Brilliantin Recruitment
EMEA Payroll Operations Manager
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EMEA Payroll Operations Manager
Salary: Up to £75,000 basic + benefits
Location: UK – Fully Remote
Permanent
A senior payroll leadership opportunity with a global payroll technology and services business
Are you an experienced payroll professional who understands that great payroll delivery is about much more than simply getting people paid correctly?
Have you combined your payroll expertise with client management, customer success, service delivery, payroll implementation, or project management?
Do you know how to take ownership when something goes wrong, manage customer escalations, and understand the wider commercial and operational impact that payroll issues can have on a client's business? If so, this could be a very interesting next step.
We are recruiting an EMEA Payroll Operations Manager for an established international payroll technology and services organisation. This is a senior operational leadership role with responsibility for delivering consistently high-quality payroll services across multiple countries, leading managers and their teams, improving operational performance, and acting as a senior escalation point for complex customer and service issues.
The role
Reporting into senior Operations leadership, you will take responsibility for the performance and continued development of the EMEA payroll delivery function.
- You'll lead and support a team of Payroll Delivery Managers, ensuring their teams provide accurate, compliant, and consistently high-quality services to customers across the region.
- Importantly, this isn't purely an internal payroll management position.
- You'll need to understand the customer's perspective, be comfortable dealing directly with clients, and be capable of taking ownership of difficult situations when service or technology issues arise.
- You'll work across Payroll, Customer Success, Technology, Finance, Payments, and other operational teams to understand problems, resolve them effectively, and make sure lessons are translated into lasting improvements.
What you'll be doing
- Leading and developing Payroll Delivery Managers and their teams across the EMEA region.
- Taking overall responsibility for the quality, accuracy, and consistency of payroll service delivery.
- Acting as a senior escalation point for complex, sensitive, or high-impact customer issues.
- Working directly with customers and internal teams to understand problems and drive them through to resolution.
- Understanding the wider business impact of payroll and technology issues, rather than viewing problems purely from a payroll processing perspective.
- Working collaboratively across Payroll Operations, Customer Success, Technology, Finance, Payments, and other business functions.
- Monitoring operational performance, KPIs, and service levels to identify risks and opportunities for improvement.
- Identifying recurring issues and addressing their root causes rather than simply resolving individual incidents.
- Driving continuous improvement across processes, systems, service quality, and the overall customer experience.
- Supporting the development of managers and future leaders within the payroll function.
- Providing effective regional governance, reporting, and operational oversight.
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These responsibilities closely reflect the original brief, particularly its emphasis on leadership, multi-country payroll delivery, customer satisfaction, senior escalation ownership, and preventative service improvement.
What we're looking for
First and foremost, you'll need a strong understanding of payroll.
You may have developed this experience running payroll internally for a large or complex organisation, working for a payroll software or managed services provider, or through a combination of both.
Alongside that payroll knowledge, we're particularly interested in people who have developed strong client-facing and technology-related experience. For example, you may have worked as a:
- Payroll Operations Manager
- Senior Payroll Manager
- Global / International Payroll Manager
- Payroll Service Delivery Manager
- Customer Success Manager within payroll technology
- Client Services Manager
- Payroll Implementation Manager / Lead
- Payroll Project or Programme Manager
- Payroll Transformation Manager
You don't necessarily need to already be doing this exact job. We're equally interested in ambitious payroll professionals who have built the right breadth of operational, customer, and leadership experience and are now ready to step up into a broader senior management position.
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We'd particularly like to hear from people who can demonstrate:
- Strong payroll operations knowledge.
- Experience within complex, international, or multi-country payroll environments would be advantageous.
- Client or customer-facing experience within payroll, HR technology, or managed services.
- Experience managing customer escalations and complex service issues.
- An understanding of payroll technology, implementations, integrations, or transformation.
- The ability to identify the root cause of operational problems and drive sustainable solutions.
- Strong stakeholder management across both technical and non-technical teams.
- An understanding of the commercial, reputational, and employee impact that payroll failures can create.
- Experience using operational data, KPIs, and service metrics to improve performance.
- Leadership experience and the ability to develop other managers and team members.
- A genuine customer-service mentality alongside strong operational discipline.
The original specification particularly emphasises candidates who can handle complexity, use data to improve performance, build trust with clients and partners, and continuously improve how services operate.
Why consider this opportunity?
This is an opportunity to join an established international business operating at the intersection of payroll, technology, and professional services. You'll have the opportunity to influence how payroll services are delivered across EMEA, develop managers and teams, improve the customer experience, and play a significant role in the continued evolution of the operation.
For somebody currently working in payroll operations, service delivery, customer success, or payroll implementation who is ready for broader responsibility, this represents a genuine opportunity to move into a senior regional leadership position.
Salary: Up to £75,000 basic salary + benefits
Location: Fully remote – candidates must be based in the UK
Role: Permanent, full-time
Interested? Apply today or get in touch for a confidential conversation about the role, the organisation, and what they're looking to achieve.
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