MY CIPP
Spotlight on...
Ken Pullar FCIPP, chief executive officer (CEO)
Tell us a little about your career and background.
since October 2016, how have you seen the company, and the payroll profession itself, grow over time? Since my association as an associate member way back in 1982 with APSA, through its various incarnations to the CIPP today, myself and predecessors, particularly on the board have set an agenda and roadmap in tune with the requirements of payroll professionals. As an example, to see payroll professionals (particularly during the pandemic), be identified as ‘key workers’, able to move from the office literally overnight, administer furlough and keep their organisations paid is a tremendous testament to our industry and, I think, with credit to the CIPP. What does the future hold for the CIPP? The more observant readers of this issue of this magazine will see an advertisement for the role of CIPP CEO from July 2023. I’ve tried retirement once, and now it’s a second time to give it a go for real! The CIPP is in a great place – an established growing membership base, timely and educational training events, a range of qualifications with no equal, from the Payroll Training Certificate to the Certificate of Pensions Administration, through to our industry standard Foundation Degree, as well as BA and MSc. All underpinned by passionate, knowledgeable and superb staff. The appointed CEO will lead the board and senior leadership team on a strategic ten-year plan to revitalise our education offerings in keeping us relevant and fit for purpose in supporting our wonderful payroll industry and professionals. n
what a career journey. Working my way to payroll services director, I had responsibility for providing payroll services, looking after 12 payroll centres the breadth and length of the UK. This role encompassed full profit and loss and management responsibility for the delivery of full payroll administration services for approximately 120 customers, paying some 270,000 employees, through a total payroll administration service. And that payroll journey continued – now in the global arena as global operations director, where, for the next ten years, up to 2012, I was actively involved in business process outsourcing in all aspects of payroll and human resource functions within the UK and offshore. Pause for breath – what a journey and life the payroll industry has given me, and I’ve loved (almost) every minute of it. Planned retirement in 2015 didn’t last long and in February 2016, I was delighted to join the CIPP as operations director, before being appointed to the role of CEO in October 2016. What does your role mean to you? If I could have chosen a particular role, with hindsight, it’s the role that I currently have as CEO at the CIPP. Why? Because it’s not a job, or a role – it’s a passion. All I’ve ever known in my career is the payroll industry, and to be with an organisation with a superb team that live and breathe how to help educate, train and encourage membership of the only Chartered body for payroll in the UK is, and has been, a great pleasure. Your association with what is now the CIPP began with a membership of the Association of Payroll and Superannuation Administrators (APSA) back in 1982. Now CEO of the CIPP
I’m not sure after 45 years in payroll there’s only a ‘little’ to tell of my background and career! Following the advice of a careers teacher that, “you are good at numbers”, I embarked on my introduction to the payroll world in 1977, on a gas terminal being built in the north east of Scotland. This was the era of clock cards and watching the men ‘clock in’ and ‘clock out’, with my desk and window conveniently situated overlooking the clocking in machine. Then calculating hours worked, completion of timesheets, calculation of bonus payments (based on a measure of work completed onsite each week), then making up and distribution of cash packets. And soon to learn the men knew ‘to the penny’ what their pay should be – that kept you on your toes. After three years of an ‘on the job’ payroll apprenticeship (as it were), and the site close to completion, I moved back to England, and started my local authority career as a payroll officer with North Yorkshire County Council. I was then promoted and moved to Cambridgeshire County Council. In retrospect, I now realise, having engaged with many payroll professionals over the years, that the complexity and knowledge gained from working in a local authority payroll is perhaps only second to that of working on a National Health Services payroll. It was certainly an asset as my payroll career developed. The world of payroll outsourcing introduced itself to Cambridgeshire County Council in 1992. Although IT outsourcing had been in place for a while by this time, for payroll this was something new, and the forerunner of many well-established payroll outsourcing organisations in play today. And during the 12 years until 2002,
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 85 | November 2022
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