EMEA Payroll & Benefits Manager recruitment

Morgan Stanley has earned a worldwide reputation for the excellence of its advice and execution in financial markets. With over 1,300 offices in 42 countries, the firm is truly global- and a market leader in the U.S, Europe and Asia as well as in Emerging Markets.  We provide institutions and individuals with almost every kind of financial product and service across all the world’s major markets.

In 2000 the Institutional Securities division established an operations team in Glasgow with just 6 employees.  Since then our office has grown to over 1000 employees across 6 divisions: Operations, PWM, Finance, Fund Services, Information Technology and Risk Management.  Our offices are located in Glasgow’s city centre in the heart of the International Financial Services District.

We have built a world class reputation for quality and service and the talent and passion of our people has been critical to our success.  We can provide a superior foundation for building a professional career – a place for people to learn, to achieve and to grow.  Together we share a common set of values rooted in integrity, excellence and a strong team ethic.

Due to our growing business, we have a demand for career minded people to join our teams.   Our opportunities offer unrivalled scope for progression and training within a fast paced, meritocratic and constantly changing environment.

DEPARTMENT AND TEAM STRUCTURE -

The Glasgow Finance Division helps senior management and its individual business units manage the firm’s risk by implementing financial controls over our business activities. The division is crucial to safeguarding the firm’s franchise, reporting on current performance, and evaluating business opportunities. The Payroll team is part of the overall Finance organisation.

A decision was made recently to transfer the compensation accounting controller and EMEA payroll administration teams from London to Glasgow.  Therefore, the Glasgow office is looking to build a new team of approximately 19 people who will be responsible for the processing and booking of compensation related expenses for all UK employees and for employees in certain other EMEA locations.  Due to the nature of the firm’s compensation arrangements, the group is involved in processing and accounting for a range of complex compensation arrangements.  The team works closely with its counterparts in other global locations, in particular in New York and Europe, and with other departments in Morgan Stanley including Human Resources, IT and across the finance division.  The set up of this new department in Glasgow creates an exciting opportunity for someone to help create and develop this team.

The group is split into 2 main teams, which have significant interaction between them, as follows:

Payroll Administration Team:
The Payroll Administration team consists of approximately 10 people with its core function being to manage the processing and compliance of the payroll for all UK employees and for certain payrolls in EMEA.  This entails the processing of all monthly net salary and bonus payments to approximately 8,000 employees plus the payment of associated taxes and contributions to benefit plans related to these employees. This currently achieved through a combination of both hosted and outsourced vendor arrangements across 11 countries within EMEA.

Compensation Controller Team:
The Compensation Controller team consists of approximately 8 people with its core functions being to manage the accounting for the UK payroll and certain EMEA payrolls including managing the booking of salaries and related benefits and taxes, cash bonuses, hypo taxes, severance accruals and recharges in relation to certain EMEA locations, managing currency exposure on the UK payroll entity and working with Treasury and senior management to hedge the currency exposure related to the compensation expense and providing compensation related information to legal entity controllers for disclosure in the annual statutory accounts of certain EMEA entities and to the tax department for use in their tax computations.  The team is involved in providing input on technical accounting issues and liaison with different groups and individuals within the organisation.

In addition, both groups are involved in managing a number of key initiatives and projects in order to ensure that processes and procedures are kept up to date in line with best practice and in line with new legislation changes.

OVERVIEW OF THE ROLE

The successful candidate will perform a key management role within the Payroll team, reporting to the EMEA Payroll manager. They will also play a key role in the successful transition of responsibilities from the London team to the new Glasgow team. The successful candidate will also be expected to play a key role as part of the EMEA Payroll manager’s management team.

This management role will be responsible for all governance, responsibilities and knowledge around three distinct areas. These are:
•  Pensions and Benefits processing across the EMEA region
•  Executive compensation plan administration and compliant distribution across EMEA
•  Management of 11 non UK payroll locations within EMEA with a total employee population of 300+

Ongoing responsibilities will incorporate a combination of project work, ownership of key monthly/annual processes, people management, statutory accounting, and process improvement..

Supporting a team of 3 (1 direct and 2 co-direct reports), specific responsibilities will include:

•  Ownership and governance for the Glasgow based EMEA payroll administration function incorporating ownership and responsibility of all compliance and controls. This covers 11 countries across the EMEA in a complex compensation structure involving bonus, benefits and deferred awards.
•  Taking overall ownership and vendor management responsibility of multiple vendors providing an outsourced payroll service across the region.
•  Full validation at each stage of the EMEA payroll process.
•  Ownership and control of all additional payrolls throughout the year including executive compensation, bonus, and severance events.    
•  Responsibility for all executive compensation deferred plan conversions and distributions to ensure payments are correctly reported and appropriate taxes withheld
•  Management of employee and employer pension contributions including the following UK process:
•  Validation of populations and contribution levels prior to pay run
•  Reconciliation of populations and contribution levels post pay run
•  Timely payment of contributions to pension administrators
•  Management and accounting of manual adjustments, off cycle payments, pension waivers, investment losses etc.
•  Deal with Pension Administrators queries
•  Payroll system admin/maintenance with regard to pensions
•  Ownership of pension reconciliation tool
•  Pension account reconciliations
•  Manage provision of annual employees benefit statement data
•  Manage payment/deduction of US benefits via the payroll
•  Review and process monthly Health and Welfare deduction file
•  Review and process monthly files for 401K contributions and ESOP Loans
•  Reconciliation of monthly contributions
•  Reporting of contributions in accordance with rules
•  Management of manual adjustments
•  Management of monthly FX rates
•  Manage UK employee benefits through payroll including:
•  Long term disability benefits
•  Private medical cover
•  Supplemental Risk insurance
•  Child Care Vouchers
•  Dental Care Insurance
•  Cycle 2 Work schemes
•  Maintain error logs and metrics for all payroll issues and work levels.
•  Maintaining an open dialogue with senior leadership raising awareness of all potential or actual issues as you become aware.
•  Maintaining and enhancing the EMEA control framework around all payroll responsibilities. This includes SOX and internal controls.
•  Maintaining an understanding of current payroll process, with a proactive approach to plan for future changes by partnering with the vendors.
•  Reviewer responsibility for certain 3R’s balance sheet and PL accounts related to payroll processes, reporting any variances and issues to senior management on a monthly basis and ensuring team resolve issues and queries that arise.
•  Responsible for the management update of key metrics to optimize resource usage and identify improvements.
•  Responsible for the timely and accurate disbursement of all payroll related payments through the multi currency accounts managed through an online banking tool including all internal reconciliation processes and journals.
•  Partnering a variety of groups and individuals in agreeing payroll policy, changes in processes, discussing payroll related issues.
•  Liaison with internal and external auditors to assist with understanding the key processes, giving access to systems for sample testing and providing evidence of key controls.
•  Ensure effective documentation is in place and regularly updated to account for changes in process and legislation.
•  Managing all employee queries effectively and within the agreed SLA through a web based query tool.
•  Maintaining the iAskPayroll self service portal with all updates and relevant news items related to your areas of responsibility
Ensure weekly 1-2-1’s with your three direct reports
•  Play a key role for your team during the mid year and year end evaluation process
•  Assess training requirements for the team, encouraging individuals to take ownership of their careers and development.

Skills Required
Core Finance Competencies:

Work Motivation:
• Keen and motivated to work hard and achieve.  
• Shows a willingness to learn from others and increase own knowledge base.  
• Takes responsibility for own tasks and proactively looks for opportunities to increase responsibility.
Problem Solving Judgment:  
• Shows the ability to identify and analyse the situation through gathering relevant information to understand the root cause.  
• Determines the potential impact and implications of issues and takes appropriate action to avoid future recurrences.  
• Knows when it is appropriate to resolves matters and offer solutions themselves and when it is critical to escalate to others.
Communicating Effectively:  
• Able to explain issues and ideas succinctly, using appropriate mediums and language, to ensure others understand.  
• Always ensures that the relevant people are kept informed.
Building Maintaining Relationships:
• Awareness of other people and environment and own impact on these.  
• Responds appropriately to others to build and maintain an effective network of contacts.  
• Goes extra mile to ensure needs of others are addressed to highest possible standard.
Commitment to Excellence:  
• Consistently shows concern for all areas no matter how small.  
• Ensures tasks are always completed accurately, without exception.  
• Checks, verifies and reconciles information to ensure no mistakes are made and work is completed to the highest possible standard.
Planning Organising:
• Able to quickly and accurately establish priorities.  
• Plans own and others’ time to meet tight deadlines and is flexible when priorities change.

Role specific competencies and key responsibilities:

Guardianship:
• Consistently maintains a high level of franchise protection
• Confidence to ‘push back’ when required
• A high level of stakeholder management and update  is required
• Consistently manage areas of risk across the UK payroll function
• Proven proactive approach in dealing with statutory changes
Client skills:
• Ability to form strong business partners across the firm
• Strong vendor management skills
• Ability to partner key areas of the business
Leadership:
• Ability to define clear expectations to team
• Ability to define goals and strategy to team and key stakeholders
• Ability to build, inspire, and  motivate
Technical and Job skills:
• Considerable payroll experience
• CIPP qualified preferred
• Proven track record in a professional organization
• Ability to develop and implement on clearly defined strategy
• Proven stakeholder and vendor management experience
• Ability to analyse and improve processes
• Ability to control multiple deadlines
• Proven track record of pensions administration
• Experience of executive compensation schemes
• Strong organizational ability
• Experience of flexible benefit schemes

Morgan Stanley is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to fair treatment, regardless of background