Senior Manager — Process Assurance & Continuous Improvement REF-J01-703

The independent assurance and improvement engine of the BAU delivery organization: it audits how payroll is actually run, drives the fixes to closure, and systematically removes country-specific and manual dependencies. DEPARTMENT BAU — Operations GRADE / FAMILY Grade 7 · Senior Manager REPORTS TO Director — Global Operations (BAU) DIRECT REPORTS None initially — may build a small assurance function REFERENCE CODE REF_BAU_PACI_09.2026 LOCATION Offshore delivery hub — remote-friendly SCOPE All five BAU regions · ~28 consultants · full client estate JD STATUS Pending — route: Divisional Head → ELT 1. Role purpose To give the Director of Global Operations an independent, hands-on line of sight into how BAU actually delivers — and to convert that visibility into corrective action, standardization and automation that make the organization less dependent on individuals, country knowledge and manual work. This is an execution role, not a reporting one. It audits delivery against defined standards, drives root cause and corrective action to closure, and owns the continuous-improvement backlog that moves BAU toward the target state: any consultant can run any payroll, no client depends on one person, and country expertise lives in the platform and the Compliance team rather than in people’s heads. 2. Why the role exists BAU today runs cycle-to-cycle. Regional teams execute their monthly runs well but rarely carry anything that spans more than one cycle to completion, and no single owner is accountable for process integrity, SLA discipline and improvement across regions. The result is drift: boards fall out of date, single-owner countries accumulate, manual steps and in-country-expert (ICE) reliance persist, and issues escalate to management for want of ownership. This role closes that gap with an assurance-and-improvement mandate that sits above the regions and reports to the Director. 3. Key responsibilities Process assurance & audit Audit delivery execution against approved SOPs, the governance model and control requirements (four-eyes checks, statutory sign-offs, data-integrity rules) across every region and client. Identify deviations, single points of failure and control gaps; drive structured root-cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions (CAPA) to documented closure. Verify that every critical country has a current, published SOP and a trained, tested backup (two-deep coverage). Performance & SLA monitoring Own the KPI and SLA monitoring layer for BAU delivery — designed as dashboards and board automations (Arbites, Monday.com), not manual tracking. Ensure local operational reviews happen and are effective; escalate risks to the Director with evidence and a recommended action, not just a flag. Own the operational engine of the WeCare program — account-health scoring, CX/SLA instrumentation (via Arbites) and WeCare-tier integrity on the client master — and drive the remediation it surfaces. Region Managers and customer governance own the client-facing relationship; this role provides the measurement and improvement backbone beneath it. Continuous improvement & automation Own the BAU improvement backlog and run the map → automate → remove-ICE cycle on every country and process, prioritizing by risk and manual load. Work with Configuration & Integrations and Compliance to codify country rules, wage-type catalogs and calculation formulas into platform configuration, so knowledge sits in the system rather than in individuals. Drive the standardization that enables offshore-primary staffing and cross-country fungibility. Cross-functional delivery & knowledge Track cross-functional projects with Product, Configuration, Compliance and Finance to closure; represent BAU’s process and platform needs in the product roadmap. Ensure delivery knowledge is captured and retrievable (knowledge base, data dictionaries, report matrices) rather than tribal. Governance & reporting Maintain the integrity and single-source-of-truth status of the BAU operational boards. Report assurance status, the risk picture and improvement progress to the Director and the ELT on a defined cadence. 4. Success measures The role is measured on making the organization less dependent and more resilient — not on activity volume. Measure Definition Target SOP coverage Live countries with a current, published run-book SOP 100% Two-deep coverage Critical countries with a trained, tested backup 100% Manual-touchpoint reduction Manual / country-specific steps automated or removed per quarter Sustained QoQ reduction ICE reduction In-country-expert dependencies removed on core countries Toward zero SLA adherence On-time and accuracy trend by region Improving; no repeat breaches CAPA closure Audit findings closed within agreed SLA ≥ 95% Board integrity Operational boards current and accurate at audit ≥ 98% 5. First-year SMART goals Specific, measurable, time-bound objectives for the first twelve months from appointment; they become the basis of the role’s SMART Goals record and mid-year review. Baseline audit (first 60 days). Complete a full process audit across all five regions and deliver a prioritized single-points-of-failure and manual-step inventory with a remediation plan to the Director — European accounts audited first, given the current risk. SOP coverage — 100% by month 6. Every live country has a current, standardized, published run-book SOP, enabling a non-owner to execute the payroll. Two-deep coverage — zero single-owner critical countries by month 6. A trained, tested backup for every Tier-1 / critical country by month 6, and across the full estate by year-end. Monitoring layer live within 90 days. Stand up dashboard-based KPI/SLA and board-integrity monitoring (Arbites / Monday.com automations) that replaces manual tracking, and sustain board integrity at ≥ 98% on monthly audit thereafter. Automation & ICE removal — quarterly. Remove or automate at least 15% of catalogued manual / country-specific steps each quarter, and eliminate in-country-expert dependency on at least three core countries by year-end. CAPA discipline from month 3. Close ≥ 95% of audit findings within the agreed SLA, each with a documented root cause. 6. Authority & interfaces Mandate. Independent authority to audit any region, client or process; to require corrective action from Region Managers and delivery teams; and to hold improvement and remediation items to closure. Escalates unresolved risks directly to the Director of Global Operations. Key interfaces. Region Managers (Africa & Turkey, Middle East, APAC, LATAM, Europe); Configuration & Integrations; Compliance / statutory-filings team; Finance (money movement); Product & Engineering; QCRM; and the innovation team for Arbites-driven monitoring. 7. Qualifications & experience 8–10+ years in global payroll operations, managed-services delivery or comparable multi-country operational environments. Demonstrated background in process audit, operational assurance or continuous improvement (Lean / Six Sigma an advantage), with a track record of implementing change — not producing analysis alone. Strong data and dashboard fluency; able to build and interpret KPI/SLA reporting and to specify automations rather than perform manual monitoring. Working knowledge of a modern payroll platform (HR Blizz / PAC or comparable) and of statutory payroll processes across multiple jurisdictions. Proven ability to influence and hold senior peers accountable without direct line authority. 8. Competencies Process rigor — pedantic about standards, controls and follow-through; finishes what spans multiple cycles. Execution bias — verifies and fixes on the ground; not a theoretical or slide-only operator. Systems thinking — instinctively moves knowledge and effort from people into platform and process. Influence & candor — calls issues out constructively and drives resolution across teams. Self-automating — designs away the manual parts of the role itself. 9. Scope guardrails — what this role is not This role must accelerate the removal of manual and country-specific dependency — never institutionalize it. To protect that intent: Not a board administrator or ticket chaser. Where it monitors, it builds automation; it does not become the permanent manual layer. Not a PMO slide function. Its output is verified corrective action and shipped improvement, not reporting for its own sake. Does not duplicate QCRM or Compliance audit. It owns BAU delivery assurance and improvement and coordinates with those functions on their remits.