Director of Payroll
The Talent Company • Ontario, Canada • Full Time
Posted on Thu, Jul 2, 2026
01st July, 2026
Our Client is hiring a Director of Payroll to provide strategic leadership and continuous improvement for payroll functions across a heavily unionized, national, multi-district, multi-business-line healthcare organization. With 30,000+ employees and approximately 700 corporate staff, payroll operations operate at scale and require a leader who can strengthen process consistency, governance, and service delivery in a complex operating environment.
Reporting into the Senior Director of Payroll , this role owns the future-state payroll strategy and drives change initiatives that improve payroll performance across distributed operations. The payroll team includes 12 total team members, with direct reporting responsibility for 2. This is a net-new role, created to raise the bar on payroll execution through continuous improvement, strong implementation leadership, and Workday payroll/HRIS expertise.
The environment also includes frequent acquisitions and integrations, making exposure to M&A dynamics a strong advantage.
What You’ll Do (Role Responsibilities)
- Lead and execute a strategic payroll roadmap, improving accuracy, timeliness, compliance, employee experience, and internal controls.
- Drive continuous process improvement and process modernization across a national, multi-entity payroll model.
- Own change management and transition strategy for payroll-related initiatives, ensuring stakeholder alignment and operational readiness.
- Provide strategic payroll support and issue leadership, resolving complex payroll challenges and ensuring operational resilience.
- Lead Workday execution and optimization, serving as a key expert for both HRIS and payroll workflows.
- Support integration activities and acquisition-related transitions (preferred), ensuring continuity and governance through change.
- Navigate payroll complexity in enterprise systems and distributed environments, including experience that may extend across common payroll ecosystems (Workday exposure preferred).
- Coach and develop the payroll team, establishing performance expectations, accountability, and scalable ways of working.
- Ensure strong implementation practices: deliverables, timelines, risk management, and measurable outcomes.
- Senior Manager / Director-level payroll leadership experience within a large, complex organization, with unionized environment experience strongly preferred.
- Expert-level Workday experience (as both an HRIS and payroll platform), with demonstrated ability to lead system/process improvement.
- Proven continuous improvement mindset with measurable results (accuracy, cycle time, compliance, efficiency, service levels).
- Strong change management and transition leadership capabilities, comfortable leading through ambiguity and operational shifts.
- Experience supporting payroll across multi-entity / national structures with distributed stakeholders.
- Acquisitions/M&A exposure preferred, including comfort supporting integrations and transition handoffs.
- Strong leadership presence, able to influence stakeholders and deliver payroll strategy through the team.
- 2–3 days per week onsite (Markham area) ** Flexible
- Compensation: $150,000–$155,000 Base Salary
- Bonus Target: 15%
- RRSP: 4% match
- Health Benefits : from Day 1
- Full Time Perm Role
JOB VACANCY STATUS
The organization is accepting applications with the intention to hire as soon as possible.
USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – BY RECRUITERS & HIRING MANAGERS
At The Talent Company, people are at the center of our recruitment process. While we may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools for limited administrative purposes (such as writing creative outreach messages, summarizing interview notes or transcribing reference checks) AI is never the decision maker. Resumes and candidate information are personally reviewed by our recruiters, and all hiring decisions are made by people who bring judgment, care, and expertise to each match. If a client’s recruitment process involves a greater degree of AI use during their own interviews or assessments, we will communicate that to short-listed candidates so they are aware in advance. Our commitment is to use technology responsibly, while ensuring fairness, transparency, and respect at every stage of the process.
USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – BY CANDIDATES
We recognize that candidates may choose to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support their job search, for example, to refine writing style or gather research. While this can be appropriate, the information you provide in your resume, screening questions, and interviews must always be truthful and accurately reflect your own experience, knowledge, and competencies. AI should never be used to create or exaggerate credentials. Our goal is to understand the real you – your skills, your story, and your potential – so that we can make the best possible match between you and the organizations we serve.
ACCOMMODATION & INCLUSIVITY At The Talent Company, we recognize the value of different perspectives and experiences in prompting innovation, sparking creativity, and solving problems. As an equal employment opportunity organization, we do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based on race, Aboriginal peoples, members of visible minorities, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, persons with disabilities and all other categories protected by law.
We are committed to Equal Opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Please let us know by emailing recruitment@thetalent.co if an adjustment or adaptation is required at any stage to support you during the recruitment journey.