Confessions of a payroll manager - Your Crumbitts needs you!
Another anonymous episode revealing the world of payroll featuring payroll avatar, Penelope Fortham (‘Penny’), who is payroll manager at the nation’s favourite biscuit makers Crumbitt’s Confections. E very 1 April the payroll team try to fox me with professional sounding but ultimately ludicrous emails detailing new pieces of fake legislation. To be fair, it can be genuinely difficult to separate fact from fiction; tax year end sits close to April Fool’s Day so there are real stories available to mix with their ‘Penny Pranks’. Last year it was something about adopting cats – imaginatively titled ‘Rescue and rebate’ clause/claws. And in 2013 I was hoodwinked by the ‘Bakers for tax breaks’ story – primarily because it involved Mr Crumbitt who had been incredibly convincing in his enthusiasm and support for it. Anyway, primed for the team’s usual tomfoolery, I was sure a CIPP email which arrived on 1 April detailing a new piece of legislation offering National Insurance relief for employers who hire armed forces veterans was a Penny Prank. I waited three days, but absolutely no team mention of the legislation, no whistling of the Dad’s Army theme on Teams calls, and no “Your country needs you, Penny” at the end of emails. After leaving my Top Gun mug in full view of the team during our weekly online chat and nothing being said (no sniggers or giggles), I started to think that maybe it was real. After some research, it turns out that if an individual left the armed forces, even after as little as one day of training, employers wouldn’t have to pay NICs for twelve months. Even after some fairly shoddy (I’ll admit) mental maths, I realised we were
potentially looking at quite a few thousand pounds, which would certainly impress Mr Crumbitt. At the next team briefing, I announced the change and explained that the qualifying services were the Army, the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. As expected – and as ultimate proof that they were definitely not aware of the legislation previously – the team immediately broke into a rendition of In the navy by the Village People. When things calmed down, we decided to add a question to the new starter onboarding site to capture prior employment for new recruits. However, as we could also claim for anyone who had started in the twelve months prior to the legislation coming into effect, we needed a way to communicate with employees to ask them to come forward. At this point, Mr Crumbitt joined the briefing and he not only offered up a number of stories of past Crumbitt family members who had served but also suggested that it may be quite good to start a staff network for families with forces connections. Naturally, he offered to sponsor the network with supplies of his new ‘Rations Rusks’ cookies. (You’d have to be a trained marine to have the endurance needed to chew one through to the end!) The communication went on all of the pay advices that week prompting Sally Gosworth to come forward; she had joined the Crumbitt’s new product team having previously been in the army designing clothing for the soldiers. She also said she would speak to Frank Drake who had joined having retired early from the navy. Word spread (which is amazing considering so many of the workforce still do so much from home), and by the end of the week
six people had come forward along with many others keen to join the new network. (They weren’t even put off by the promise of Rations Rusks.) At the first network meeting – with rusks dispatched to home workers and an untouched plateful in the centre of the desk for those in the factory that day – Mr Crumbitt gave a presentation detailing his family history in the Forces. We were all totally engrossed after just a few minutes, and not a little emotional by the end. As we drank our cups of tea and came up with increasingly creative ways of refusing ‘Rations Rusks’ without upsetting Mr Crumbitt – who we now loved even more than we had at the start of the meeting – I realised that this was going to be a really good network and again the power of word of mouth was coming good. Most importantly, I calculated that the legislation would save around £25k in NICs over the next twelve months. As a payroll professional you have to keep up to date at all times as there are always changes occurring. Some of them may not only have financial savings attached but, like this one, also present an opportunity to bring people together not just as work colleagues but as people with similar interests or backgrounds. Oh, and the Penny Prank this year was a box of delicious looking chocolate covered cookies…but even a thick coating of chocolate does nothing to elevate a Rations Rusk! 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 | June 2021 | Issue 71 50
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