COMPLIANCE
SK: When we speak to new clients, we always ask for payroll to be in those initial meetings. Nine times out of ten, they ask why. MP: Lots of software providers don’t introduce payroll in those initial conversations. You can’t move conversations further down the line until payroll are involved. SW: Businesses should have a risk register of all the things that could go wrong, and payroll should be on that list. When payroll goes wrong, the time and impact it has on a company, the loss of reputation and loss of employees, the retention risk, is huge. There’s metrics out there which should back this up. We get it right 99.99% of the time, but when it goes wrong, it has a huge impact. DA: Usually on the board, the biggest thing is making more money. So how does that correlate back to revenue? What payroll data can correlate back to the currency that the board care about? The faster you can onboard someone and get them onto the payroll, the quicker the productivity of their team increases, and that has a direct correlation on the core revenue of that business. MP: If payroll leaders understood the data that payroll has, this wonderful rich data that could be publicised within the organisation, payroll would be more popular with human resources (HR) and finance, as they could provide that wonderful data. Payroll needs to start understanding what the board wants to know, and I think that would elevate the payroll profession. SW: The employee needs to be put at the centre of this. They’re the customer. Paying somebody is just seen as a transactional thing, but the impact to that employee is being paid, communicated to and included.
How will flexible working impact the payroll profession?
more – three days at work and two days at home. That’s the ‘norm’ now. We’re also seeing more flexibility alongside hybrid, so flexibility in terms of start and finish times. Q: Payroll’s strategic influence within an organisation largely depends on how the role of the payroll function is perceived. 55% of respondents from an in-house payroll team said payroll is perceived as a ‘back-office’ function in their organisation. What can payroll departments do within organisations to be seen as a ‘key’ strategic stakeholder? MS: Payroll tends to be invisible until something goes wrong. Often key decisions are made without consulting payroll. Payroll needs a champion; and someone needs to be able to report directly into the board.
MP: When people go into the office, it needs to be more organised. Maybe have your creative meetings there. SW: What I miss is the five minutes after a meeting, with the cooler conversation, when someone throws an idea at you. We must learn to do that, or have a non-productive productive meeting, or banter meeting. Fran Williams: For people who have been brought into the payroll profession, it’s allowed them to go and get a job anywhere. Qualified people with experience have found there’s lots more opportunities to go and get significant salary rises and move roles. I think ultimately that’s probably led to a drain on talent across the industry. Gemma Creamer: From a recruitment perspective, we find that more is happening in the office now, so you’ll get more buy-in when you meet that person. Employers had no choice in the pandemic other than to onboard virtually. But there were lots of people that were struggling so much that they were leaving, or working remotely just wasn’t for them. We’re now suggesting to clients to make the onboarding in person, even if this is something they’re not thinking about doing. We must educate clients around the importance and the value of doing that. Some of the youngsters that need the morale and banter, that acceptance immediately, weren’t getting that. We’re finding a 3/2 split is happening more and
How can payroll teams demonstrate their strategic value?
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | November 2022 | Issue 85 20
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