Payroll and Benefits Coordinator

Description

Book Harvest, an award-winning children’s literacy nonprofit scaling nationally, is seeking a Payroll & Benefits Coordinator to serve as our team’s day-to-day payroll and benefits resource and a hands-on partner in building simpler, smarter systems. In this hybrid role, you will pair a sharp eye for detail with genuine warmth to make sure our staff is paid accurately, understands their benefits, and feels supported through transitions. 

This is a full-time, hybrid role based in Durham, NC. We prefer a locally based candidate who can work from our Durham office about 40–60% of the week. However, we are open to regional candidates within a 200-mile radius who can commute to Durham several times a month for core meetings and team connection. Dependable availability during payroll processing and other critical periods is essential.

About Book Harvest

Book Harvest is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization based in Durham, NC, with an ambitious mission: books for every child, support for every parent, and literacy for every community. Since 2011, Book Harvest has placed more than three million books in the hands of children and families, grounded in the belief that literacy starts at birth, in the home, powered by parents, and nourished with books.

With more than a decade of experience testing and refining models that bring books and reading into homes, pediatric clinics, schools, and communities, we are currently scaling nationally and building internal infrastructure designed to match the reach of our vision. Over the next three years, we will refine our systems – payroll being just one example – to support a larger, potentially more distributed organization, and codify our program models into replicable playbooks ready for expansion. Joining Book Harvest means helping shape a pivotal chapter in the organization’s growth and contributing to a lasting foundation for early literacy. 

You are a detail-loving, tech-curious problem solver who believes that getting someone’s paycheck and benefits right is one of the most deeply human things a People team can do. Bringing warmth and accuracy in equal measure, you can walk an employee through a confusing pay stub with patience and kindness, then turn around and reconcile a payroll register line by line. You get genuinely excited about making complicated processes simpler, smarter, and more automated. Organized, proactive, and dependable, you are equally at home in a spreadsheet as you are answering a nervous new hire’s benefits questions. If you have ever looked at a repetitive administrative task or a confusing system and thought, “There has to be a better way to do this,” we would love to meet you.

Who You Are

You are a detail-loving, tech-curious problem solver who believes that getting someone’s paycheck and benefits right is one of the most deeply human things a People team can do. Bringing warmth and accuracy in equal measure, you can walk an employee through a confusing pay stub with patience and kindness, then turn around and reconcile a payroll register line by line. You get genuinely excited about making complicated processes simpler, smarter, and more automated.

Organized, proactive, and dependable, you are equally at home in a spreadsheet as you are answering a nervous new hire’s benefits questions. If you have ever looked at a repetitive administrative task or a confusing system and thought, “There has to be a better way to do this,” we would love to meet you.

What You’ll Do

Book Harvest is transitioning payroll execution from Finance into Talent & Culture (HR), planning a more frequent payroll schedule, and preparing for an HRIS transition. You will be a hands-on implementation partner to the Associate Director of People Operations, testing improvements, translating ideas into practical workflows, and supporting employees through change. As you grow, you will take meaningful ownership of defined projects and work streams.

• Run accurate, timely payroll (35%): Prepare and process payroll through our payroll platform, maintaining approved hires, terminations, pay changes, mileage, reimbursements, deductions, and other adjustments. You will audit registers, manager-approved timecards, and paid time off banks, resolve discrepancies, and partner with Finance on reconciliations, journal entries, grant allocations, and specialized reporting. You will also support payroll documentation for grant-funded positions, AmeriCorps members, interns, and work-study employees, plus multi-state payroll calendars, checklists, SOPs, internal controls, and year-end W-2 review.
• Administer benefits with care (20%): Coordinate enrollment, eligibility changes, life events, and coverage terminations. You will maintain and audit records across Employee Navigator, payroll/HRIS, carrier portals, and internal files; reconcile benefits invoices, deductions, and retirement contributions; and work with brokers, carriers, recordkeepers, and Finance to resolve discrepancies. You will support open enrollment, leave-related changes, and vendor coordination, and flag complex plan or compliance questions for review.
• Help us build a better system (20%): Proactively identify ways to streamline workflows, reduce manual work and recurring errors, and improve the employee experience through thoughtful use of technology and automation. You will help design, test, document, and evaluate process improvements, support our move to a more frequent payroll schedule, and assist with the anticipated HRIS migration through process mapping, data validation, parallel payroll testing, and employee training.
• Be a warm, reliable point of contact (15%): Own routine payroll and benefits questions from first contact through resolution, with timely, empathetic, accurate communication. You will lead the payroll and benefits portions of onboarding, support employee self-service in Paylocity, Employee Navigator, and successor platforms, and create clear FAQs, pay-stub guides, and short tutorials. When something is sensitive or high-risk, you will escalate it with research, context, and proposed next steps, and stay involved through follow-through.
• Keep records clean and compliant (10%): Maintain accurate, confidential employee records, including work-location information, employment status, pay, and benefits data, I-9s and work authorizations. You will assist with routine payroll, benefits, and multi-state compliance, run recurring cross-system audits for missing or outdated records, and protect confidentiality, data access, and records retention.

