Payroll & Benefits Specialist - Temporary Full Time
Location
Surrey, BC | Canada
Job description
The Surrey School District respectfully acknowledges that our schools reside on the traditional, unceded, and shared territories of Coast Salish peoples: The q̓ ícə̓ y̓ - Katzie, the qʼwa:n̓ƛʼən̓ - Kwantlen and the SEMYOME - Semiahmoo First Nations, who have been stewards of this land since time immemorial.
Surrey Schools values an inclusive school district where equity is deeply embedded, and diversity welcomed . We acknowledge the profound responsibility we all have in ensuring that our schools and district sites foster an atmosphere where everyone feels secure, respected, and valued . Our commitment to providing a quality education extends beyond academic excellence; w e are committed to creating and cultivating diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free environments for all applicants, employees, students, and their families . Our identity, as Surrey Schools, is expressed in the shared values of openness, fairness and tolerance and recognizes the importance of diversity of identity and thought . We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
Surrey Schools, recipient of the BC Top Employers and Canada's Greenest Employer awards, is the largest school district in BC and the second largest employer in Surrey. Spread across one of the fastest-growing cities in British Columbia, Surrey Schools provides quality education to over 82,000 students with 124 schools sites and a variety of other learning facilities, offering a broad range of innovative programs and services to support the learning of our students. The Surrey School District team of approximately 13,000 employees works tirelessly every day to ensure that children are getting the best start they can, providing the preparation to be our leaders of tomorrow.
This is a full-time temporary position until February 28 th , 2025 or return of incumbent.
Payroll & Benefits Specialists performs a variety of complex tasks to ensure that employee pay, and benefits are processed accurately and on time. The work is complex and mission critical, and requires strong judgement, problem solving skills, and attention to detail.
Payroll & Benefits Specialists have the primary responsibility to account for extremely large expenditures of wages and benefits. The work requires continual concentration in analyzing and processing large volumes of data from a variety of data sources to meet inflexible deadlines; troubleshooting and resolving discrepancies; explaining pay, benefits, deductions, and entitlements to employees; and responding to inquiries from internal and external stakeholders.
Tasks include calculating pay, benefits, and applicable adjustments; providing guidance and support to employees in their use of online payroll applications; and ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. Problem solving involves analyzing situations, determining an appropriate course of action, and communicating effective solutions to various stakeholders involved. Payroll & Benefits Specialists apply collective agreements and employment terms and conditions for multiple employee groups and must maintaining confidentiality of sensitive information.
Independent judgement is frequently exercised on matters of significant cost. Payroll & Benefits Specialists are expected to recommend changes to procedures and methods to increase accuracy and efficiencies to improve the services provided to all stakeholders.
A Payroll & Benefits Specialist reports to a Payroll & Benefits Team Leader and Management.
TYPICAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
PAYROLL RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Runs interfaces, conduct audit trails and uploads information into the payroll system to process payroll.
- Analyzes and processes employee staffing notifications (e.g. new hires, terminations, position changes, leaves of absence, transfers) to ensure accuracy of information in the payroll system.
- Imports data into the payroll system, runs audits and analyzes the data for accuracy.
- Calculates payroll adjustments such as special and top-up payments, shift premiums, vacation pay, retroactive pay, benefit premium deduction adjustments, paid leave entitlements, and final payments; all in accordance with internal requirements such as collective agreements and employment contracts, and external regulations and requirements set by government agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Service Canada, Worker’s Compensation Board, BC Pension Corporation, etc.
- Analyzes, processes, and maintains sick leave entitlement banks, vacation entitlement banks, banked overtime, seniority dates, probation periods, and pay scale increment experience banks.
- Runs pay processing, reviews payroll register and deduction arrears register, runs audits and checks for accuracy.
- Ensures payroll and benefits documents are stored and secured in accordance with record retention requirements including, but not limited to, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act , the Employment Standards Act , the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and school district record retention policies.
- Determines and applies taxable benefits to ensure that T4s are accurately reported in compliance with Canada Revenue Agency requirements.
- Calculates and processes wage garnishments accurately in compliance with legislative requirements.
- Analyses complex and sensitive accounts to determine adjustments and actions. Assists management to address major payroll, financial reporting and taxation issues.
- Recommends changes to improve quality, efficiency, service satisfaction and cycle time.
- Documents Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and updates work processes in correlation with the Payroll Team Leader, recommending changes to procedures and methods to increase accuracy and efficiencies.
- Issues Records of Employment in accordance with complex Service Canada requirements whenever applicable.
