Confessions of a payroll manager – It’s all child’s play
Another episode in a series of occasional yet insightful/inciteful, anonymous and whimsical reports revealing the arcane, weird and sometimes torturous world of payroll frequented by payroll professionals. I t’s not every day you find yourself crouched on a seat three times too small for you, drinking weak blackcurrant squash from a topless tipee cup and politely declining a pink playdough cookie from a two-year old. However, my working life is nothing if not interesting, so there I was, a few weeks ago, honoured guest of the Jungle and Jelly Beans Nursery just around the corner from Crumbitt’s. Let me explain. A couple of months ago Mr Crumbitt burst into the office brandishing drawing pins and a poster, which is never normally a good sign, but it was something genuinely exciting as the poster declared that Crumbitt’s would be opening an on-site nursery. It has to be said the factory doesn’t have the best of records when it comes to working with children. There was an adventurous ‘bring your child to work day’ a few years ago that resulted in one child going the full Augustus Gloop and gorging on chocolate crunch cookies – the result of which was not at all pretty – while another got his braces attached to a complex piece of machinery and had to be cut free by the fire service. Of course, an on-site nursery would be a far different endeavour – with all the children being under a certain age, supervised and absolutely, most definitely and without exception not allowed on the factory floor. As the announcement sunk in, my mind started ticking over: Was this a benefit in
kind? Would this mean more P11Ds? What about childcare vouchers? I would have to do some serious research but realised that if employees paid for the cost of childcare through salary sacrifice it could save them a lot of money in tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs). Most importantly, it quickly became apparent that the idea of a workplace nursery was going down well with the employees. One thing was certain – payroll needed to be involved , which is how I was at Jungle and Jelly Beans reliving every second of my nursery years through the smell of poster paint and the taste of Dettol. Mr Crumbitt came along too – it was his baby after all – and proved his tastebuds were indeed well and truly shot when he wolfed down one of the aforementioned playdough cookies and enquired after the recipe. During a guided tour Mr Crumbitt excitedly suggested that the reading corner could be renamed Crumbitt’s Corner and perhaps the children could be given a ‘nutritious’ Crumbitt biscuit at break times. The nursery leader glossed over both suggestions with suitable expertise and diverted Mr Crumbitt towards some of the children’s finger paintings on the wall, prompting “Penny, can we get some of these framed for the office?”. The team and I were raring to go with our new project and soon the ever- enlightening Jace came up with a suitable name for the scheme: ‘Crumbitt’s Kids’. This went down really well with everyone so we started to look at promotional materials and, of course, creating the necessary paperwork. Launch day arrived – and there’s a reason why I was sat in the office, hair damp on one side and a borrowed T-shirt in place of my usual white blouse. Mr
Crumbitt decided that it wasn’t enough just to welcome the new children to our (genuinely lovely) new nursery and let the professionals do their job. No, he insisted on a bouncy castle and an ice cream cart, and asked that older siblings come along too. It didn’t take long for the heady combination of freezing dairy product and high velocity bouncing to result in some rather unfortunate cases of teary sickness. I should’ve been nowhere near the children, but I’d been asked to rescue Mr Crumbitt’s youngest grandson from the upper tier of the castle and his joy at being rescued combined with ice-cream and a few extra cookies (courtesy of his grandpa) resulted in a colourful display that left me somewhat dishevelled and pleased that my job is payroll not childcare. We’ve already received 35 applications from employees wanting to join and there has been a real buzz about the office today (much of it hysterics at my unfortunate situation). My wonderful team has again done the business and introduced a really good benefit for the workforce, saved some employer NICs and kept the business compliant. Go us! Payroll is definitely not what it was when I started working here. While it used to be just calculating wages, making up cash pay packets and punching timesheets, for my team now there are many more expectations that are all about making the workplace a good place to be – and payroll has a huge part to play. Good old payroll! o The Editor: Any resemblance to any payroll manager or professional alive or dead, or any payroll department or organisation whether apparently or actually portrayed in this article is simply fortuitous.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2018 | Issue 43 56
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