Overview

Payroll & People Advisor – Fixed Term, Full Time

Location: Chelmsford

Salary: From £26,316 to £30,959 per annum

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing Date: 14th September 2025

This is an opportunity to gain knowledge and experience of payroll services, responding effectively to customers’ enquiries in a timely and professional manner, and meeting service standards. This can be via the customer portal, in writing, or verbally in a call or meeting. This role is offered as a 6 month fixed term contract/secondment opportunity and, as an ‘Anywhere Worker’ position, involves a combination of remote and office-based working. There is an expectation to attend the office at County Hall, Chelmsford approximately 1 day per week in addition to ‘as and when’ there is a business need. There may also be a requirement to attend other Essex County Council offices during the fixed term contract.

The Role

The payroll service sits within the People, Policy, Economy and Public Health function, to influence both the customer and employee experience in a key area of employee engagement. Providing a comprehensive service, investing in new technology to better support our users and enable an empowered self-service and support function. You will provide support and resolutions quickly and efficiently at the first point of call. Our ethos is to provide advice, support and guidance that is simple, clear, efficient, and effective, including communication, terminology, and our processes. The role requires strong system knowledge to undertake user acceptance training.

Key Responsibilities

• Where possible, support and guide employees in using self-service.
• Resolve complex payroll queries to ensure timeframes are met within agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Support the requirement for ensuring the integrity and security of personal, contractual and financial information, to meet legislation and Council policies.
• Work collaboratively within a team to ensure work is processed and delivered to a high standard, ensuring quality of outputs.
• Respond to customers’ enquiries in a timely and professional manner and meet service standards, via the customer portal, in writing, or verbally in a call or meeting.
• Support the drive to improve the service and quality of outputs and system testing to exceed customer expectations.
• Specific individual and shared targets and objectives are defined annually within the performance management framework.

Experience and Qualifications

Essential:

• Educated to RQF Level 3, or equivalent by experience.
• Evidence of continuing professional development and knowledge in a relevant professional area, working towards a CIPP qualification.
• Professional experience in communicating with customers in written, verbal and virtual formats.
• Ability to interpret policies and procedures to deal with a variety of customer enquiries with the aim for a resolution.

Desirable:

• A demonstrable track record of providing exceptional customer service.
• Working collaboratively with colleagues to deliver good practice and advice on policy.
• Ability to communicate effectively, demonstrating empathy, listening, and questioning skills to a very high level, with a high standard of written communication.
• Experience of working in a customer-orientated environment, dealing with queries in a service delivery setting and continuously seeking to improve the services provided.

Why Essex?

As one of the largest and most dynamic UK local authorities, Essex offers a stimulating public service environment. Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader and is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults. We aim to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements and to interview all veterans and care leavers who meet the minimum requirements. We value integrity and ethical behaviour and invite you to embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles throughout the recruitment process. DBS checks may be required, and if so you will need to register with the DBS update service.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

Additional information

For queries on this role or to read more about our business area, please visit: People, Policy, Economy and Public Health. If you would like to be kept up to date on other opportunities, join The Essex Talent Community. For any questions, email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk.