partners with the Senior Director, Payroll to identify opportunities for process improvement and configuration optimization across the Workday tenant.
Contributes to payroll calendar planning, compliance monitoring, and year-end readiness across all operating companies.
Maintains working knowledge of federal, state, and local payroll tax laws, FLSA, wage garnishment, and benefits-related compliance requirements, applying them to system design and operational decisions.
Leads cross-functional collaboration with Payroll, Benefits, HRIS, Finance, and IT teams to ensure seamless coordination of payroll inputs and outputs.
Communicates with employees, managers, HR, Benefits, and operating company stakeholders to research and resolve payroll inquiries with accuracy and efficiency.
Serves as a subject matter expert on Workday Payroll configuration and design standards, providing guidance to payroll operations staff.
Mentors junior payroll systems staff and contributes to team knowledge-sharing and documentation standards.
Maintains thorough implementation documentation including design specifications, test plans, processing guides, and lessons-learned summaries, upholding strict data confidentiality standards.
Conducts job duties in accordance with the Corporate Values and Culture: Others First | Wisdom | Growth.
Identifies and recommends opportunities to streamline and optimize payroll processes through Workday automation and adoption of underutilized platform capabilities.
Reviews Workday bi-annual release notes for payroll impact, performs sandbox testing of new features, and recommends adoption of applicable enhancements.
Contributes to the development and maintenance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and processing checklists on an ongoing basis.
May support payroll tax filing, reconciliation, and year-end activities (including W-2 and W-2c processing) as needed.
May assist with Workday Time Tracking or Absence inputs as they relate to payroll calculations.
May support new company and pay group setups within Workday Payroll.
May work on special projects or other duties as assigned.