Senior Payroll Project Analyst

Job Title: Payroll Processor Senior

Location: System Business Office

Department Name: Payroll

Req #: 0000240947

Status: Salaried

Shift: Day

Pay Range: $107,990.00 - $140,387.00 per year

Pay Transparency:

The above reflects the anticipated annual salary range for this position if hired to work in New Jersey.

The compensation offered to the candidate selected for the position will depend on several factors, including the candidate's educational background, skills and professional experience.

Payroll Project Analyst

The Payroll Project Analyst plays a critical role in supporting enterprise-wide payroll initiatives across the RWJ Barnabas Health system.

This position partners closely with Payroll Operations, HRIS, Time & Labor, Finance, and IT to support complex payroll projects, system enhancements, process improvements, and regulatory initiatives.

The ideal candidate has strong hands-on UKG expertise, understands payroll end-to-end in a healthcare environment, and can translate detailed project discussions and data into clear, actionable insights for leadership.

This role serves as a key bridge between operational payroll teams and executive stakeholders, ensuring projects remain on track, risks are surfaced early, and decisions are informed by accurate data.

Key Responsibilities

• Support enterprise payroll projects including system enhancements, integrations, acquisitions, process standardization, pay group consolidation, and compliance initiatives.
• Participate in and support cross-functional project meetings, capturing requirements, decisions, risks, and action items.
• Track project timelines, deliverables, dependencies, and impacts to payroll operations
• Identify downstream payroll impacts related to Time & Labor, HR, Benefits, Tax, and Finance changes

Serve as a subject matter expert in UKG (UKG Pro and/or UKG Workforce Management), with deep understanding of:

• Earnings, deductions, accumulators, and retroactivity
• Payroll processing and pay group configuration
• Timekeeping rules, pay policies, and integrations
• Reporting, BI, and data validation

Partner with HRIS and vendors to support testing, configuration reviews, and payroll parallel runs.

Validate system changes to ensure accuracy, compliance, and operational readiness.

Analyze payroll and project-related data to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.

Translate complex payroll and system data into clear summaries, dashboards, and executive-level updates.

Prepare materials for leadership, including:

• Project status reports
• Risk and impact assessments
• Decision support summaries

Clearly escalate issues and recommendations with appropriate context and supporting data.

Ensure payroll projects align with established controls, compliance requirements, and audit standards.

Support documentation of current-state and future-state processes.

Assist in developing standardized project templates, SOPs, and communication artifacts.

Partner with Payroll Operations to ensure smooth handoffs from project implementation to steady-state processing.

Other Duties as assigned including functional payroll responsibilities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor s degree in Business, Accounting, Finance, HR, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 7+ years of payroll experience, preferably in a large, complex organization (healthcare strongly preferred)
• Strong UKG experience (UKG Pro and/or UKG WFM required)
• Demonstrated experience supporting payroll projects or system initiatives
• Strong understanding of payroll compliance, controls, and downstream financial impacts
• Advanced Excel and reporting skills; experience with dashboards or BI tools a plus
• Exceptional written and verbal communication, especially with executive audiences
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, regulated environment
• Detail-oriented with a strong control mindset
• Ability to influence and collaborate across functions without direct authority

Benefits and Perks:

At RWJBarnabas Health, our employees are at the heart of everything we do. Driven by our Total Wellbeing promise, our market-competitive offerings include comprehensive benefits and resources to support our employees’ physical, emotional, financial, personal, career, and community wellbeing. These benefits and resources include, but are not limited to:

Paid Time Off including Vacation, Holidays, and Sick Time
Retirement Plans
Medical and Prescription Drug Insurance
Dental and Vision Insurance
Disability and Life Insurance
Paid Parental Leave
Tuition Reimbursement
Student Loan Planning Support
Flexible Spending Accounts
Wellness Programs
Voluntary Benefits (e.g., Pet Insurance)
Community and Volunteer Opportunities
Discounts Through our Partners such as NJ Devils, NJ PAC, and Verizon
….and more!

Choosing RWJBarnabas Health!

RWJBarnabas Health is the premier health care destination providing patient-centered, high-quality academic medicine in a compassionate and equitable manner, while delivering a best-in-class work experience to every member of the team. We honor and appreciate the privilege of creating and sustaining healthier communities, one person and one community at a time. As the leading academic health system in New Jersey, we advance innovative strategies in high-quality patient care, education, and research to address both the clinical and social determinants of health.

RWJBarnabas Health aims to truly make a unique impact in local communities throughout New Jersey. From vastly improving the health of local residents to creating educational and career opportunities, this combination greatly benefits the state. We understand the growing and evolving needs of residents in New Jersey—whether that be enhancing the coordination for treating complex health conditions or improving community health through local programs and education.

Equal Opportunity Employer
#LI-SK1

At RWJBarnabas Health, our market-competitive Total Rewards package provides comprehensive benefits and resources to support our employees physical, emotional, social, and financial health.

• Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Medical and Prescription Drug Insurance
• Dental and Vision Insurance
• Retirement Plans
• Short & Long Term Disability
• Life & Accidental Death Insurance
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Health Care/Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Wellness Programs
• Voluntary Benefits (e.g., Pet Insurance)
• Discounts Through our Partners such as NJ Devils, NJ PAC, Verizon, and more!

RWJBarnabas Health is an Equal Opportunity Employer