HR & Payroll Assistant

 HR & Payroll Assistant | Ellesmere Port, Cheshire | £30,000 – £34,000 | Full Time, Permanent | Hybrid (3 days office, 2 from home)

Would you like a permanent role in a small, friendly HR team where your systems know-how and payroll experience gets put to proper use?

Our exclusive client is an established service business with around 300 employees. You'll join an HR team of three who share an office, share projects and genuinely support each other. It's a chatty, welcoming place, and they're improving things from the ground up rather than following a corporate rulebook.

The Role

You'll be the HR link into payroll and the person keeping HR administration running smoothly day to day.

Payroll

The week before each payroll run is busy, and the rest of the month is HR focused. You'll prepare and coordinate payroll information for around 250 employees across three UK sites, making sure it's accurate, complete and submitted on time. The payroll tasks include;

• Prepare the HR information for three payrolls, two monthly and one four-weekly
• Set up new starters, process leavers and manage changes to terms and conditions
• Collect and check the supporting documentation, and keep the HR system up to date
• Pull together absence, overtime and benefits information, including maternity and paternity
• Handle any payroll calculations needed across standard and ad hoc payroll runs
• Work with the in-house payroller in finance on the head office payroll, and prepare the guide and instructions for the external provider covering the other two sites

To be clear, you won't be running payroll yourself. It's about getting the information right so payroll runs cleanly, across sites that use different processes and systems.

HR administration and systems

• Manage the HR inbox and general employee queries
• Track sickness absence
• Keep the HR system accurate, including job title and reporting line changes, approvals and pulling reports
• Tracking and booking training courses

Onboarding and offboarding

• Issue contracts, complete right to work checks and run the pre-start checklist
• Be the friendly first point of contact for new starters before day one
• Arrange and deliver inductions, usually one to one, covering the company, systems and benefits
• Handle leavers, including end dates and exit interviews

Projects

• Support the team on improvement work, including making more of the HR system through automation

You'll Flourish if You Have

• Payroll experience from an HR, payroll or admin role. You'll need to understand how payroll works and be confident preparing and coordinating the information, though you won't need to run it yourself. This is essential, as the team can teach you the HR side.
• Real confidence with HR systems and moving between them, including pulling reports, following workflows and coding things correctly. System training is provided but you do need to be confident using an HR system
• Drive and motivation. You'll get on with things and look for ways to do them better
• A friendly, welcoming manner, because you'll often be the first face new starters meet
• The organisation to handle a busy inbox and a monthly payroll deadline without things slipping
• An interest in settling into a role for the long term. This suits an earlier-career HR professional with payroll exposure just as well as an experienced HR Assistant

Why You'll Love Working Here

• £30,000 – £34,000 depending on experience
• Hybrid working, with three days in the office and two from home, and flexibility on which days
• 25 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays
• Option to buy up to 5 extra days and carry over up to 5
• Private health insurance
• Income protection insurance
• Critical illness cover
• Free on-site parking, and a few minutes' walk from the train station
• A genuinely friendly team, and a permanent role with a business investing in how HR works

This role is moving quickly, so please get in touch as soon as possible.

Foxgroves Recruitment acts as an employment agency for vacancies on behalf of clients, following fair and inclusive recruitment practices in line with the Equality Act 2010. All appointments are subject to pre-employment screening, including right to work checks, reference checks, and qualification verification. Reasonable adjustments are available for individuals with disabilities throughout the recruitment process.