This manager is accountable for team performance, capacity planning, operational KPIs, and continuous improvement across the payroll data implementation lifecycle. They partner with Payroll Operations, Tax/Compliance, Implementation, Sales, Customer Success, Support, ACH/Payments, Finance, Product, Engineering, and other cross-functional leaders to reduce defects, improve first-payroll outcomes, and establish clear ownership from intake through steady-state operations. The role owns data implementation outcomes and standards while partnering with Tax/Compliance on technical tax determinations, filings, notices, amendments, and jurisdiction-specific requirements. The ideal candidate combines people leadership, strong payroll/implementation expertise, and a process, controls, and automation mindset.
Responsibilities
Strategic & Operational Leadership
Define and own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Payroll Data Implementation function across payroll products sold and supported by R365, aligned with broader Payroll Operations and company objectives.
Translate strategic goals—such as time-to-first-payroll, first-pass data accuracy, on-time delivery, rework and defect reduction, post-go-live stabilization, and tax-impacting data quality—into actionable plans, metrics, and processes for the team.
Establish, track, and continuously refine KPIs and service-level measures for data accuracy, implementation velocity, capacity and throughput, readiness, rework, and client outcomes; use reporting to guide demand forecasting, capacity planning, staffing recommendations, prioritization, and work allocation.
Represent Payroll Data Implementation in cross-functional forums with Payroll Operations, Tax/Compliance, Implementation, Sales, Customer Success, Support, ACH/Payments, Finance, Product, Engineering, and other relevant leaders.
Team Management & Development
Hire, lead, and develop a high-performing team of Payroll Data Implementation Specialists, including planning for succession, cross-training, and backup coverage.
Provide regular coaching, feedback, and performance reviews, supporting both technical skill growth in payroll, data, tools, and controls and soft skills such as client communication, ownership, judgment, and escalation management.
Build and maintain a culture of quality, accountability, control awareness, and continuous improvement, emphasizing accurate data, clear ownership, and appropriate risk escalation.
Create and maintain clear career paths and development plans for team members, including training on R365 and other payroll products offered by R365, payroll concepts, data validation, implementation controls, and automation tools.
Ownership of Payroll Data Onboarding & Quality
Oversee the team’s end-to-end execution of payroll data implementation, including data gathering, payroll due diligence, extraction, translation, mapping, transformation, validation, internal parallel payroll reviews, first-payroll readiness, and post-go-live stabilization and handoff.
Ensure the team owns the completeness, accuracy, validation, documentation, and disposition of payroll data and configuration within implementation scope, including manually entered or configured elements that affect payroll calculations, tax setup, reporting, and downstream filing readiness.
Define and maintain lifecycle RACI, readiness gates, definitions of done, approval boundaries, and escalation paths across Data, Implementation, Payroll Operations, Tax/Compliance, ACH/Payments, Finance, Product, Engineering, and other partner teams.
Review and refine standard operating procedures, playbooks, and checklists for data entry, validation, parallel payroll, first-payroll readiness, and handoff to ensure consistency and scalability. Serve as the functional escalation point for complex data, configuration, or implementation issues, partnering with the accountable technical owner when an issue falls outside Data Implementation’s authority.
Data Accuracy, Tax Readiness & Risk Management
Design and enforce data-quality and validation frameworks—including checks, exception reporting, sampling, evidence requirements, and disposition standards—that reduce onboarding defects, rework, and downstream payroll or tax-related issues.
Partner with Tax/Compliance to ensure onboarding practices support accurate tax setup, payroll reporting, and filing readiness across relevant jurisdictions; Tax/Compliance retains ownership of technical tax determinations, filings, notices, amendments, and related execution.
Drive root-cause analysis for recurring data, configuration, payroll, or tax-impacting issues and implement systemic fixes across process, training, tooling, or product design to prevent recurrence.
Ensure that internal parallel payroll reviews and first-payroll readiness reviews are conducted effectively, with clear documentation, remediation plans, approvals, and sign-offs before go-live. Monitor post-go-live defects and data fixes and feed lessons learned back into implementation standards.
Process Optimization, Tooling & Automation
Identify opportunities to streamline and automate data onboarding workflows using reusable templates, macros, workflow automation, rules-based checks, and other appropriate tools.
