Payroll & Benefits Officer

**Purpose****:
The Payroll and Benefits Officer is responsible for ensuring the accurate and timely processing of payroll and the effective administration of employee benefits. This role supports compliance with all statutory requirements, maintains employee records, and acts as a point of contact for payroll and benefits queries.

**Responsibilities & Accountabilities**:
**Payroll Management**
- Manage the monthly payroll cycle across the group of companies, ensuring accuracy and timeliness.
- Administer all payroll-related changes including:

- Maintain and update payroll records, including starters, leavers, salary changes, deductions, and overtime.
- Contractual amendments (e.g. promotions, salary changes)
- Statutory leave (maternity, paternity, shared parental leave, adoption leave)
- Sick pay and other statutory entitlements
- Submit employee payroll payments to the bank
- Ensure compliance with HMRC regulations, including PAYE, NI, and pension contributions.
- Submit accurate and timely reports to HMRC (FPS, EPS) and Pension providers (maintenance files, contribution files)
- Administer year-end processes such as P60s, P11Ds.
- Reconcile payroll reports and resolve discrepancies.
- Liaise with Finance to ensure accurate posting of payroll costs.
- Produce regular reports on payroll and benefits costs for management.
- Support internal and external audits, providing required documentation.
- Contribute to the improvement of payroll and benefits processes and systems

**Benefits Administration**
- Manage and update employee benefits schemes including:

- Private health insurance
- Electric Vehicle (EV) salary sacrifice scheme
- Pension scheme administration and auto-enrolment compliance
- Cycle to Work scheme and other voluntary benefits
- Liaise with external providers to ensure smooth operation and renewal of benefits.

**Process & Policy Management**
- Develop, document, and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) for payroll and benefits processes.
- Ensure all payroll and benefits policies are up to date and compliant with UK employment law.
- Support internal audits and ensure data integrity and confidentiality.

**Stakeholder Engagement**
- Act as the primary point of contact for payroll and benefits-related queries from employees, managers, and external providers.
- Collaborate closely with the People team to ensure alignment on employee lifecycle events.
- Provide payroll data and reports to Finance and HR teams as required.

**Compliance & Risk**
- Ensure GDPR compliance in handling employee data.
- Keep up to date with changes in payroll legislation and employment law.
- Support with internal and external audits, including pension and HMRC audits.

**Continuous Improvement & Development**
- Participate in regular training and professional development to maintain and enhance payroll and benefits expertise.
- Identify opportunities for process improvement and automation.

**General Duties**
- Assist with ad-hoc payroll and benefits tasks as required.
- Adhere to all company policies, procedures, and working practices.
- Promote and ensure health and safety compliance in all activities.
- Undertake any other reasonable duties as required by management.

**Person Specification, Competencies & Skills**:
**Behaviours**:

- Consistently professional, confident, and calm even in challenging situations.
- Demonstrate a customer focused approach; and an expectation of others to do likewise.
- Supportive and helpful team player with a flexible and positive attitude.
- Proactively share knowledge, skills, and experience with others to increase team performance.
- Deliver a high volume of quality work on time.
- Strive to get things right first time.
- Strive to meet objectives and improve performance.
- Highly organised with good attention to detail
- Prioritise work well.
- Work effectively and responsibly without close supervision.
- Reflect and evaluate own performance in order to identify areas for improvement; maintain a learning and development plan.

**Communication & Interpersonal Skills**:

- Articulate, professional and clear verbal communication skills.
- Present information clearly and in an engaging way.
- Good interpersonal and rapport-building abilities.
- Precise and appropriate written communication skills.
- Good telephone manner
- Good listener; can understand the needs of customers and colleagues.

**Technical Skills & Knowledge**
- Ideally CPP level 3 qualified or similar or QBE
- Strong problem-solving and analytical abilities
- Keep up to date with advances in business area, new methods and ways of working.
- Strong administrative and organisational skills.
- Intermediate knowledge of Excel, Word and Outlook
- Knowledge of Sage payroll and Cezanne HR systems is desirable
- Confident and accurate use of departmental computer systems/databases.

**_ Group are an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to a working environment that is free from all types of discrimina