Personal development
A life in payroll
John Spooner ACIPP , who retired in April from the role of product analyst for Moorepay , shares views andwisdomaccumulated over his impressive fifty years in the industry
What do you see as the most significant changes to payroll management/processing that have occurred during your career? In my fifty years in the industry I’ve experienced extraordinary change. My journey began in a time before computers, when payroll processes were very manual and mark sense cards (https://bit. ly/2wLBSvC) were all the rage. But I think we’d all agree that the world wide web has undoubtedly been the catalyst for the most significant changes in payroll. High speed broadband – coupled with the use of APIs (application programming interfaces) – has dramatically reduced the time it takes to process payroll. And as the Covid-19 pandemic has proved, this can now be achieved from anywhere in the world. In fact, as I write this, we’ve entered the new tax year with all Moorepay employees homeworking and working securely via our cloud-based payroll software. In a world where we can now make phone calls from our watches, payroll keeps changing to keep pace with the new technologies available to us. Payroll is no longer run from an office, or even stuck on a server: it can be accessed anywhere, any time. It’s a far cry from when we had a team of people running in with the sense cards and making the manual calculations there-and-then. Of course, much of this work can be automated now as well, which is another time-saver.
years and upon leaving the public sector in 1991 I thought it was a little too late. Thinking about it now it would never have been too late to do this. So, if you’re considering completing payroll qualifications, I would urge you to do so. How do you see payroll management developing in the next five to ten years? Over the last fifty years it has been fascinating to be part of the journey payroll has taken. What was considered an administrative ‘back office’ task is now a respected and highly regarded industry. As payroll professionals we all know payroll is ‘more than just pay’. In the next five years I think payroll functions will start to provide even more in-depth analysis of costs at board level. After all, payroll is where a lot of this data is stored, and payroll is typically the single biggest expense for most businesses. In addition, artificial intelligence is gaining ground and I see this as a real opportunity for payroll. It isn’t about ‘taking over jobs’ – it’s about freeing staff from the burden of administrative tasks to deal more directly with employees. The next generation of payroll software will also offer new and more meaningful ways to empower employees. The possibility of asking the likes of Google or Alexa to ‘book me five days of annual leave at the end of July’ or ask ‘what is my net pay for this month?’ is now within reach, and I think that’s really exciting for people. You never quite know what’s around the corner, but I am certain that the demands on payroll will continue to grow and change, and the demand for committed, qualified and skilled payroll professionals will continue. n
source data was correct in the first place, and ensuring you remain compliant with an ever-changing legislative environment where there are some 160 pieces of UK and European law to comply with! This brings me to my second greatest achievement. In my opinion, a key attribute of a payroll professional is their ability to adapt seamlessly to new developments, whether centred around technology, working methods or legislation. That’s what makes it so intellectually stimulating to work in this field.
That’s what makes it so intellectually stimulating to work in this field...
Being the go-to-person for payroll legislation at Moorepay is something I’m very proud of. For the past five years I’ve authored Moorepay’s bi-monthly payroll legislation guide that is distributed to 60,000 businesses, updating Moorepay customers and the wider payroll community on the legislative changes that businesses need to be aware of to ensure they remain compliant. And I’ve also hosted regular webinars on the latest legislation and trending topics too. Do you have any regrets? I do regret not doing a payroll diploma. By the time I had learnt of the existence of APSA (Association of Payroll and Superannuation Administrators), it had been around for over a decade. I had already been in payroll for over twenty
What were your best/greatest achievements in payroll? I suppose the greatest accolade any
payroller can give themselves is to say they have strived to pay a payroll accurately and on-time, every time. Provided of course the
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | May 2020 | Issue 60 16
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