Ciara Smith Email and Phone Number

Lead a team of 8 HR professionals and indirectly oversee an additional 12 across Recruitment, Leaves, and Credentialing. Oversee end-to-end HR operations, including onboarding, off boarding, data analysis, and reporting, driving efficiency and process improvements across the department. Led updates to reporting capabilities and workflows within the HRIS system, introducing new reports and refining existing ones to improve visibility and relevance. Achievements include reduced approval times and enhanced insights for stakeholders, while ongoing efforts focus on maintaining data accuracy and continually optimizing reporting processes. Spearheaded the transition of the credentialing team to an integrated HRIS system, improving compliance and accuracy in managing licenses and certifications for over 1,400 employees, affiliates, temps, and vendor staff. Directed strategic HRIS system enhancements, streamlining credentialing processes and enhancing recruitment insights through improved license tracking, background management, and vacancy updates. Currently partnering with IT to optimize data management and elevate reporting accuracy. Executed a comprehensive salary parity analysis, aligning compensation structures to enhance recruitment and retention, ensuring equitable pay across the organization. Lead the development and delivery of critical HR reports, providing actionable insights into staffing levels, vacancy trends, and provider allocations for internal and external stakeholders, supporting informed decision-making. Implemented data accuracy measures in the HRIS system, meticulously validating and updating information.

Project manager for UKG Ready implementation, utilized Asana to oversee the timely completion of tasks. Collaborated with the UKG support team to evaluate and implement operational improvements, including automation, to improve user experience and increase organizational productivity. Restructured the cost center mapping setup to ensure accurate labor cost allocation and implemented sick leave accruals configuration based on city and state guidelines.UKG Ready HRIS administrator, configured and updated default cost centers, scheduled cost centers, base settings, schedule settings, schedule templates, and companywide settings. Developed custom reports within UKG Ready, that provided key metrics requested by C-suite executives that facilitated informed decision-making and aided in the optimization of HR operations.Revamped the Manager, Advanced Scheduling, Employee, and Payroll Manager UKG Ready guides and delivered comprehensive training. Served as a go-to person for troubleshooting, collaborated with managers to address their UKG questions and concerns.Responsible for processing the bi-weekly payroll for over 450 employees in three states (New York, California, and Florida) utilizing UKG Ready, Bamboo HR, and PEO vendors Prestige and Paychex.

Managed a team of ten payroll professionals that were responsible for processing the bi-weekly payroll for over 850 Correctional Health Services (CHS) employees utilizing PeopleSoft Payroll and UKG Workforce Central. In addition, the payroll team was responsible for the bi-weekly payroll processing of CHS affiliate Physician Affiliate Group of New York that has over 650 employees utilizing Paycom and UKG Workforce Central.Achieved a 50% reduction in payroll processing time and a 90% reduction in payroll staff overtime by transitioning affiliate employees from daily paper time cards to UKG Workforce Central, resulting in increased compensation accuracy and streamlined payroll processing.Conducted UKG Workforce user training and created supervisor and employee specific training guides to assist with transition.HRIS administrator for UKG Workforce Central responsible reports management, and new user configurations. Worked in conjunction with the IT team on continuous UKG Workforce Central updates to optimize the system. Established and implemented internal controls, updated procedures, and quality assurance measures that have increased efficiency and accuracy.Payroll lead on a HR system implementation of an applicant tracking system that replaced the paper process for new hires, title changes, and supervisor changes, resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings.

Maintained responsibilities held under the Payroll Compliance Supervisor role.Led development meetings with consultants to create the Overtime Tracking System (OTS), which replaced the previous manual process and enabled departments to effectively plan and track overtime staffing and finances.Managed Payroll Auditors caseload and conducted second level reviews on employee payroll records audits. Ensured team met the quarterly target goals and target audit completion date.

Led a team of five to ensured agency compliance with twenty-four union contracts governing the compensation for over 6,000 employees. Partnered with IT to create a quarterly salary report that captured incumbent salary discrepancies based on the compensation guidelines in the employees’ union contracts. Within six months of the report's creation, over $17,000 dollars was paid to employees as a result, and the report's creation led to over $17,000 dollars paid to employees within the first two quarters. Instituted a transaction approval system between the Compliance team and the Payroll Accounting team, which improved tracking, record management, and reduced the frequency of paycheck transactions approved in error. Worked closely with cross-functional teams to identify and resolve payroll issues, ensuring accurate and timely payroll processing. Conducted agency wide employee payroll audit to correct past compensation errors. Employee payroll records audits resulted in over payment recoupments totaling over $250,000 dollars and over $425,000 dollars paid to employees’ for underpayments in compensation. Created the payroll audit manual that detailed the policies, rules and procedures for conducting an employee payroll records audit. Trained two payroll auditors on the procedures and second level reviewed audit work papers. Created audit tracking system that contained audit findings summary, backup calculation documentation and the amount of each over payment and under payment. As a result of the audit – staff retraining, quality assurance steps and procedures were implemented to reduce future compensation errors. Promoted to Director of newly created Compliance and Compensation Review Unit in April 2017.

Managed a caseload of thirty candidates and performed financial, compliance, and investigative audits on campaigns with budgets ranging from $100,000 to over $3,000,000. Uncovered findings such as commingling of funds, improper use of campaign funds, and fraudulent contributions. Campaign audits resulted in over $210,000 assessed in violation penalties and public funds repayment judgments totaling over $115,000. Member of the audit improvement team that proposed improvements to future campaign audits with the goal of streamlining the audit reports workflow, instituted risk management thresholds, and strengthened the procedures across audit teams.

Conducted bank reconciliations on campaigns with budgets ranging from $400,000 to over $4,000,000, reviewing documentation and interviewing campaign staff to ensure compliance.Drafted detailed compliance visit memos outlining potential post-election penalties and recommendations for campaigns.Performed quality assurance checks on both draft and final audit reports, ensuring the accuracy of findings, cross-referencing, and exhibits.

Improved revenue for the "Back-to-Work" program by 25% by providing subcontractors with mid-month progress report snapshots that outlined their progress in meeting monthly and yearly target goals.Streamlined billing procedures for subcontractors, reducing processing time for payment requests submitted to the New York City Human Resources Administration.Developed the Operations Assistant training manual that documented billing and invoicing procedures to ensure consistency and accuracy for future employees.

As a Payment Center Coordinator, generated weekly and monthly reports for management that tracked customer inquiries handled at multiple payment center locations. Additionally, ensured accurate end-of-day deposit preparation for payments received at the Manhattan payment center and reconciled weekly deposits for bank submission.