
Payroll Specialist
Manhattan, NY · HybridFull-time$25/hrSeen todaySeen in employer's feed today
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At a glance
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Job overview
The Payroll Specialist supports payroll and timekeeping for assigned YAI agencies, ensuring employee data and transactions are complete, accurate, and processed on time. The role responds to employee and manager inquiries, coordinates with HR and agency leadership, and helps maintain accurate time, attendance, and pay records. It also provides agency training and may assist with audits and special projects.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
Manhattan
Full time
R026197
If you are a current YAI employee, please click this link to apply through your Workday account. (http://wd5.myworkday.com/wday/authgwy/yai/login.htmld?)
Key/Essential Functions & Responsibilities
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Ensures all payroll and timekeeping data for staff in assigned agency (or multiple smaller agencies, as assigned), is complete, updated and approved to support timely and accurate payroll processing for employees each pay cycle.
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Regularly coordinates with other payroll staff, human resources (HR) or and front-line managers in assigned agency to obtain or confirm information and/or ensure completion of tasks relating to payroll and timekeeping.
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Serves as the primary payroll contact for assigned agency, receiving and responding to inquiries in email, chat or by phone from employees and managers and provides timely and accurate information; appropriately escalates more complex inquiries or concerns to payroll manager and redirects other inquiries to appropriate departments for handling.
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Collaborates with managers and leadership of assigned agency to ensure that hours worked by employees and absence requests (vacation, sick, PTO, etc.) are appropriately entered and approved to support accurate and timely payments to employees; inquires with managers regarding missing time or time off entries for staff and ensures timely updates in timekeeping system.
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Appropriately processes and confirms accuracy of information entered in Workday for newly hired staff, ensuring completion of all necessary tasks and following up with employees, managers and/or HR to obtain confirmations, documentation and/or to assist with necessary updates/changes.
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Reviews transactions completed for assigned agency each pay cycle including worker data or status changes, terminations, tax, direct deposit, and/or other miscellaneous changes and ensures appropriate and timely processing for each pay cycle, which may include coordinating with HR, managers or other staff for corrections or updates, confirming accuracy and/or performing calculations prior to payroll settlement.
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Develops and maintains an understanding of payroll principles, related electronic systems and applicable YAI Network policies and procedures, specifically those that impact pay (time off, holidays, etc.).
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Regularly monitors and replies to inquiries from all YAI Network staff in shared payroll email inbox including individual employees, other support departments, program or affiliate management or others regarding general and pay-related inquiries; directs more complex or specialized inquiries to payroll manager or appropriate teams (e.g. HCM, Benefits, etc.).
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Provides education and training to assigned agency informally through one-on-one calls or meetings and/or by presenting during in-person and/or virtual formal sessions for assigned agency, as requested.
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May assist with compiling data for audits and special projects as needed, including, but not limited to retrieving electronic or physical documents and files, running reports in Workday and reviewing information.
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Performs all other duties, as assigned.
Minimum Qualification Requirements including education, experience, licensure/certification, etc. and essential physical capabilities (e.g. lifting, assisting lifting, standing, etc.)
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Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or Business Administration; or
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HS Diploma or its educational equivalent and two (2) years of payroll, accounting or other related clerical and/or administrative experience; or
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Satisfactory equivalent combination of education, experience and/or training.
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Proficiency with computers and electronic systems, including Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel and Outlook) and ability to quickly learn related systems including Workday to complete essential tasks.
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Ability to report on-site to our Manhattan office multiple days per week and to occasionally travel to program sites or other locations of assigned agency.
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Ability to work in a fast-paced, deadline driven payroll environment and to work occasional evening or weekend hours if needed to meet departmental needs.
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Strong interpersonal and customer service skills, including the ability to accurately communicate, collect and present information, both verbally and in writing.
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Ability to work autonomously and collaboratively in a team-oriented environment and build productive work relationships with staff at all levels across YAI Network.
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Ability to maintain confidential and sensitive information.
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Detail-oriented with a high level of commitment to quality and accuracy.
Preferred Qualification Requirements (desired requirements beyond MQRs above)
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Previous experience with Workday HCM, Payroll and/or Time and Attendance.
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Familiarity with Federal, State and Local laws and regulations impacting payroll operations, specifically in state of assigned agency.
Pay rate: $25.00 per hour
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or status as a Vietnam or disabled veteran. YAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
To ensure fairness, safeguard transparency, and promote an equitable workforce environment, YAI Network prohibits the practice of nepotism in the workforce and hiring process.
Our Roots
YAI was launched in February of 1957 out of a small school in Brooklyn, New York. Initially staffed by Co-Founders Bert MacLeech and Pearl Maze MacLeech alone, their pilot program served just seven people. According to Bert, from its very beginning YAI has been dedicated to providing innovative services for the I/DD (intellectual and/or developmental disabilities) community. MacLeech envisioned a, “total life adjustment approach, emphasizing personal growth, social responsibility, employment goals, and the development of independence for the individual.” At a time when institutional living was the norm for people with I/DD, this vision was nothing short of revolutionary.
YAI Today
Today, YAI has a team of over 4,000 employees and supports over 20,000 people in the I/DD community. This extraordinary growth shows the ongoing need for these important services, and YAI’s success in offering them. YAI supports people with autism, Down syndrome, and Cerebral Palsy, among others. Operating throughout Downstate New York and Northern New Jersey, YAI now offers more than 300 programs for people of all ages.
Better Together
At YAI, we are driven by our mission of living, loving, working, and learning. This applies not only to the people we support, but to our staff as well. Commitment and passion for the work continue to unite employees and drive the organization forward. Empowering the people we support to reach their goals remains at the heart of our organization.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or status as a Vietnam or disabled veteran. YAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
To ensure fairness, safeguard transparency, and promote an equitable workforce environment, YAI Network prohibits the practice of nepotism in the workforce and hiring process.
How this job compares
Set against the 627 open Payroll Specialist jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 11, 2026.
- Pay
- This posting$25/hr
- US median$27–33/hr178 hourly ranges
This rate, $25/hr, is 16% below the US median midpoint ($30/hr) — in the middle half of Payroll Specialist hourly ranges across the US.
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 34 open Payroll Specialist jobs in New York and 627 across the US. 3% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Hiring the most in New York
- FOX3 open
- Robert Half3 open
- Beacon Hill Staffing Group2 open
- Experience
- Payroll Specialist postings that state a minimum ask for 3 years of experience at the median; the middle half ask for 1 to 3 years (441 postings).
- Education
- 31 of the 627 open Payroll Specialist jobs (5%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 11, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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