EMEA Payroll Practitioner

Houlihan Lokey, Inc. (NYSE:HLI) is a leading global investment bank recognised for delivering independent strategic and financial advice to corporations, financial sponsors, and governments. With uniquely deep industry expertise, broad international reach, and a partnership approach rooted in trust, the firm provides innovative, integrated solutions across mergers and acquisitions, capital solutions, financial restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory.

We are seeking an experienced, detail-oriented and highly organised Payroll Practitioner to ensure Houlihan Lokey’s payroll process is executed flawlessly and will scale with the growth of our business. This is an amazing opportunity to be a key contributor to the payroll team. This role reports into the EMEA Payroll Manager. The Payroll Practitioner will work closely with our Workday HRIS, Compensation, Human Resources Operations, Benefits, and International Payroll Vendor/Platform teams. This is a hybrid working position which requires a minimum of 2-3 days working in one of our UK or Paris offices.

Responsibilities

• Process monthly payrolls for assigned EMEA countries, such as France, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, ensuring strict adherence to unique country-specific cutoffs.
• Ensure accuracy of data in the Workday system for new hires, job changes, salary changes and terminations.
• Coordinate, review, and administer monthly payrolls in collaboration with our outsourced vendor partners, PwC and Papaya.
• Input and audit employee details, salary changes, overtime, leaves, bonuses, pension adjustments, and deductions into applicable payroll systems, including auditing gross to net calculations.
• Process all non-cash benefits received from the accounting team such as overtime meals and late-night taxi income monthly.
• Process all terminated employee prorated calculations and additional termination payments and holiday payouts.
• Coordinate funds distribution, process payments, and ensure timely wire transmissions to meet local payment deadlines.
• Prepare monthly general ledgers and payroll account reconciliation for select countries.
• Be the first point of contact for assigned EMEA countries payroll related queries and correspondence.
• Respond to all employee queries submitted via the Company’s ServiceNow system daily.
• Review and resolve any individual queries within Service Level Agreement timeframe, escalating as needed.
• Process country specific on-boarding and employment documents from employees, ensuring accurate coding in Workday, payroll deductions, and reporting.
• Collaborate and review employment certificate requests.
• Consult with payroll bureaus, payroll providers, and firm HR legal to ensure payrolls are processed in accordance with current payroll legislation and collective bargaining agreements.
• Maintain an up-to-date understanding of country-specific payroll legislation, income tax, social security, statutory reporting, tax withholding, and benefit-in-kind requirements across assigned EMEA jurisdictions.
• Apply country-specific payroll tax legislation and statutory requirements.
• Maintain a working knowledge of local payroll tax withholding, social security, statutory deductions, taxable benefits and year-end reporting requirements, and assess the impact of legislative changes on payroll processing.
• Collaborate with Workday IT and HRIS on configuration updates to support changes in regulation or CBAs.
• Maintain complete payroll confidentiality and comply with all GDPR regulations.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, Human Resources, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
• 3+ years of advanced multi-jurisdictional EMEA payroll administration, such as France, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands.
• Experience with Workday, in-house payroll systems and local in-country partners.
• Demonstrated understanding of European payroll tax and employment legislation.
• Practical knowledge of French payroll legislation.
• Working knowledge of Italian payroll legislation.
• Strong knowledge of shadow payrolls.
• Intermediate proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Highly organised, detail-oriented, and able to work independently under pressure in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven analytical and critical thinking skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Workday, Payslips, and Strada Global Payroll systems.
• Working knowledge of ServiceNow ticketing system.
• Professional experience in financial services or a similarly complex, highly regulated global corporate environment.
• Additional European language skills (such as Italian, Spanish, or French) are highly desirable.