Payroll Specialist Lead - Switzerland Austria

📋 Description

• • Own and continuously improve the end-to-end payroll processes for Switzerland and Austria, ensuring 100 % accuracy, statutory compliance, and on-time salary disbursement for a rapidly growing, fully-remote workforce.
• • Act as the primary escalation point for complex payroll queries from employees, People Business Partners, Finance, and external auditors, translating multi-jurisdictional legislation into clear, actionable guidance.
• • Lead monthly payroll cycles for both countries, coordinating inputs from HRIS, time-tracking, benefits, and equity systems; validate gross-to-net calculations, social-insurance deductions, withholding taxes (Quellensteuer), and cantonal variations across Switzerland’s 26 cantons and Austria’s 9 provinces.
• • Partner with Accounting to reconcile payroll journals, accruals, and inter-company recharge entries; prepare audit-ready files for Big-4 statutory reviews, SOX controls, and works-council inquiries.
• • Design and maintain scalable Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that keep pace with Remote’s hyper-growth; document every control, deadline, and approval matrix so the process remains resilient when the team doubles in size.
• • Drive automation initiatives—think Python scripts, Workday Studio integrations, or RPA bots—to eliminate manual checks, reduce cut-off times, and free your team for higher-value analytics.
• • Serve as the subject-matter expert on Swiss LPP/BVG pension schemes, SUVA accident insurance, Austrian Dienstnehmerveranlagung, and EU social-security coordination rules; monitor regulatory changes and translate them into policy updates within 30 days of enactment.
• • Coach a distributed team of junior payroll analysts located across EMEA; run weekly stand-ups, quarterly OKR reviews, and bi-annual skills assessments to build a high-performing, knowledge-sharing culture.
• • Collaborate with Total Rewards to model the payroll impact of new benefit offerings—e.g., mobility allowances, equity refresh grants, or geo-shift differentials—and ensure cost neutrality while enhancing employee experience.
• • Produce executive dashboards that slice payroll data by cost center, gender, geography, and tenure; surface insights that inform budgeting, head-count planning, and DEI pay-equity reviews.
• • Manage relationships with payroll vendors, banking partners, and social-security authorities; negotiate SLAs, monitor service credits, and conduct annual RFPs to guarantee best-in-class service at competitive cost.
• • Champion a “remote-first” compliance mindset: ensure GDPR-compliant data flows, secure e-payslip delivery, and encrypted file transfers across time zones from UTC-8 to UTC+3.
• • Own year-end processes including Swiss Lohnausweis, Austrian L16, electronic filing with cantonal tax portals, and equity-related reporting (Kapitalleistungen); guarantee zero penalties and 100 % employee satisfaction during tax season.
• • Contribute to global payroll strategy: pilot new countries, harmonize pay calendars, and share lessons learned in Remote’s internal knowledge base so every future rollout is faster and smoother.
• • Embody Remote’s core values—kindness, transparency, ownership, excellence—by openly sharing process gaps, celebrating team wins, and mentoring peers across Finance, Legal, and People teams.