Director of Payroll

Role : Workday Payroll Director

Location: Long Island City, New York

Work Arrangement: Hybrid

Employment Type: Contract to Hire

Position Overview

Our client is seeking an experienced Workday Payroll Director to play a key leadership role in a Workday implementation while building the companys long-term internal Workday expertise. This is a hands-on position for a seasoned Workday professional who can bridge HRIS, payroll, and business operations.

The ideal candidate has significant Workday HCM experience, has participated in multiple implementations or go-lives, and is comfortable owning configuration, business processes, reporting, security administration, testing, and ongoing platform optimization. This individual will partner closely with HR and payroll functional leaders to translate business requirements into effective Workday solutions.

The environment includes a complex, weekly payroll and union workforce, making strong payroll knowledge highly valuable. Following go-live, this person will help transition Workday knowledge in-house and serve as a key internal subject-matter expert for the platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior internal Workday subject-matter expert, supporting implementation, go-live, stabilization, and ongoing administration.
• Own hands-on Workday administration and configuration in partnership with HR and payroll functional leaders.
• Support Workday HCM, payroll, time and attendance, absence, and related HR processes.
• Configure and maintain business processes, workflows, reports, security roles, and user access.
• Translate HR and payroll business requirements into scalable Workday configurations and system solutions.
• Partner closely with payroll leadership to ensure Workday processes effectively support a complex, high-volume payroll environment.
• Participate in implementation activities, including requirements gathering, testing, UAT, issue resolution, data validation, and knowledge transfer.
• Help prepare the organization and internal teams for Workday go-live and post-implementation stabilization.
• Manage testing and system impact associated with ongoing Workday releases and updates.
• Identify opportunities to improve workflows, reporting, controls, and system functionality as the organization matures on Workday.
• Coordinate with external implementation partners or technical resources when issues require deeper Workday engineering, integration, or architecture expertise.
• Train and develop internal HR and payroll users, helping transition Workday knowledge and ownership into the organization.

Required Qualifications

• Significant hands-on Workday experience, with exposure to multiple implementations, deployments, or go-lives strongly preferred.
• Strong working knowledge of Workday HCM.
• Demonstrated experience with Workday configuration, business processes, reporting, security, and system administration.
• Solid understanding of payroll processes and the ability to operate effectively within a complex payroll environment.
• Experience participating in implementation testing, UAT, troubleshooting, go-live support, and post-launch optimization.
• Ability to partner directly with HR and payroll leaders, understand functional requirements, and translate those requirements into Workday solutions.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to work both strategically and hands-on.
• Ability to operate as an internal Workday SME rather than relying solely on outside implementation partners.

Highly Preferred

• Hands-on Workday Payroll experience.
• Workday Time & Attendance experience.
• Experience supporting weekly payroll cycles.
• Experience working in a unionized workforce environment.
• Experience with both sides of the Workday lifecycle: implementation/go-live and ongoing administration after deployment.
• Experience helping organizations transition Workday knowledge from implementation consultants to an internal HRIS/payroll team.