Partner with Product, Engineering, Payroll Operations, and other stakeholders to advocate for product and tooling enhancements that improve data quality, control effectiveness, visibility, and scalability while reducing manual work.
Lead or sponsor special projects aimed at improving onboarding throughput, accuracy, reporting, visibility, capacity, and operational resilience, such as dashboards, standardized checklists, playbooks, process maps, and lifecycle improvements.
Maintain auditable, version-controlled sources of truth for implementation workflows, templates, validation frameworks, controls, and reporting; use automation and knowledge-management tools to improve documentation, discovery, and workflow efficiency.
Leverage AI tools (e.g., Glean) and other internal platforms to enhance documentation, knowledge discovery, and workflow efficiency.
Build and scale repeatable AI workflows and automations across your team using approved tools. Coach team members to choose the right tool, refine their prompts, and review outputs for quality. Share successful practices, demonstrate measurable gains, and hold the team accountable for using AI in their work and meeting quality standards.
Stakeholder Management & Cross-Functional Collaboration
Act as the functional owner and escalation point for data onboarding with stakeholders in Payroll Operations, Implementation, Tax/Compliance, Sales, Customer Success, Support, ACH/Payments, Finance, Product, Engineering, Billing, and other partner functions.
Align implementation practices with downstream operational needs, including payroll processing, tax setup and reporting, filing readiness, ACH and funding workflows, finance and billing processes, support handoff, and ongoing operational ownership.
Communicate progress, risks, capacity, dependencies, and outcomes to leadership through regular updates and reporting, highlighting trends, control gaps, and improvement opportunities.
Collaborate with the broader Payroll Operations leadership team and cross-functional partners to ensure a seamless client journey from sales and intake through due diligence, implementation, first payroll, stabilization, ongoing operations, and relevant lifecycle transitions.
Documentation, Standards & Knowledge Management
Own the creation and ongoing refinement of implementation playbooks, data templates, validation frameworks, readiness criteria, lifecycle maps, RACI documentation, and SOPs for Payroll Data Implementation.
Ensure that knowledge from escalations, defects, tax-impacting data issues, and post-go-live lessons is captured, standardized, and shared across the team and relevant stakeholders.
- Champion consistent documentation and version-control practices so that processes, controls, decision rights, and evidence remain current, auditable, and scalable.
- Qualifications
- Proven leadership experience managing implementation, payroll operations, data, or similarly specialized teams, with a track record of delivering measurable business outcomes.
Strong hands-on experience with payroll systems, payroll data migration, implementation controls, and data validation, ideally in a SaaS, multi-tenant, or multi-product environment.
Working knowledge of payroll tax concepts—such as work versus resident state, SUTA, local taxes, and historical tax balances—and how onboarding data affects payroll calculations, tax setup, reporting, filing readiness, and corrections. Understands the boundary between data implementation responsibilities and technical tax filing execution.
Demonstrated ability to define and manage KPIs and service levels, analyze performance and capacity data, and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
Advanced project, change, and operating-model management skills, including prioritization, capacity planning, risk management, control design, and communication across multiple stakeholders.
Experience with automation tools such as Power Automate, VBA, macros, workflow platforms, rules-based checks, AI-enabled tools (e.g., Glean), and/or or other automation and knowledge-management tools used to streamline and scale workflows.
Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across operational, technical, customer-facing, and executive audiences.
High degree of ownership, judgment, and problem-solving ability, especially in ambiguous or fast-changing environments with complex handoffs and competing priorities.
Eagerness to use AI in your daily work and to bring your team along, backed by hands-on experience, a good sense of what generative AI can and can't do, and the judgment to verify its outputs. A track record of building AI skills in others and making AI part of how a team gets work done. R365 Team Member Benefits & Compensation This position has a salary range of $96,400 - $144,600.
The above range represents the expected salary range for this position. The actual salary may vary based upon several factors, including, but not limited to, relevant skills/experience, time in the role, business line, and geographic location. Restaurant365 focuses on equitable pay for our team and aims for transparency with our pay practices.
Comprehensive medical benefits, 100% paid for employee
401k + matching
Equity Option Grant
Unlimited PTO + Company holidays
Wellness initiatives
