HR & Payroll Operations Specialist

About the Role / About the Job
Join the HR team as an HR Operations Specialist based in Bahrain or Dubai, UAE and contribute to making the world cleaner, safer, and healthier. This position is crucial in delivering high-quality HR operational support across the employee lifecycle, ensuring an exceptional employee experience and efficient service delivery. You will collaborate closely with employees, managers, HR partners, Centres of Excellence (COEs), Finance, payroll providers, and external vendors to execute core HR processes, including payroll, benefits, employee administration, HR systems, reporting, and compliance. Additionally, you will drive continuous improvement initiatives, enhance operational effectiveness, and support regional and global HR priorities.

What’s in it For You:

• Opportunity to tackle meaningful challenges, assisting customers in achieving clean water, safe food, abundant energy, and healthy environments.
• Ability to make an impact and shape your career with a company that is passionate about growth.
• Support from an organization that values diverse people, perspectives, and ideas to reach our best outcomes.

What You Will Do:

• Provide end-to-end HR Operations support to employees, managers, and local HR teams throughout the employee lifecycle.
• Administer payroll processes, HR expenses, and vendor relationships, partnering with Finance, banks, and external providers.
• Manage leave administration, ensuring request reviews and processing align with company policies and local requirements.
• Support benefits administration, including medical insurance, pension, and other employee benefit programs.
• Coordinate medical insurance enrollments, amendments, and terminations for employees and eligible dependents.
• Maintain accurate employee records and manage the preparation, issuance, tracking, and filing of employee documentation and letters.
• Process HR transactions and maintain employee data in Workday and other HR systems, ensuring data accuracy and compliance.
• Respond to employee HR inquiries and support knowledge management and content maintenance within MyEcolab.
• Support pre-boarding and onboarding activities for new hires and internal transfers, including relocation logistics, temporary accommodation, travel arrangements, and shipment coordination.
• Execute operational employee lifecycle activities such as hires, transfers, promotions, compensation changes, and employee exits.
• Prepare HR reports, metrics, and analyses to support data-driven decision-making and business planning.
• Administer HR contracts, supplier agreements, invoicing, and document repositories.
• Coordinate processes for contingent workers, including onboarding, contract management, assignment tracking, vendor engagement, renewals, and offboarding activities.
• Support Talent Acquisition operations, including interview scheduling, job requisition creation and closure, reporting, and recruitment administration.
• Identify and implement opportunities to improve HR Operations processes, service delivery, operational efficiency, and employee experience.
• Support regional and global HR initiatives, projects, policy implementation, talent programs, and organizational changes.
• Participate in HR projects and continuous improvement initiatives as assigned.
• Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in human resources, accounting-related field, business administration, or other related areas.
• 5 years of Human Resources experience, preferably with significant payroll experience.
• Fluent in both written and spoken English.
• Customer service focused with superior communication, analytical, and presentation skills.
• Ability to interact effectively with all levels of management.
• Strong organizational, time management, and project management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and meet critical deadlines.
• Ability to identify improvement opportunities, develop action plans, and implement solutions.
• Strong interpersonal skills to make recommendations and decisions based on solid assumptions.
• Results-oriented and adaptable with proven drive and follow-through in a fast-paced, results-driven environment.
• Initiative and ability to work independently and within a team setting.
• Critical thinking, analytical, and problem-solving skills balanced with creativity.
• Excellent attention to detail.

Preferred Qualifications:

• HR or Accounting Certification.
• Proficient in Sage or Workday System.
• Proficient in MS Office Suite.

Our Commitment to a Culture of Inclusion & Belonging
We are committed to fair and equal treatment of associates and applicants and furthering the principles of Equal Opportunity to Employment. We will recruit, hire, promote, transfer, and provide opportunities for advancement based on individual qualifications and job performance in all matters affecting employment, compensation, benefits, working conditions, and opportunities for advancement. We will not discriminate against any associate or applicant for employment based on race, religion, color, creed, national origin, citizenship status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expressions, genetic information, marital status, age, or disability.