Workday Engineer - Payroll, Absence and Time Tracking

Sunrise Senior Living • West McLean, VA

5d

About The Position

When you join Sunrise Senior Living, you will be able to use your unique skills to empower residents to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Not only will you build meaningful relationships with residents, their families, and team members alike, you will also gain joy in serving others and deep fulfillment in your work. Explore how you can follow your passions and shed light on meaningful ways to serve, grow, and shine together. Sunrise Senior Living was again certified as a Great Place to Work® by Activated Insights. This is the 8th time Sunrise has received this top culture and workplace designation, highlighting the special place Sunrise is to be a part of. COMMUNITY NAME Community Support Office Job ID 2025-236489 JOB OVERVIEW The Workday Engineer serves as a technical expert for Payroll (U.S. and CA), Absence and Time Tracking. The role is responsible for designing, configuring and optimizing the Workday platform while ensuring payroll accuracy, compliance and efficient workforce processes. The position partners with Human Resources (HR), Payroll, Finance, Operations and Information Technology (IT) to translate requirements into scalable Workday solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Business Administration or related field
• 5+ years Workday configuration experience, including 3+ years with Workday Payroll, Absence and Time Tracking
• Hands-on expertise in: Payroll configuration and processing Time calculation rules Absence plans and accruals
• Strong troubleshooting skills across payroll results, retro calculations, time entry issues and absence balances
• Broad understanding of Workday business processes, eligibility rules, security and integrations
• Strong analytical and communication skills with the ability to convert requirements into technical solutions

Nice To Haves

• Workday Pro or Partner Certification in Payroll, Absence or Time Tracking
• Experience with Workday Studio, Cloud Connect or Workday Extend
• Experience with Agile delivery and sprint-based work
• Ability to build dashboards, audits and custom reports for payroll/time/absence compliance and operations
• Experience with multi-jurisdictional payroll or union-specific rules

Responsibilities

• Workday Payroll US and Canada Configure and support Payroll, including earnings, deductions, pay component related calculations, taxes, balances and payroll processing rules.
• Manage pay groups, period schedules, run categories, payroll calculations, retro processing, wage attachments, audits and payroll result validation.
• Act as subject matter expert (SME) and escalation point for payroll issues, compliance, and production troubleshooting.
• Manage quarterly/year-end activities and tax configuration reviews.
• Configure Time Tracking: time entry codes, time calculations, schedules, meal/rest rules, validations and overtime/compliance rules.
• Configure Absence: plans, accruals, time off, eligibility, carryover rules and balance calculations.
• Ensure policies comply with organizational, state/provincial and federal regulations (e.g., FMLA, sick leave, overtime).
• Troubleshoot issues related to time entry, accruals, balances and schedules.
• Design and maintain Payroll, Absence and Time Tracking business processes with routing, conditions, validations and security.
• Build and maintain data quality audits, exception handling workflows and operational monitoring.
• Provide functional operations support for payroll runs, retro events, schedule changes and time/absence processing cycles.
• Build and maintain inbound/outbound Enterprise Interface Builder (EIBs) for mass updates (time corrections, retro loads, balance loads and job changes).
• Partner with integration developers on Studio, Cloud Connect and vendor interfaces (tax agencies, benefit providers, payroll vendors and time devices).
• Troubleshoot integration errors impacting payroll, time or absence.
• Gather requirements with Payroll, HR, Benefits, Finance and IT and convert them into scalable Workday configurations.
• Recommend best practices to improve compliance, minimize risk and streamline processes.
• Participate in design reviews, regression assessments and configuration governance.
• Lead testing activities: scenario creation, execution support and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) coordination.
• Analyze Workday release notes; identify relevant changes for Payroll, Absence and Time Tracking and propose adoption.
• Document configuration decisions, workflows, year-end processes, payroll calendars and operational procedures.
• Provide knowledge transfer to Payroll, HR and Operations teams.
• Develop job aids, runbooks, troubleshooting guides and self-service documentation.
• Maintain compliance in assigned required training and all training required by state/province or other regulating authorities as applicable to this role to ensure that Sunrise standards are always met.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and Disability Plans
• Retirement Savings Plans
• Employee Assistant Program / Discount Program
• Paid time off (PTO), sick time, and holiday pay
• myFlexPay offered to get paid within hours of a shift
• Tuition Reimbursement
• In addition to base compensation, Sunrise may offer discretionary and/or non-discretionary bonuses. The eligibility to receive such a bonus will depend on the employee's position, plan/program offered by Sunrise at the time, and required performance pursuant to the plan/program.
• Some benefits have eligibility requirements

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees