FEATURE INSIGHT
Time to invest
Jason Clark CMgr MCMI AFHEA, CIPP training and quality assessment manager, discusses the issues, methods and options for keeping your knowledge up to date
Y ou only need to press a button when paying someone, right? Did you know that there are 174 pieces of legislation that affect
different ways to complete activities and, in fact, some ‘interesting’ practices – and can you be absolutely sure you are learning the subject correctly?
and at the time was studying a higher education qualification. It was all too much, and though I stuck at it and passed (barely) the perfectionist in me considered it a failure. The type of learning you choose regardless of the subject is important because we all have a preferred way to learn. The ‘Fleming theory’ (http://bit. ly/2Oy3cUC) of four principle learning types – visual, audio, read/write, kinaesthetic – is one that I really like. In my role at CIPP I have been moving our training portfolio to consider these practices. In doing that, we now have several ways that payroll can be taught from e-learning and webinars, fully blended learning and classroom learning to study with or without support from our tutors and at various complexity levels. But does your preferred training method provide that flexibility? In recent years there have been big changes to payroll like the introduction of real time information and automatic enrolment but there hasn’t been anything that compares to that for a while. But if you don’t keep your knowledge up to date some of the changes on the horizon could catch unawares. Some of the changes that could affect you, for example, are: ● ● recent changes to calculating holiday pay ● ● impending changes to off-payroll working (commonly known as ‘IR35’) ● ● chief executive officer pay ratio reporting. Are you at risk of falling behind? If the answer is yes, then it is time to invest in yourself now for the future. n
payroll directly, one of which goes back to 1865? That number increases to 338 if you include executive orders within the legislation itself. Whenever I tell a non- payroller this, they are always astounded. I am not a payroller but mixing in payroll circles has led me to attend social events at work and in my private life with some interesting conversations – which brings me back to button pressing. At a recent life-leading party I was asked what I do. I talked a bit about CIPP, what we do and my role. The person who asked me is a payroll administrator and loves the job. When I delved deeper and asked if she specialised in a section of payroll, she explained she input timesheets. There is a running joke within my overall directorate that ‘the robots are coming’. I really felt for her because without understanding payroll she is ensuring that she is obsolete in the not so near future. I think the consensus is that you must be able calculate a gross to net payment and understand why the software you are using is issuing the numbers that it is doing. But what if you can’t do that? There are many ways to learn and keep your knowledge up to date. These range from talking to your colleagues, listening to podcasts, attending hosted events like CIPP webinars, conference and exhibitions, reading articles or journals as well as direct research from the UK government. A very common practice in the workplace is to learn on the job. Although buddying up with a colleague is a valid way to learn it’s possible to learn lots of
...without understanding payroll she is
But you are a busy payroll professional and you have deadlines to meet. If you are like me, you will diarise time, then something will happen, so you drop the planned activity and never quite find the time to pick it up. This is of course the symptom of a busy and hectic life, but we must make time to invest in ourselves. Time put aside will allow you to focus without distraction on what you are trying to learn. Done in the right way this will solidify what you have learnt – but you must be ready to study. The long-term plan for my husband and me is to retire to Spain. Well, as I can jibber jabber all day, moving to Spain without the ability to converse is a no-no. So, I enrolled at a local university and with my new pad and pencil case in hand began my new learning. Wow, it was tough, and I was not ready. I had forgotten that I had enrolled at a university and much of the learning would be self-study. For those of you who remember my previous articles, I am the chair of a charity in Birmingham and Solihull, play roller-derby twice a week ensuring that she is obsolete in the not so near future
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | November 2019 | Issue 55 32
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