Country Champion

Overview
- Strada Payroll Delivery Country Champion is a key subject matter expert and leader from the operational team ensuring that compliance and regulatory standards are met, that Strada Cloud Pay ( SCP ) is productive, and it is a competitive solution for the country of responsibility.
- The SCP Country Champion closely collaborates with, and supports colleagues in Operations, Products, Service Readiness as well as (Pre)Sales and Account Management.
- When SCP is fully matured in a country and the focus moves to maintenance and continuous improvement of SCP, the Country Champion may take responsibility for operational delivery of a portfolio of Clients.

**Key Responsibilities**

- Subject Matter Leader in a country/region for payroll compliance, legislation and local regulations. Acting as the key reference point for teams internally on standard payroll service, business process, SCP technology, and compliance matters. This will include pro-actively scanning upcoming changes to legislation and tax laws in their country through the Compliance Alerts team, the Global Payroll Association, memberships of local payroll associations, professional literature subscriptions, external advisors, and other sources as required.
- Working closely with the Product configuration team to guide their development roadmap, including collaborating to keep SCP country workbooks updated for new legislative country requirements; prioritize improvements that make SCP more productive / eliminate manual workarounds; prioritize improvements that make SCP a more competitive / attractive solution in their country of responsibility.
- Review and analyze current payroll procedures and checklists, in order to recommend changes leading to bestpractice solutions and avoid manual workarounds to the extent possible.
- Ensure cross-platform compliance and regulatory standards are met. Ensure the SCP workbook is certified compliant at general availability - and that periodically, SCP for their country of accountability is audited by an external party, and (re)certified compliant.
- Evolve Strada Pay s competitive market offering in terms of functionality, cost effectiveness and user experience.
- Responsible for driving continuous improvement to SCP in the country, methodology for delivering, and templates/standards.
- Work closely with colleagues in (pre)sales and account management, to understand what the local market requires to make SCP a competitive and attractive solution, accelerating Strada s growth. Define BRD s for these (non)functional improvements, prioritize these at country level, and work with the products configuration team to have these added to the country roadmap.
- Give subject matter expertise and advice to Strada Pay project teams working on deployments of the payroll service to each account and ensuring effective transition into operation. This will include supporting implementation teams with training / knowledge about SCP standards and functionality and working with implementation colleagues to align clients to Strada Payroll Standards.
- Support solutioning of / act as gatekeeper or design authority with respect to Client customization requests. The SCP Country Champion supports implementation teams, and later commercial and operational delivery teams, in keeping clients as close to standards as possible.
- Client customization requests are first vetted by the SCP Country Champion, rejected or approved following consultation with the requestor (SR, OPS, CSL, AD) and the products configuration team. When no alignment is reached, a case is escalated to the SCP Steering Committee.
- Work closely with colleagues in operations to understand what improvements to productivity, cost of delivery, ease of use, and user experience are possible and needed. Define BRD s for these (non)functional improvements, prioritize these at country level, and work with the products configuration team to have these added to the country roadmap.
- Train Floor Walkers in the operations teams: SCP super-users that support / coach colleagues and ensure SCP functionality is utilized by all delivery teams to the fullest extent and best practices applied. Floor Walkers are a source for SCP improvements ideas.
- Support Floor Walkers to train payroll managers, specialists, and associates, to ensure SCP functionality is utilized to its fullest extent and where required, auxiliary services delivered to augment SCP functionality.
- Act as the go-to person for areas of subject matter expertise, including pre-sales support/queries, able to showcase to Clients the SCP payroll capabilities, discuss dos and don ts, successes and pitfalls, lessons learned, best practices and standards are refined / updated. Represent your country of responsibility and actively contribute to SCP Country Champion Network and Summits to develop global standards, best practices, procedures, and templates.
- Participate as required in the SCP Steering Committee meetings to help prioritize the SCP development roadmaps.

**Depending on the country s / region s maturity of Strada Pay solution may also:**
- Take responsibility for managing delivery of payroll services and operational requirements of the client as outlined in assigned contract for a portfolio of Clients.
- Own overall payroll service performance in terms of timeliness, first and final payroll accuracy, compliance and predictability, cost of delivery and month on month improvements therein.
- Provide operational and service level data to the customer and/or the account director as requested to build confidence and credibility in the services being provided. Act as an escalation point for customer issues.

**General requirements**

-Should have experience in South Africa Payroll

- 5 Plus in End to End South Africa Payroll
- Expert knowledge of processes, policies and regulations within the area of payroll, within a geography/region:
- 8- 12 years relevant experience administering payroll and HR outsourcing in a corporate environment.
- An ability to collaborate and work in a global, matrixed, fast-paced environment.
- An ability to work independently, a self-starter.
- Someone who naturally takes ownership.
- Fully mastering the fine art of delegation.
- Passionate about ensuring every day is a little better than the previous.
- Excellent written and verbal skills.
- Curious and eager to learn and develop oneself and colleagues.
- An ability to lead and manage a team.
- Knowledge of Workday, SuccessFactors, Oracle HCM.
- Strong knowledge of MS Office tools such as Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
- Attention to detail.

**Role**

- The role is at an advanced JL4S or JL5S level dependent on the requirements of the specific country.
- The role reports to the operational Country Owner and is part of the regional operations Extended Leadership Team (XLT).