- Responds to a high volume of employee inquiries in relation to pay, entitlements (e.g. vacation, sick leave, and experience banks), and benefits (e.g. premium deductions, coverage and eligibility), and presents complex data in an understandable way to employees.
- Identifies and calculates overpayments, including applicable adjustments to statutory and other deductions. Liaises with employee and the Payroll Team Leader regarding all overpayment issues and arranges a repayment plan.
- Performs other Payroll related duties, as required.
BENEFITS RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Reviews and determines benefit plan enrolments, changes, and terminations and sets up group benefit deductions in the payroll system in compliance with contractual obligations and benefit plan provisions.
- Administers employee benefit coverages during leaves of absence, calculates premium deduction changes, bills benefit premiums to employees, and follows up on delinquent payments.
- Audits group benefit premiums monthly and resolves discrepancies between deductions and billings to ensure that costs are correctly recorded.
- Prepares remittances, amended T4 adjustments as needed.
- Coordinates Workers' Compensation recoveries with WorkSafe BC and applies required adjustments to pay, sick leave credits, tax deductions and T4 reporting.
- Processes pension enrolments, terminations, retirements, and purchases of service; validates pension service records; and responds to inquiries from Pension Corporation.
- Performs other benefits related duties, as required.
JOB REQUIREMENTS
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES
Knowledge
- The methods, practices, principles, procedures, and controls involved in the production of payrolls and the enrollment, maintenance, and discontinuance of benefit coverage.
- Legislative, contractual, and administrative requirements of payroll payments, deductions, and reporting.
- Advanced level knowledge of the Microsoft Office Suite of products relevant to the work, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
- Knowledge of the methods, practices, principles, procedures and controls involved in processing financial transactions related to wages and benefits accounting.
Skills and Abilities
- Ability to utilize, at advanced level, networked personal computers and applications software for operating systems, word processing, database and spreadsheets and mainframe multi-user computer applications related to the work and to trouble-shoot routine problems.
- Ability to organize, prioritize and schedule diverse tasks to ensure the orderly, accurate completion of work in accordance with competing deadlines and requirements.
- Ability to multi-task and process high volumes of information accurately within strict, inflexible time limitations, while maintaining comprehensive standards.
- Ability to correctly interpret and apply the pay related provisions of legislation, collective agreements, benefit contracts, pension plans, policies, regulations, and administrative practices.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills in analyzing pay-related transactions and exception reports and ability to quickly recognize and efficiently resolve discrepancies.
- Ability to maintain concentration on complex tasks despite frequent interruptions.
- Skill in organizing and prioritizing work effectively to meet deadlines and achieve service standards.
- Superior accuracy, attention to detail, and mathematical abilities.
- Ability to communicate proficiently in oral and written English utilizing the terminology of business, payroll, and benefits.
- Skill in tactfully and courteously answering questions with clarity and discretion.
- Tact, discretion and ability to exercise professional judgment in confidential environment.
- Excellent interpersonal, communication, customer service and teamwork skills when dealing with internal and external stakeholders.
- Calm composure while under continuous pressure and while dealing with frustrated and sometimes rude employees.
- Demonstrated experience and proficiency in the advanced use of MS Office Suite (PowerPoint, Excel, Word) and experience working with large computerized systems.
TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
- Diploma from a recognized post-secondary institution, in payroll, accounting, or business administration, plus training and experience with complex computerized payroll systems, word processing and spreadsheet software at an advanced level.
- Minimum of four years’ progressive, extensive experience directly related to the job requirements and responsibilities (preferably in the public sector) and in a similar computerized financial services environment in a large organization with collective agreements and multiple employee benefit plans, or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
LICENCES, CERTIFICATES AND REGISTRATIONS
- Payroll Compliance Practitioner (PCP) certification from the National Payroll Institute, required.
All successful applicants are required to join the union, CUPE Local 728 upon hire. As per the CUPE collective agreement, the starting wage for this position is $31.96* per hour with an attractive benefit package which includes: Municipal Pension, health, vacation & sick benefits which are effective after minimum 6 months based on hours.
*This position is recently reclassified, and new hourly rate is yet to be determined and will be retroactively paid.
Qualified applicants can apply by clicking the "apply" button to the right of the posting. The closing date for this position is Friday March 22, 2024 at 4:00pm.
Note: Successful applicants will be required to consent to a Criminal Records Search prior to employment. Only those applicants selected for interviews will be contacted. To all others, thank you for your interest.
Job tags
Salary
$31.96 per hour
