Senior Payroll Leadership Opportunity at Impact HR
Impact HR is seeking a motivated, detail-driven, and experienced Payroll Team Leader to join its finance and payroll operations on a permanent basis in Midrand, Gauteng. This mid-to-senior level opportunity is ideal for a payroll professional with strong leadership capability, in-depth payroll knowledge, and hands-on experience managing complex payroll functions across South Africa and foreign jurisdictions where applicable.
The role is responsible for overseeing the full payroll function, leading a team of payroll specialists, ensuring payroll accuracy and compliance, and providing expert guidance to clients and internal stakeholders. This position plays a critical role in maintaining payroll integrity, meeting statutory obligations, and ensuring timely and accurate payroll processing across multiple clients and systems.
This opportunity is well suited to a professional who thrives in a leadership role, has strong technical payroll expertise, and is comfortable operating in a highly regulated, deadline-driven environment.
About the Role
The Payroll Team Leader is accountable for managing all payroll-related activities within the organisation. The role focuses on leading payroll teams, overseeing payroll preparation and processing, maintaining compliance with payroll legislation, and ensuring the integrity of payroll systems and reconciliations.
This position requires a deep understanding of payroll regulations, tax legislation, benefits administration, reconciliations, and payroll accounting processes. The Payroll Team Leader serves as a key escalation point for payroll queries and provides guidance to both team members and clients on complex payroll matters.
The role also involves managing staff productivity, conducting audits, and ensuring that payroll processes are consistently applied in line with statutory requirements and best practices.
Key Responsibilities
Payroll Operations and Compliance Management
The successful candidate will be responsible for overseeing all payroll functions, including payroll processing for South Africa and foreign countries where applicable. This includes ensuring the accuracy of payroll preparation, payroll accounting and reconciliations, benefits maintenance, and the coordination of various special payments.
The role requires conducting regular file manager audits and ensuring ongoing compliance with payroll legislation, internal controls, and client requirements. Accuracy and compliance are critical, as payroll outputs directly impact employees, clients, and statutory reporting obligations.
Payroll Processing, Approvals, and Reconciliations
The Payroll Team Leader will approve monthly payroll changes as required after payroll closure and ensure that payroll discrepancies are identified, investigated, and resolved. This includes balancing payroll accounts, resolving reconciling items, and ensuring that all identified discrepancies are cleared in the month following identification.
The role also involves reconciling salary-related accounts for clients against payroll systems as required and ensuring that payroll records remain accurate and auditable at all times.
Client and Legislative Advisory Support
A key responsibility of the role is responding to payroll-related enquiries and providing guidance on prevailing laws governing payroll, income tax, employee benefits, garnishments, reimbursement policies, and other statutory pay-related entitlements.
The Payroll Team Leader acts as a trusted advisor to clients and internal teams, ensuring that payroll advice is accurate, current, and aligned with applicable legislation and compliance requirements.
System Integrity and Payroll Audits
The role includes maintaining the accuracy and integrity of payroll system information through regular audits conducted on a monthly basis. This involves identifying system issues, ensuring data accuracy, and implementing corrective actions where necessary.
The Payroll Team Leader also assists with system-related functions that subordinates may not have access to, such as rollbacks and advanced system inputs, ensuring that payroll systems operate smoothly and securely.
Team Leadership and Performance Management
The Payroll Team Leader is responsible for managing payroll staff output and productivity. This includes providing guidance on handling escalations, supporting team members with complex payroll queries, and ensuring consistent performance across the payroll team.
The role requires strong leadership, supervision, and communication skills to manage teams effectively, drive accountability, and ensure service delivery standards are met consistently.
Minimum Requirements
Candidates applying for this role must meet the following requirements:
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Matric with exemption or relevant tertiary education
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Strong knowledge of payroll processes and statutory compliance
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Ability to manage multiple payroll functions and deadlines
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Clear understanding of confidentiality and data integrity requirements
Qualifications and Professional Background
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A Payroll Administration or Finance qualification will be advantageous
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VIP payroll short courses or related training aligned to the role are preferred
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Strong technical ability in payroll systems and processes
Experience and Professional Background
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3–5 years’ experience in a payroll-related function
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1–2 years’ experience leading or supervising payroll teams
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Advanced computer literacy with strong MS Word skills and proficient Excel and PowerPoint knowledge
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Proven experience with VIP payroll systems
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Strong knowledge of tax law, statutory compliance, and COIDA
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Experience handling confidential payroll data with accuracy and discretion
Key Skills and Competencies
The ideal candidate will demonstrate strong capability in:
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Payroll processing and compliance management
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Payroll reconciliations and audits
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Leadership and team supervision
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Client advisory and stakeholder communication
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Problem-solving and escalation management
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Time management and deadline adherence
Fundamental Competencies
This role requires a professional who is:
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Highly accurate and detail-oriented
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Confidential and trustworthy
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Confident communicating at senior management level
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Organised and process-driven
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Able to work under pressure in a deadline-driven environment
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Committed to continuous improvement and service excellence
Employment Details
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Position Type: Permanent
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Company: Impact HR
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Department: Finance
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Location: Midrand, Gauteng
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Industry: Human Resources
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Job Functional Area: Finance
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Experience Level: Mid-Senior
Apply for Payroll Team Leader – Midrand
Qualified candidates with strong payroll leadership experience are encouraged to submit their applications.
👉 Apply for Payroll Team Leader – Midrand
Applicants should ensure that their CV clearly reflects their payroll experience, leadership capability, and system knowledge. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
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