Payroll Project Manager 
£58,000 to £69,600 plus excellent benefits (Work Level 5) 
Manchester city centre - in this role you’ll work in a hybrid way splitting your time between home and one day a week in the office
12 month fixed-term contract
Monday-Friday, 37.5 hours, full time

We’re looking for a Payroll Project Manager to join our People Operations and Services team within our wider Co-op Business Services (CBS) organisation. CBS is made up of a number of diverse teams dedicated to delivering high-quality, reliable and cost-effective business services across our Co-op. You’ll play a key role in helping CBS to support and realise our group vision of ‘co-operating to build more value for member-owners every day’.

In this role, you’ll manage and support the wider Payroll team in all aspects of change activity on our 2024/25 payroll road map. We’ll look to you to work cross-functionally gathering the requirements for any change activity, understanding the impact of this, and embedding this into the operation. You’ll play a lead role in the implementation and embedding our new time attendance systems across  our Logistics and Food business areas, making sure they’re integrated with our current systems, managing the UAT testing and ensuring there’s a smooth cut over period. We’ll also look to you to support with managing our tax year end and annual salary review processes. This is a fantastic chance to build on your skills and gain exposure across a key area of our business.

What you’ll do

•    Attend weekly project meetings and be the subject matter expert in these, keeping the Payroll Operations Manager up to date on any updates, issues or potential risks 
•    Attend change impact sessions to gather requirements and understand the impact of any change activity
•    Work with the payroll team and functions across the wider business to identify how best to embed and communicate the change activity within the operation
•    Manage the resource for UAT testing and support with the training and development of the new systems
•    Identify continuous improvement opportunities within the Payroll  team

This role would suit people who have

•    Previous experience of managing large scale payroll projects end-to-end within a matrix organisation 
•    A solid understanding of Payroll processes and set-up 
•    Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple conflicting priorities
•    Excellent relationship building skills, with the ability to inclusively challenge and influence people at all levels

Why Co-op?

If you have the skills that we need, we can offer you a competitive salary and great benefits package which includes 30% off Co-op branded products in our food stores (as well as other discounts on Co-op products and services).

•    An annual bonus (based on personal and business performance)
•    28 days holiday (rising to 32 with service) plus bank holidays 
•    A pension with up to 10% employer contributions
•    Private healthcare 
•    Access to a subsidised onsite gym (at our Manchester HQ)
•    Coaching and training to support your career development
•    Wagestream app – giving you access to a percentage of your pay as you earn

At Co-op, we’re proud to do things a different way. As one of the world’s largest co-operatives, owned by millions of members, community is at the heart of what we do. Since our Co-op was founded in 1844, we’ve had a clear social purpose, and everything we do as a business helps to build a fairer world for our members, customers, colleagues, and communities.

Building a diverse environment

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We're also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we'll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job.

We'll ask whether you’d like to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme when you apply.
If we invite you to take part in the recruitment process for any of our jobs, we’ll ask you if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate.

You can find out more about our recruitment process at jobs.coop.co.uk/apply-process

You can find out more about the Disability Confident scheme and all our commitments to diversity and inclusion at colleagues.coop.co.uk/diversity-inclusion-and-wellbeing

As part of your application, you'll need to complete an online assessment. This assessment typically takes between 45-60 minutes. If you're a current Co-op colleague, this does not need to be completed.