Director, Global Payroll

Reporting to the Vice President, Corporate Controller & CAO, the Director of Payroll leads payroll strategy, operations, compliance, accounting, technology, and service delivery across North America, while providing governance and oversight for payroll activities in other global locations. The role oversees multiple legal entities and pay frequencies, supervises four direct reports in the United States, and partners closely with Human Resources, Finance, Accounting, Tax, Legal, Internal Audit, IT, and business leaders.

The position supports a geographically dispersed employee population that includes hourly and salaried employees across manufacturing, distribution, and corporate locations. The Director is accountable for establishing a scalable payroll operating model that balances centralized governance with local legal, operational, and employee-service requirements.

Accountable for payroll accuracy and timeliness, the Director maintains effective controls, oversees vendors, supports acquisitions and system changes, and advances continuous improvement. The Company currently uses ADP Vantage as its HRIS and payroll platform. Required hands-on Workday Payroll experience will support evaluation, design, testing, and implementation of the future payroll technology and operating model.

Essential Functions of the Job:

Payroll Operations and Compliance

• Lead accurate, timely, and compliant payroll processing across U.S. and Canadian legal entities and pay cycles.

• Establish payroll calendars, service standards, controls, reconciliations, and approval processes; resolve exceptions and maintainappropriate segregation of duties.

• Ensure compliance with applicable federal, state, local, and Canadian payroll, wage-and-hour, tax, garnishment, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements.

• Direct quarterly and year-end activities, including Forms 940, 941, W-2, W-3, Canadian T4 reporting, tax filings, amendments, and agency notices.

• Administer payroll impacts for executive compensation, nonqualified deferred compensation, supplemental retirement plans, equity awards, profit-sharing programs, bonuses, and taxable fringe benefits.

• Oversee time and attendance processes, paid-time-off balances, payroll deductions, garnishments, and year-end accrual adjustments for U.S. operations.

• Manage state and local tax and unemployment registrations, agency correspondence, and compliance activities for new and existing jurisdictions.

Accounting, Controls, and Audit

• Oversee payroll accounting, including funding, general ledger entries, accruals, reconciliations, variance analysis, and period-end reporting.

• Review and approve payroll funding, vendor invoices, tax payments, relocation payments, and other payroll-related disbursements within delegated authority.

• Serve as the primary payroll contact for internal and external auditors and coordinate timely, accurate responses to audit and control inquiries.

• Maintain payroll policies, procedures, process maps, controls, and business-continuity documentation; ensure materials remain current and audit-ready.

• Develop, test, and maintain payroll business-continuity and disaster-recovery procedures, including backup processing, funding contingencies, critical-system outages, and timely escalation of events that could affect employee pay.

• Protect confidential employee and payroll data by following privacy, cybersecurity, access-control, and records-retention requirements.

• Lead the investigation and resolution of material payroll errors, overpayments, underpayments, tax failures, and control breakdowns; determine root causes, communicate impacts to appropriate stakeholders, and implement sustainable corrective actions.

Systems, Transformation, and Data

• Own payroll configuration, testing, issue resolution, data integrity, security coordination, and process governance within ADP Vantage, the current HRIS and payroll platform.

• Apply Workday Payroll experience to evaluate future-state processes, support integrations and testing, and contribute to system transformation initiatives.

• Lead payroll-related integrations, acquisitions, divestitures, implementations, upgrades, and other cross-functional projects from requirements through stabilization.

• Develop dashboards and operating metrics that provide leadership with insight into payroll accuracy, timeliness, controls, compliance, service levels, and continuous-improvement priorities.

Global Governance and Vendor Management

• Establish and maintain a global payroll governance framework, including minimum control standards, defined ownership, compliance monitoring, vendor oversight, and consistent reporting across countries. Coordinate with local Human Resources, Finance, and third-party payroll providers to identify risks, resolve escalated issues, and improve the consistency of payroll delivery outside North America.

• Manage payroll vendors and third-party service providers, monitor service levels, resolve escalated issues, and identify opportunities to improve quality, efficiency, and cost.

• Partner with benefits and retirement-plan vendors on payroll interfaces, funding, reconciliations, testing, and compliance matters, including 401(k) administration.

Team Leadership and Employee Service

• Supervise, coach, and develop direct and indirect reports; establish clear goals, balance workloads, build team capability, and promote accountability and succession readiness.

• Define and monitor payroll service-delivery standards, including inquiry response times, case aging, first-contact resolution, recurring issue trends, and employee experience; use the results to improve service quality and stakeholder confidence.

• Act as an escalation point for complex payroll matters and communicate clearly with employees, leaders, Human Resources, Finance, and external providers.

• Perform other duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills , and Abilities ( KSAs ):

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Advanced knowledge of U.S. multi-state payroll operations, payroll accounting, internal controls, and federal, state, and local payroll tax requirements.

• Hands-on experience administering ADP payroll products, including payroll processing, reporting, configuration, integrations, data validation, and vendor issue resolution.

• Experience leading payroll in a complex, multi-entity environment.

• Public-company experience and familiarity with SOX controls.

• Strong people-leadership skills, with demonstrated success coaching payroll professionals, setting priorities, managing performance, and building collaborative teams.

• Demonstrated success building and scaling payroll organizations and operating models by simplifying and standardizing processes, leveraging automation, and reducing manual work where system or process changes are warranted.

• Ability to translate payroll requirements into clear processes, system specifications, test plans, controls, and stakeholder communications.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with proficiency in Microsoft Excel and experience using payroll reports, reconciliations, metrics, and data to drive decisions.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to build trusted relationships across Human Resources, Finance, Accounting, Tax, Legal, Audit, IT, business operations, and external partners.

• Proven ability to lead complex projects, manage organizational change, and deliver accurate results under firm deadlines.

• Ability to work additional or nonstandard hours during payroll deadlines, quarter-end, year-end, system implementations, audits, or other peak periods.

• Demonstrated ability to exhibit and model Alamo Group’s Core Leadership Competencies, including leading change, leading people, communication, business acumen, and results orientation.

Preferred Knowledge

• Knowledge of Canadian payroll operations and requirements.

Education and Experience:

Required Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.

• At least 12 years of progressively responsible payroll experience, including significant leadership responsibility for complex, multi-state payroll operations in a multi-entity organization.

• At least eight years of demonstrated experience supervising and developing payroll professionals, including leadership of an on-site or geographically dispersed team.

• ADP payroll processing or administration experience.

• Hands-on Workday Payroll experience, including payroll processing, configuration support, testing, data validation, integrations, reporting, issue resolution, or implementation activities.

• Certified Payroll Professional certification.

Preferred Education and Experience

• Experience leading payroll resources or providers across multiple countries.

• Experience with ADP Vantage, the Company’s current HRIS and payroll platform.

• Equivalent Canadian or international payroll credentials for candidates with broader geographic responsibility.

Alamo Group is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, national origin, color, religion, age, genetics, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability or veteran status. We maintain a drug-free workplace and perform pre-employment substance abuse testing (where permitted by law).