What You’ll Bring

• Tech & Data Aptitude: Intermediate Excel or Google Sheets skills, including lookups, formulas, and reconciling datasets, along with real curiosity and enthusiasm for simplifying and automating processes. This is our biggest ask of this team member! 
• Practical Payroll & HR Operations Experience: This is a Coordinator-level role for someone who already has a practical foundation. 4+ years of work experience, with at least 1 year of relevant hands-on experience in payroll, benefits, other HR administration, or accounting, is strongly preferred. 
• Payroll Know-How: Hands-on experience processing or administering payroll in a payroll/HRIS platform, with working knowledge of earnings, deductions, tax withholding, and payroll reconciliation.
• Accuracy & Sound Judgment: You are organized, confidential, and dependable with recurring deadlines, and you know when to handle something yourself and when to bring in a colleague.
• Accessible Communication Skills: Warm, clear written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain pay and benefits topics to team members at all levels and take proactive ownership of their requests.
• A Mission-Driven, Collaborative Spirit: A commitment to Book Harvest’s mission and equity values, and a collaborative approach to working across teams.
• Nice to Have: Experience with Paylocity or Employee Navigator (or platforms like ADP, UKG, Paycom, or Paycor); multi-state payroll, benefits invoice reconciliation, retirement plan administration, open enrollment, COBRA, ACA, or state leave exposure; nonprofit or grant-funded payroll and cost allocations; HRIS implementation, system migrations, or automated workflows; and familiarity with payroll, benefits, and leave compliance requirements.
• Core Competencies: You show integrity, emotional intelligence, a drive for self-development, and a commitment to Diversity, Equity, Belonging, and Inclusion (DEBI). You communicate clearly, work well on a team, manage your time and projects with care, make sound decisions on routine matters, adapt readily to change, and connect your daily work to Book Harvest’s broader mission.

Requirements

What Success Looks Like

Employees are paid accurately and supported compassionately. Benefits and data are reconciled. Deadlines and inquiries are handled proactively. Processes become simpler and more reliable, operational changes are tested and clearly communicated, and you grow into a trusted implementation partner. In your first year, you will work toward reliable ownership of recurring operations and completion of at least two meaningful improvement projects, with opportunities to progress your career.

Who Should Apply

At Book Harvest, we believe those who are affected most by literacy injustice must be centered in the work that we do, both inside and out. We prioritize applications from individuals who have lived experiences of our programs or who come from the communities we serve, and we strongly encourage applications from candidates who may not have seen themselves reflected in books and stories as a child.

We know that great candidates don’t always check every box. If you meet most of the qualifications above and are excited about this work, we encourage you to apply even if you don’t match 100% of the list. We don’t require college degrees. 

At Book Harvest, we believe in radical transparency, deep equity, and taking exceptional care of our team.

• Salary Range: $44,895-$56,000 
• Our Equity-First Pay Model: Compensation is tied to your experience and dedication, not your negotiation skills. To eliminate systemic pay gaps, we never ask for salary history and do not negotiate offers. Instead, we use a predictable, step-based model that rewards your increasing tenure with dollars. Salary ranges are tied to market costs and are adjusted on a regular basis.
• Health & Wealth: 100% employer-sponsored healthcare (with elective dental, vision, disability, and life) and a 401(k) with an automatic 3% employer contribution (no match required).
• Time Off: Generous PTO, plus dedicated paid family leave and rewarding sabbatical leaves.
• Growth & Culture: Professional development funds, a flexible hybrid schedule, structured onboarding and hands-on training, and a purposeful workplace where your work directly impacts children and literacy equity.

Hiring Process: Resume and application screener questions. The hiring process will include application questions, a phone call, and approximately two interviews, plus a work sample and reference checks. Application questions will ask about your experience with the HRIS and payroll systems listed above, and whether you would be available to train on payroll on Monday, 12/28/2026 (Yes, No, or Maybe/TBD; this is helpful context for us, not a deal-breaker). Learn more at bookharvest.org/careers.

Priority Deadline: 11/15/2026. Applications received after that will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with a target start date of late December or early January.