Payroll & Benefits Specialist
Are you a detail-oriented payroll and benefits professional who excels at auditing, vendor oversight, and employee support? We are looking for a Payroll & Benefits Specialist to join our lean, high-performing People & Culture team.
In this critical role, you will be managing Alida’s entire global payroll function. As we transition our North American (US & Canada) operations to ADP’s comprehensive managed payroll service and maintain oversight of our EMEA payroll through a local regional provider, your focus will be on total ownership: auditing inputs/outputs, managing vendor relationships, ensuring compliance, and driving global benefits administration. You will serve as the crucial quality-assurance link between our vendors and our employees. If you thrive taking 100% ownership, possess sharp attention to detail, and enjoy hands-on benefits management, we’d love to meet you!
Key Responsibilities
- Global Payroll Ownership: Manage Alida’s global payroll ecosystem across North America (US & Canada) and EMEA.
- Payroll Oversight & Auditing: Review and audit multi-jurisdictional payroll inputs/outputs generated by ADP (North America) and regional EMEA vendors to ensure 100% accuracy, timeliness, and regulatory compliance prior to final disbursement approvals.
- Vendor & Process Management: Act as the primary operational contact for ADP and EMEA payroll providers, managing pay calendars, SLA tracking, resolving discrepancies, and optimizing vendor workflows.
- Benefits Administration: Lead day-to-day administration of global employee benefits programs across North America and EMEA, manage open enrollment, update carrier portals, and ensure seamless onboarding/offboarding workflows.
- Financial Alignment & Accounting: Perform monthly payroll journal entries, accruals, variance analysis, GL reconciliations, and audit reports for all global entities. Reconcile monthly benefit billing statements across all carriers.
- Compliance & Year-End: Partner with local providers to ensure 100% compliance with federal, state, provincial, and regional statutory filings across North America and EMEA. Oversee year-end audit workflows and tax statement reviews (Canadian T4s, RL-1s, US W-2s, 1099s, and EMEA statutory reporting).
- Employee Experience: Serve as the trusted primary contact for global employee inquiries regarding paystubs, tax withholdings, benefits entitlements, and time-off balances.
- HR Systems & Master Data: Maintain data integrity across core systems (ADP WorkforceNow, BambooHR, NetSuite), processing status changes, compensation updates, and ensuring data syncs smoothly.
- At least 3-5 years of hands-on payroll and benefits experience, with solid working knowledge of US & Canadian payroll concepts, statutory withholdings, and benefits administration.
- Proven ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and take complete, end-to-end accountability as the payroll subject matter expert.
- Strong expertise in auditing payroll outputs, identifying discrepancies, and reviewing outsourced/managed payroll vendor calculations.
- Proficiency with ADP WorkforceNow, BambooHR, NetSuite, and Microsoft Excel (e.g., VLOOKUPs, XLOOKUPs, pivot tables).
- Exceptional written and spoken English communication skills with an empathetic, customer-centric approach to employee support.
Nice-to-Haves:
- Canadian Payroll Association certification (PCP/PLP) or US CPP/FPC equivalent.
- Direct experience overseeing EMEA or international managed payroll providers.
- Hands-on experience with ADP managed/comprehensive payroll service transitions or co-sourced payroll models.
- Experience in the CXM (Customer Experience Management) or SaaS sectors
Additional details:
- This role is open to Canadian applicants, with a strong preference for candidates based in the Toronto or Vancouver areas.
- The typical salary range for this is $75,000 - $85,000 CAD. Salary is based on a number of factors and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
The Good Stuff:
- Amazing growth and learning opportunities with a fast-growing Canadian SaaS company that is a world leader in its industry
- Best-in-class company paid benefits for you and your family - offering medical, dental, vision, RRSP matching in Canada, a 401K in the US, and more.
- Unlimited Vacation: Yep, it’s true. Take vacation when you want it, how you want it. Designed to better fit your evolving needs.
- Summer Fridays: Fridays are a day off during July and August. To help provide better balance in the summer months focusing on employee wellness.
- Recognized as one of the Best Workplaces™ in British Columbia for 2024 by Great Place to Work
- Recognized in 2023 as one of the Best Workplaces for Women®
- Recognized as a Top Employer by British Columbia's Top Employers 2023
About Alida
Alida believes in a world where customers are respected as the ultimate source of truth. Because knowing the whole truth about your customers can help companies make better decisions and drive long term loyalty and growth.
That’s why Alida helps innovative brands create highly engaged research communities to gather feedback that empowers better customer experiences and product innovation.
Leading companies like HBOMax, Adobe, Warner Bros. Discovery, Twitch and lululemon depend on Alida’s community-centered research platform to deliver fast and reliable customer feedback at scale so they can build better products, refine user experiences and test marketing campaigns.
Learn more at www.alida.com.
We can’t wait to meet you!
We understand that applying for a new position takes effort and want to thank you in advance for taking the time to introduce yourself.
At Alida, we’re dedicated to fostering an environment where our employees feel heard, valued and included.
We believe that a diverse team is a core pillar in building better products and services for our global customers and we strongly encourage applications from all people regardless of race, religion, gender, age, disability status or sexual orientation. Even if you don't meet every single one of the stated requirements but you are excited about this opportunity, we'd love to hear from you anyway. Our Talent Acquisition team will review your application for this role, and others we may have open now or in the future.
Follow us at www.alida.com and engage with us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
Alida has an accommodation process in place to provide reasonable accommodation to employees, and to qualified job applicants with a disability during the hiring process. If you require accommodation because of a disability or medical need, please contact [email protected] so that arrangements can be made for the appropriate accommodations to be in place.
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Vacancy Status: This posting is for an existing vacancy that we are actively seeking to fill.
Artificial Intelligence Disclosure: Our recruitment process is human-led. While our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) includes an AI-enabled "talent match" feature to help compare applications against job requirements, this tool is not used as a decision making factor and it is not used to rank candidates by suitability. All applications are personally reviewed by our recruitment team, and all decisions regarding interview selection and hiring are made solely by human employees.
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