Payroll and Benefits Manager

Pay is how a restaurant group keeps its promise. When hours, tips, and benefits land correctly and on time, managers stay on the floor and teams stay. This role owns payroll and benefits across a multi-unit, full-service portfolio in two markets—so every paycheck, enrollment, and compliance deadline protects guest service, not just the books.

Performance Objectives

• Run accurate, on-time payroll for hourly, tipped, and salaried teams across all locations, with near-zero correction cycles after close.
• Cut recurring payroll errors and off-cycle checks by tightening timekeeping, tip reporting, and manager submission standards.
• Administer medical, retirement, and leave programs so eligible team members enroll, understand, and use benefits without chasing HR.
• Keep multi-state wage, tip-credit, tax, and benefits filings current and audit-ready.
• Give operators a clear monthly view of labor cost, overtime, and benefit spend they can act on before the period closes.
• Resolve pay and benefits issues within agreed service levels so general managers are not pulled off the floor.
• Partner with finance on year-end reporting, audits, and plan renewals that hold cost without cutting coverage people rely on.

Environment & Resources

You sit with people operations and finance, reporting to the senior people or finance leader, and work daily with general managers and accounting. You will have a modern payroll and benefits platform, a defined processing calendar, and authority to set submission rules. The portfolio is profitable, multi-unit, and growth-minded—not a single café and not a national chain—so decisions stay close to the restaurants.

Essential Qualifications

• Proven ownership of multi-location restaurant or hospitality payroll, including tips, tip credit, and variable schedules.
• Hands-on benefits administration: eligibility, enrollments, leaves, and carrier or broker coordination.
• Working knowledge of multi-state wage, tax, and leave rules sufficient to flag risk before it becomes a penalty.
• Comfort building simple labor and benefits reports that operators actually use.
• A track record of calm, direct communication with non-HR managers under deadline pressure.

Role Selling Points

• Own the full cycle—payroll, benefits, and compliance—not a narrow processing seat.
• See the impact in restaurants you can visit, not a distant shared-services queue.
• Work inside a group that chooses operational excellence over scale for its own sake.
• Support a culture that treats team members as the reason guests come back.

If accurate pay and real benefits are how you protect a hospitality team, apply with a short note on a payroll or benefits problem you fixed and the result.

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