Associate Director, HR Operations and Total Rewards, Europe

The Associate Director, HR Operations & Total Rewards, will lead HR operational excellence across Cytokinetics’ European affiliates. This role works collaboratively with global colleagues in HR, Finance, and external partners to enable our company to best support our colleagues in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Benelux, the UK, Ireland, and Germany, Austria and the Nordics. This role reports into our Head of HR, Europe.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical HR expertise, total rewards knowledge, systems orientation (Workday is a plus), and a service-driven mindset. This individual will play a critical role in ensuring operational rigor, regulatory compliance, and continuous improvement across our global, regional and local HR processes.

Key Responsibilities

1. HR Systems & Operations

• System of Record Ownership: Maintain the HRIS (Workday) as the single source of truth, ensuring accurate and timely manual data entry and ongoing data integrity across all employee records.
• Data Governance: Implement and maintain data quality standards, performing regular audits to ensure alignment between HRIS, payroll providers, and Finance systems.
• Process Optimization: Identify inefficiencies in HR workflows and design improved processes to reduce manual effort, email traffic, and administrative burden.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with HR Business Partners, Talent Acquisition, Finance, Global CoEs and IT to ensure seamless data flow and operational excellence.
• Employee Support & Escalation: Act as the escalation point for complex employee inquiries related to pre-payroll, benefits, and time-off balances, resolving issues with professionalism and a service-oriented approach.
• Continuous Improvement: Drive system enhancements, automation opportunities, and operational best practices to scale HR infrastructure in alignment with company growth.

2. European Payroll Coordination & Data Quality

• Pre-Payroll Management: Own the end-to-end preparation of monthly payroll inputs for all European entities, including new hires, terminations, compensation changes, bonuses, equity events, and leaves of absence in close coordination with local HR Partners and Finance.
• Data Verification: Collate, audit, and validate payroll-related data to ensure completeness, accuracy, and timely submission to external payroll providers.
• Finance & Provider Partnership: Serve as the primary liaison between HR, external payroll vendors, and internal Finance. Ensure providers receive accurate instructions on schedule and that Finance has the required documentation and reporting for approval.
• Audit & Validation: Partner with Finance to review and validate preliminary payroll reports (gross-to-net reconciliation), identifying and resolving discrepancies prior to final pay authorization.
• Compliance Oversight: Ensure payroll processes comply with applicable European labor laws, tax regulations, and reporting requirements.
  
  

3. Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards

• Benefits Administration: Manage day-to-day administration of European benefit programs (pension, private health, life insurance, and other local benefits), ensuring accurate enrollment, termination, and vendor coordination.
• Vendor & Broker Management: Partner with brokers and local leadership on annual benefit renewals, benchmarking, and harmonization efforts to ensure competitive and cost-effective offerings across the region in coordination with Global CoE and local HR partners.
• Tax & Regulatory Advisory: Provide guidance on tax implications of compensation elements such as company cars, remote work arrangements, allowances, and other benefits in kind (e.g., UK P11D and comparable regional requirements).
• Policy Implementation: Ensure consistent execution of total rewards policies while accommodating local regulatory requirements.
• Data Analytics & Reporting: Maintain accurate compensation and benefits records to support audits, financial reporting, and workforce analytics.

 

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Finance, or related field.
• 8+ years of progressive HR operations experience; global experience supporting countries such as Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France, UK, Ireland, or Germany preferred
• Strong knowledge of European payroll regulations, employment law fundamentals, and benefits compliance requirements.
• Experience advising on tax implications of compensation elements (e.g., benefits in kind, P11D reporting, allowances, company vehicles).
• Proven experience managing HRIS platforms (Workday preferred) and maintaining high standards of data integrity.
• Strong analytical skills, pragmatic and well structured.
• Strong project management ability (risk assessment, stakeholder management, resource management)
• Experience partnering cross-functionally with Finance and external vendors.
• High attention to detail with the ability to manage multiple deadlines across countries.
• Excellent communication skills and a customer-focused approach to employee support.

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