Senior Specialist - Payroll, South Europe

Onrunning seeks a Senior Specialist - Payroll for South Europe, based in Zürich, CH. The role involves managing end-to-end payroll operations in France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, ensuring compliance and accuracy. Candidates need 4+ years of payroll experience in France or Italy, fluency in English and a local language, and strong Excel skills.

The Talent (HR) team at Onrunning is expanding to support the company’s rapid growth. This Senior Specialist role focuses on payroll operations within South Europe, ideally suited for someone experienced in fast-paced, scale-up, and retail environments who enjoys solving new challenges and improving processes.

Responsibilities

• Manage the full payroll cycle for France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, ensuring compliance with local regulations.
• Prepare payroll data for external vendors, including regular pay, overtime, bonuses, benefits, and deductions.
• Review payroll drafts from vendors to verify accuracy against local laws.
• Handle multiple payroll schedules, including retail, to ensure timely salary payments and payslip delivery.
• Provide month-end payroll reports to finance, reconcile accounts, and resolve discrepancies with the finance team.
• Enroll employees in local benefits such as health insurance and pension schemes.
• Respond promptly and professionally to payroll-related questions from employees and business leaders.
• Generate required payroll documents like Attestation employeur and Certificat de travail, based on country-specific needs.
• Work with Talent and Finance teams to integrate payroll, HR, and finance systems smoothly.
• Own the country-specific data integration between On’s Workday system and external payroll vendors.
• Communicate with government authorities, insurers, and benefit providers in each country.
• Collaborate with HR specialists, Business Partners, and Total Rewards to advance new initiatives.
• Design payroll processes aligned with internal SOX controls and help automate and optimize existing systems.
• Set up payroll operations in new markets with support from regional leads and local HR specialists.
• Perform regular audits of payroll records to ensure accuracy and regulatory compliance.
• Handle ESS (equity) and fringe benefits reporting via payroll.
• Manage complex employment cases, including cross-border employment and relocations.
• Be prepared to take on additional payroll countries as Onrunning expands into new markets.

Requirements

• Minimum of 4 years of payroll experience in France or Italy.
• Strong knowledge of payroll operations, local legislation, and best practices in France or Italy.
• Experience collaborating with external payroll service providers.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel.
• Fluency in English and at least one additional local language (French or Italian).

Nice to have

• Prior experience in payroll for retail workforces in any of the target countries.
• Payroll experience in additional countries beyond France or Italy.
• Knowledge of any language beyond English and one local language.

About the company

The Talent team at Onrunning focuses on innovation and empowerment, moving beyond traditional HR practices. They aim to build, grow, and enable teams to shape the company’s future. The Talent Operations team is committed to delivering a seamless and positive experience for all employees.

• The Talent team prioritizes doing things differently, not just following standard HR practices.
• They build, grow, enable, and empower teams to drive Onrunning’s future.
• Talent Operations ensures a seamless and positive employee experience at all times.
• The company values innovation and being On — proactive and forward-thinking.