When we were young
When we were young – against the clock
Gordon Cresswell FCIPP , co-founder of the British Payroll Managers Association , an earlier CIPP incarnation, recalls his early payroll career
M y payroll career began in 1969 at the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, Treasurer’s Department, when, at the age of 24, I moved from the Motor Taxation Department (shortly to move to Swansea) to the grandly named Establishment Section which covered payroll and pensions. A group of past colleagues from those early days still meet four times annually for lunch, laughter and reminiscing. I feel privileged to join this jolly group: when we meet the years roll away placing us back in the office with all its trials and tribulations – and there were many of each. It was to this group I turned to prompt these memories. One of the interesting things about payroll is that people either move into it and out again quickly or they’re hooked and make it their career despite having entered the profession, in most cases, accidentally. I have made life-long friendships amongst the latter group. My friend and former colleague Doreen Morris moved to Solihull from City of Birmingham Education Salaries in 1967, replacing a transferee to the Computer Division to help to design and build a computerised system. At that time, the payrolls were produced via a punched tape method in the ‘machine room’, with the information enabling this supplied on hand-written paperwork by the payroll staff. It was a lengthy procedure within strict timetables to provide weekly wages paid on Friday, staff salaries on 15th monthly, employees paid from monthly-claimed hours on 20th monthly, and school-based teaching and non-teaching staff on the last Thursday every month. Computerisation made these procedures somewhat more sophisticated and less labour intensive,
but the necessary information was still provided through paperwork prepared by payroll staff and keyed in by members of the Computer Division. Ivan Bolton, another friend and former colleague, remembers the paper- based Kalamazoo system with trays of carbonised paper facilitating manual calculations that he used at a former employment. My earliest memory of computerisation is of the computer occupying half the large basement and being serviced by rather superior people wearing white coats annoying us by making queries before they had delivered the ‘dummy’ payroll on wads of green- lined sprocket-holed continuous computer paper. With a total employee base of over nine thousand in 1974, our ‘payrolls’ were heavy to carry around and kept us quite fit as they were stored on large garage-like shelving. Working to deadlines has always been a feature of the profession. Consequently, we would squeeze to the limit the balance between the lateness of the input from the departments and employees and the Computer Department timetable. We were a noisy lot, combining dedication to the task with enjoying the situation. As anyone in payroll will relate, you may think you’ve heard all the excuses going for sickness and absence, but then a new one will pop up. We became experts at deciphering sick notes and could be inexcusably dismissive of absences due to ‘stress’ as we believed we had the most stressful job around. We see it differently these days. Above all we prided ourselves on getting the pay to everyone accurately (mostly) and on time (always). Those were the days when only monthly-paid employees were paid
directly into bank accounts, with the blue-collar workers receiving cash which presented its own logistical problems. The pay packets were filled on a Thursday in the secure basement and delivered on Friday, initially by our staff but later by security firms. The packets included notes and coins, but later a rounding-up system was introduced which generated lots of queries relating to the reduction for the previous week’s rounding. When these employees were eventually persuaded to have their wages paid into bank accounts, their payslips were still taken to their workplaces on Fridays, but separate lists and cheques were taken to banks all around Solihull on Thursdays by a specially appointed member of the payroll staff. Doreen and I were of the opinion that the Payroll Division had much to offer the financial management of the Council and to the welfare of our colleagues. To this end we were at the vanguard of the accountants’ realisation that payroll data was a useful management tool. Later, Doreen contributed well to the pre- retirement courses for local government employees and teachers. I like to believe we contributed to the development of payroll’s prestige during those early days. For the first time payroll was directly involved with trade union officials on payment of backdated pay awards and we became close to the HR department working on problems as payroll matters became increasingly onerous with the complexities of legislative change. Perhaps the most telling memory I have is that in the early 1970s male cleaners were paid substantially more than female cleaners. It’s difficult to believe, but so it was. One constant over the years – and into the future – is contained in the title of this article. In payroll, we are always working against the clock. n
...our ‘payrolls’ were heavy to carry around and kept us quite fit...
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 64 | October 2020
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