Job Description

Payroll Manager

Melbourne VIC | Full time

• Lead payroll delivery for more than 10,000 employees across Australia and New Zealand.
• A hands-on leadership role spanning operations, compliance, reporting and transformation.

About the role

Australian Venue Co. operates more than 280 venues across Australia and New Zealand, supported by a large, predominantly weekly paid workforce.

Following the implementation of Workday HCM and Payroll, we are entering the next phase of strengthening our payroll operations, controls and internal capability.

We are looking for a Melbourne-based Payroll Manager to lead our six-person Payroll team. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can confidently manage day-to-day payroll delivery while improving the systems, reporting and controls that support it.

Reporting to the Head of People Systems & Payroll, you will be the first point of leadership for complex payroll matters and help build a capable, accountable and continuously improving function.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the accurate and timely delivery of AVC’s Australian and New Zealand payroll operations.
• Provide day-to-day direction, coaching and technical support to the Payroll team.
• Own complex payroll matters involving taxation, superannuation, leave, awards and payroll integrations.
• Establish regular exception reporting covering backpays, manual entries, timesheet adjustments, pre-onboarding work, overpayments and underpayments.
• Partner with Venue Managers to understand recurring exceptions, address root causes and strengthen accountability across our venues.
• Improve payroll compliance visibility through stronger workflows, controls, risk tracking and management reporting.
• Strengthen long service leave calculations and validate employee balances received through acquisitions.
• Lead payroll improvement initiatives, including automation and optimisation projects.
• Support upcoming New Zealand legislative and system changes, including the future migration to a new payroll system.
• Work closely with People Systems, People Services, Finance, WHS and Operations.
• Manage external payroll system support and advisers, ensuring solutions are practical, compliant and appropriate for AVC.

About you

• Strong experience leading payroll delivery in a large or complex organisation.
• Demonstrated technical knowledge across PAYG withholding, superannuation, STP, leave, payroll compliance and award-based environments.
• The confidence to independently investigate complex issues and make sound payroll decisions.
• Experience developing payroll controls, exception reporting and process improvements.
• Strong people leadership, with the ability to coach both experienced and developing Payroll Officers.
• A practical and constructive approach to working with operational managers.
• The ability to identify recurring problems, challenge existing processes and drive issues through to resolution.
• Experience with Workday Payroll is highly desirable. Experience with another large cloud payroll or HRIS platform will also be considered.
• Experience in hospitality, retail or another high-volume, multi-site payroll environment would be advantageous.

You are an experienced payroll leader who remains comfortable getting into the detail. You can move between supporting an Officer, investigating a tax or system issue, speaking with a Venue Manager and designing a stronger control for the future.

You bring sound judgement, curiosity and accountability. You are not someone who simply maintains an existing process; you look for ways to make it stronger, simpler and more effective.

Why join AVC?

This role offers the opportunity to lead Payroll within a large, growing national business. You will have genuine scope to influence how the function operates, develop the team and deliver practical improvements across compliance, reporting and service. It is a visible role with meaningful ownership and the opportunity to shape Payroll’s next stage of development.

AVC also offers hybrid working arrangements, career development opportunities and generous discounts across our venues.

Regular presence in our Melbourne office is an essential part of this leadership role.