COMPLIANCE
Celebrating the evolving nature of payroll
Karen Beckett BA (Hons) ChFCIPP, head of payroll and benefits at Dorset Healthcare University National Health Services Foundation Trust, celebrates how much payroll has changed over the last four decades P ayroll professionals are familiar with change. Every year, the chancellor of the Exchequer sets the country’s
is its workforce. Getting employees paid correctly and on time is essential for any company, as well as ensuring that legislation is met, and companies remain compliant. The only way to ensure employees are paid correctly requires the payroll professional to check calculations manually and to know and understand national legislation applicable to the country they’re paying, as well as national and local terms and conditions of service. The pandemic only enhanced the importance of the payroll professional, with so many changes to legislative and company terms and conditions affecting payroll at short notice. It provided the opportunity for payroll professionals to prove they were adaptable by working remotely, as well as keeping up to date (at a moment’s notice) with the changes in legislation and local agreements. The payroll professional stepped up and continued to pay employees, collect and pay over statutory deductions, as well as managing the furlough scheme (one scheme that none of us will forget in a hurry, although we may wish to). Not only do payroll professionals deal with the many legislative requirements for payroll, but they also need to know how legislation applies to pensions, expenses and staff benefits. Pension automatic enrolment added additional responsibilities. IR35 is adding further complexity and there will surely be more changes to come. The payroll professional has had to adapt to an ever-changing role. Payroll has always had its complexities but in today’s world, those complexities have
annual budget which results in payroll professionals needing to remember the new annual tax allowance, new statutory payment rates and all the other changes that affect payroll. So, payroll professionals are conversant with change. But, what about the role of the payroll professional? It’s fair to say that, over the last 40 years, the nature of payroll has evolved dramatically. Payroll professionals are more involved with, not only payroll, but also with pensions and reward. Organisations look to the payroll professional to provide numerous reports to support the organisation’s culture and future direction, as well as providing ‘advice’ on legislation. Payroll has changed dramatically I’ve seen the world of payroll alter significantly over the last four decades. Technology has played its part in changing payroll. I started my career in payroll, manually writing out the payment details on paper, which were then sent to a ‘computer centre’ to be keyed and processed. While technology has moved on and the payroll professional is now responsible for keying data, it has developed further with interfaces between systems, as well as self-service input. Many see technology as the way to reduce payroll teams in size. However, the payroll professional is more important than ever, especially as the most important factor of any company
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | October 2022 | Issue 84 26
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