Senior Platform Specialist – People and Culture

Dis-Chem Pharmacies has an opportunity available for a Senior Platform Specialist – People and Culture who is a seasoned functional and technical expert responsible for configuring, maintaining stability, optimizing, and managing the daily functional aspects of the platform that supports HR processes including payroll and employee data. Reporting to the People and Culture Platform Squad Lead, this position offers in-depth subject-matter knowledge, ensures dependable platform performance within an employee-critical and compliance-driven environment (labour law and payroll compliance), and leads efforts in analyzing, designing, testing, and deploying People and Culture improvements and fixes. Additionally, the role serves as a primary escalation contact for complex People and Culture issues and functional difficulties.

Requirements

• Degree or diploma in Information Technology, Information Systems, HR systems, or related field
• 5+ years’ experience in platform support, configuration, and functional roles
• Experience supporting HR, payroll, or other employee-critical platforms in regulated enterprise environments
• Relevant Platform certifications
• Proven experience working with vendors and third-party application providers

Responsibilities

Platform ownership & roadmap

• Acts as the functional authority within the squad for complex changes and production decisions
• Guides design and configuration choices to reduce risk, rework, and technical debt
• Analyze business requirements and translate them into clear functional specifications
• Provide expert support for complex incidents, root cause analysis, and problem resolution
• Ensure labour law, payroll, data privacy, and regulatory requirements are correctly reflected in platform behaviour

Delivery & operations

• Lead functional design, configuration, and testing for enhancements and regulatory changes
• Support release planning and execution, including regression testing and production validation
• Review solution designs and changes to ensure alignment with HR processes, payroll cycles, and people governance standards
• Work closely with Integration teams and dependent platform squads to support safe, reliable data flows across Finance as an example

Governance & collaboration

• Ensure changes comply with enterprise architecture, integration standards, and information security policies
• Maintain high-quality documentation, including functional specs, test cases, and release notes
• Support audit, compliance, and assurance activities related to HR and payroll systems, including evidence for statutory and audit requirements
• Adhere to change, incident, and problem management processes

Ways of working (Agile & squad-based)

• Work as part of a cross-functional platform squad, collaborating with product owners, engineers, integration specialists, and business stakeholders
• Participate in sprint / iteration ceremonies, including planning, stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives
• Contribute to continuous improvement by identifying delivery, quality, or process improvements
• Support a culture of shared ownership, transparency, and learning

Competencies

• Deep functional understanding of HR platforms, payroll processing, employee data management, and people systems in regulated environments
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills in complex, mission critical environments
• Ability to operate with high attention to detail in compliance-heavy, employee-critical environments
• Confident communicator with both technical and business stakeholders
• Hands on, ownership driven mindset

Key Performance Indicators

• Availability and operational stability of the P&C platforms
• Reduction in repeat and high severity P&C incidents
• Quality and timeliness of P&C enhancements and fixes
• Accuracy and completeness of functional documentation and test evidence
• Satisfaction of HR and Payroll stakeholders
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual effort, recurring incidents, and configuration complexity through automation and simplification.
• Contributes positively to team culture, engagement, and continuous improvement

Special Conditions of Employment

• South African citizen
• MIE, clear criminal and credit
• Driver’s license and/or own reliable transport

Remuneration and benefits

• Market related salary
• Medical aid
• Provident fund
• Staff account

ONLY SUCCESSFUL APPLICANTS WILL BE CONTACTED. IF YOU HAVEN`T BEEN CONTACTED WITHIN TWO WEEKS AFTER THE CLOSING DATE CONSIDER YOUR APPLICATION AS UNSUCCESSFUL.

Dis-Chem Pharmacies is an equal opportunity employer. Dis-Chem’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process aligned to Dis-Chem’s Employment Equity & Transformation Strategy. Dis-Chem actively supports the recruitment of People with Disabilities.