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different time zones. The employee population changes dramatically—I work in a business that has a lot of seasonality to it. When I came into my current position, the expectation was that I would not just lead the operations but help us assess things; not just consolidate operations but help us understand how to do it better. So, I have been given a great deal of autonomy and flexibility to do just that. While Pearson, which specializes in producing educational materials, normally pays around 20,000 employees throughout the year, that spikes up in the summertime in a number of countries, totaling 75,000 to 100,000—some are retired teachers or people just looking for summer work. In addition to setting the strategy on how to become a singular global payroll organization, I tap into technologies and
It’s an incredibly multifaceted role. I wear a lot of different hats. For example, today part of my role was helping to reconcile a general ledger account with our accounting team. (I used to be an accountant.)
of my role was helping to reconcile a general ledger account with our accounting team. (I used to be an accountant.) GPA: Tell us about how your team functions. Angela: Across my leadership team, I have the head of governance and compliance as a direct report, and the other direct reports all lead a specific region. The governance and compliance team ensures our global controls are appropriate, and our global KPIs are in place. They put together the playbooks, if you will, that our regional leaders take hold of and put into practice.
work to leverage the skill sets that are necessary for efficiency. As for challenges, when you’ve got kind of that seasonal spike, it forces us to think intentionally about certain factors, such as the impact on our unemployment data and our experience rating, in the U.S. in particular. We have a lot of people that work a few weeks one year and then come back the next season, and this creates rehire- ability issues, offboarding and a lot of additional administrative work. It’s an incredibly multifaceted role. I wear a lot of different hats. For example, today part
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GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE ISSUE 9
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