About the Role: The Senior Payroll Specialist is responsible for end-to-end ownership of India payroll operations, ensuring accurate, timely, and fully compliant payroll delivery across assigned India entities. The role operates within S&P Global’s Global Pay Services operating model and provides deep subject-matter expertise, statutory governance support, and control oversight for India payroll.
This role acts as a senior escalation point for complex payroll, statutory, and compliance matters, partners closely with People Services, Finance, Tax, Mobility, and external payroll vendors, and plays a key role in payroll governance, risk mitigation, process optimization, and transformation initiatives, without direct people management responsibilities.
Key Responsibilities
Payroll Operations – India
Own and execute end-to-end monthly India payroll processing across legal entities, including regular payroll, bonuses, off-cycle payrolls, leave encashments, arrears, recoveries, and final settlements.
Perform detailed payroll reviews, variance analysis, exception handling, and sign-off readiness checks prior to approvals.
Ensure payroll activities are completed within defined cut-off timelines, approval controls, and governance frameworks.
Independently resolve complex payroll exceptions and root-cause issues with significant employee, financial, or compliance impact.
Statutory Compliance & Governance – India
Own compliance execution for all Indian payroll statutory requirements, including:
Income Tax (TDS on salary, projections, quarterly withholding tax returns, Annual withholding tax forms etc)
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Provident Fund (EPFO – UAN lifecycle, ECR filings, exits, contributions)
ESIC, Professional Tax, Labour Welfare Fund (LWF)
Manage annual activities such as investment declaration windows, proof verification, tax recalculations, year-end processing, and true-ups.
Independently handle and support responses to statutory notices, audits, inspections, and regulatory queries from Income Tax, EPFO, and other authorities.
Identify statutory and compliance risks and implement preventive and corrective controls.
Payroll Accounting, Controls & Reporting
Partner with Finance to ensure accurate payroll GL postings, reconciliations, accruals, and month-end close support.
Prepare, validate, and review monthly payroll reports, statutory summaries, defect logs, and control evidence in line with Global Pay Services SOPs.
Support internal and external audits, including SOX and compliance reviews, through documentation, data validation, and timely responses.
Stakeholder & Vendor Collaboration
Act as a key payroll escalation point for India payroll matters with People Services, HR Business Partners, Finance, Tax, and Mobility teams.
Collaborate with external payroll vendors to resolve discrepancies, drive accuracy improvements, and ensure SLA adherence.
Provide clear, professional communication to address employee-impacting payroll queries and issues through approved ticketing platforms.
Systems, Controls & Continuous Improvement
Ensure accuracy, integrity, and confidentiality of payroll data in Workday and payroll vendor systems.
Identify recurring payroll defects and implement root-cause fixes, standardization, and automation opportunities.
Contribute to process optimization, transformation initiatives, labour code readiness, and adoption of new-age technologies (e.g., Power BI, AI-enabled validations).
Support continuous improvement initiatives aligned with Global Payroll governance and control frameworks
Qualifications:
Required
7+ years of hands-on India payroll experience with deep operational and statutory expertise.
Strong knowledge of Indian payroll laws, tax regulations, and statutory compliance requirements.
Knowledge of changes proposed in new Labour Code and handling of F&F within 2 working days (as per new Labour Code).
Experience handling payroll for large employee populations in a complex or GCC/shared services environment.
Advanced proficiency in Excel, payroll reconciliations, and reporting,
Amenable to work 8am-5pm India Time
Preferred
Experience with Workday HCM / Workday Payroll or similar enterprise HR systems.
Exposure to statutory audits, regulatory interactions, and SOX-controlled environments.
Experience working within a regional or global payroll operating model.
Knowledge of labour codes, payroll automation, analytics, and digital transformation initiatives
Knowledge to use RPA tools like Microsoft Power Automate, Advanced Excel, Basic Python, Power BI etc.
Key Competencies:
Subject-matter expertise in India payroll and statutory compliance
Strong attention to detail with governance and control orientation
Analytical and structured problem-solving capability
Effective stakeholder and vendor collaboration
Ability to independently manage complex payroll scenarios
High standards of data confidentiality, compliance, and integrity
Continuous improvement and transformation mindset
What We Offer:
Opportunity to operate as a senior payroll SME within a Global Payroll Center of Excellence
Exposure to global payroll governance, controls, and audit frameworks
High-impact role contributing to India payroll transformation and optimization
Long-term career growth opportunities within S&P Global – Global Pay Services
What’s In It For You?
Our Mission:
Advancing Essential Intelligence.
Our People:
We're more than 35,000 strong worldwide—so we're able to understand nuances while having a broad perspective. Our team is driven by curiosity and a shared belief that Essential Intelligence can help build a more prosperous future for us all.From finding new ways to measure sustainability to analyzing energy transition across the supply chain to building workflow solutions that make it easy to tap into insight and apply it. We are changing the way people see things and empowering them to make an impact on the world we live in. We’re committed to a more equitable future and to helping our customers find new, sustainable ways of doing business. Join us and help create the critical insights that truly make a difference.
Our Values:
Integrity, Discovery, Partnership
Throughout our history, the world's leading organizations have relied on us for the Essential Intelligence they need to make confident decisions about the road ahead. We start with a foundation of integrity in all we do, bring a spirit of discovery to our work, and collaborate in close partnership with each other and our customers to achieve shared goals.
Benefits:
We take care of you, so you can take care of business. We care about our people. That’s why we provide everything you—and your career—need to thrive at S&P Global.
Our benefits include:
- Health & Wellness: Health care coverage designed for the mind and body.
- Flexible Downtime: Generous time off helps keep you energized for your time on.
- Continuous Learning: Access a wealth of resources to grow your career and learn valuable new skills.
- Invest in Your Future: Secure your financial future through competitive pay, retirement planning, a continuing education program with a company-matched student loan contribution, and financial wellness programs.
- Family Friendly Perks: It’s not just about you. S&P Global has perks for your partners and little ones, too, with some best-in class benefits for families.
- Beyond the Basics: From retail discounts to referral incentive awards—small perks can make a big difference.
For more information on benefits by country visit: https://spgbenefits.com/benefit-summaries
Global Hiring and Opportunity at S&P Global:
At S&P Global, we are committed to fostering a connected and engaged workplace where all individuals have access to opportunities base
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