Sr. Payroll Specialist (India Coverage)

Job title: Sr. Payroll Specialist (India Coverage)

About the Role The Senior Payroll Specialist is responsible for end-to-end ownership of India payroll operations within S&P Global's Global Pay Services operating model, ensuring accurate, timely, and fully compliant payroll delivery across India entities. This role acts as a senior escalation point for complex payroll, statutory, and compliance matters, partnering with People Services, Finance, Tax, Mobility, and external payroll vendors, with no direct people management responsibilities.

What You'll Do

• Own end-to-end monthly India payroll processing across legal entities (regular payroll, bonuses, off-cycle, leave encashments, arrears, recoveries, and final settlements).
• Perform detailed payroll reviews, variance analysis, exception handling, and sign-off readiness checks prior to approvals.
• Ensure payroll activities are completed within defined cut-off timelines, approval controls, and governance frameworks.
• Independently resolve complex payroll exceptions and root-cause issues with significant employee, financial, or compliance impact.
• Own compliance execution for Indian statutory requirements (Income Tax TDS, EPFO UAN lifecycle, ECR filings, ESIC, PT, LWF) and manage annual activities (investment declaration windows, proofs, tax recalculations, year-end processing, true-ups).
• Independently handle responses to statutory notices, audits, inspections, and regulatory queries from Income Tax, EPFO, etc.
• Payroll Accounting, Controls & Reporting: partner with Finance for accurate GL postings, reconciliations, accruals, and month-end close; prepare monthly payroll reports, statutory summaries, defect logs, and control evidence; support SOX/audit activities.
• Stakeholder & Vendor Collaboration: escalation point for India payroll matters; collaborate with external payroll vendors; communicate clearly through approved ticketing platforms.
• Systems, Controls & Continuous Improvement: ensure data accuracy, integrity, confidentiality in Workday and vendor systems; identify defects and implement root-cause fixes; drive standardization and automation; contribute to transformation initiatives; adoption of Power BI and AI-enabled validations; align with governance frameworks.

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of hands-on India payroll experience with deep operational and statutory expertise.
• Strong knowledge of Indian payroll laws, tax regulations, and statutory compliance requirements.
• Knowledge of changes proposed in new Labour Code and handling of F&F within 2 working days (as per new Labour Code).
• Experience handling payroll for large employee populations in a complex or GCC/shared services environment.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel, payroll reconciliations, and reporting.
• Amenable to work 8am-5pm India Time.
• Exposure to statutory audits, regulatory interactions, and SOX-controlled environments.
• Experience working within a regional or global payroll operating model.
• Knowledge of labour codes, payroll automation, analytics, and digital transformation initiatives.
• Knowledge to use RPA tools like Microsoft Power Automate, Advanced Excel, Basic Python, Power BI etc.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Workday HCM / Workday Payroll or similar enterprise HR systems.
• Familiarity with global payroll governance and audits beyond statutory compliance.
• Experience operating in a Global Payroll Center of Excellence environment.

Compensation & Benefits What We Offer: Opportunity to operate as a senior payroll SME within a Global Payroll Center of Excellence. Exposure to global payroll governance, controls, and audit frameworks. High-impact role contributing to India payroll transformation and optimization. Long-term career growth opportunities within S&P Global – Global Pay Services.