Human Resources Leader, Pay & Client Services

TO APPLY: This competition is being conducted by KBRS. Do not apply on The City's system. To be considered, applications must be submitted directly to KBRS at City of Calgary - HR Leader, Pay & Client Services - KBRS. For more information or to ask any questions, please contact Bola Moradeyo at bmoradeyo@kbrs.ca.

The City of Calgary is one of Canada's largest municipalities, serving over 1.6 million residents and delivering essential services that support the city's economic, social, and environmental well-being. Governed by a Mayor and City Council, The City is responsible for a broad range of services including public transit, public safety, utilities, planning, recreation, and community services.

Guided by its vision of "a great place to make a living, a great place to make a life" and its shared purpose of "Making life better every day," The City is committed to delivering excellent public service, fostering innovation, and creating a vibrant and sustainable future for Calgarians.

The City of Calgary is seeking an HR Leader, Pay & Client Services to provide strategic and operational leadership for payroll services supporting thousands of employees across a complex, unionized environment. Reporting to the Assistant Manager, Pay and Client Services, this role is responsible for leading teams, driving process improvements, ensuring service excellence, and building strong relationships with employees, leaders, and union partners while supporting the organization's commitment to making life better every day.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of payroll professionals, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and professional growth through recruitment, succession planning, career development initiatives, performance management, and training needs assessments.
• Oversee the delivery of accurate, compliant, and customer-focused payroll services for a large and complex workforce.
• Develop and execute workforce planning and resource allocation strategies to ensure operational requirements, service standards, and organizational priorities are effectively met.
• Build strong relationships with leaders, HR partners, employees, union representatives, and external interested parties to support effective service delivery and positive labour relations outcomes.
• Provide expertise in payroll legislation, policies, collective agreements, and labour relations matters, including grievances, arbitrations, collective bargaining activities, and the interpretation of agreement provisions.
• Represent the organization in arbitration proceedings and provide analysis, strategic recommendations, and operational impact assessments related to collective bargaining and labour relations initiatives.  
• Identify and implement opportunities to modernize processes, improve efficiencies, strengthen service delivery, and enhance the employee experience.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives and contribute to strategic projects that support organizational objectives and long-term organizational effectiveness.
• Ensure strong governance, internal controls, compliance, and audit readiness across payroll operations.

Ideal Candidate Profile

As the ideal candidate, you bring progressive leadership experience in payroll, employee services, HR operations, benefits administration, or another complex, high-volume service environment. Experience working in a unionized environment and navigating collective agreements is highly valued.

You are a strategic yet hands-on leader who can balance day-to-day operational excellence with long-term improvement. You bring a growth mindset, embrace change, and have a proven ability to modernize processes, improve service delivery, and lead teams through transformation.

A strong people leader, you build trust quickly, empower others to make decisions, and create high-performing, engaged teams. You remove barriers, foster collaboration, and hold people accountable while maintaining a supportive and inclusive leadership style.

You are customer-focused and understand the importance of delivering responsive, value-added service to employees, leaders, and partners. Your strong relationship-building skills, sound judgment, and political acuity enable you to successfully navigate complex organizations and influence positive outcomes.

Key Qualifications 

• A completed two-year diploma or degree in Human Resources, Business Administration or a related field.
• A valid Payroll Leadership Professional designation with the National Payroll Institute and at least 6 years of related progressive payroll management experience.
• Equivalent combinations of education and experience may be considered.
• Previous experience with large platforms such as SAP, Oracle or UKG and a multi-union environment will be considered an asset. 
• Previous experience with change management will also be considered an asset.
• You have exceptional communication skills with the ability to build and maintain effective, lasting professional relationships accompanied by a demonstrated customer focus.

Position and Pay Information

• Union: Exempt
• Business Unit: Human Resources
• Position Type: Permanent
• Compensation: Level M1 $115,627 - 144,534 per annum
• Location: 800 Macleod Trail SE
• Audience: Internal/External
• Job ID: 315262