FEATURE TOPIC
What importance do you place on networking, and how have you developed your own network? Vickie Graham: Networking is one of the most important skills in any profession. It can help you find new opportunities, whether that’s a new role or supplier, or simply different ways of doing things which may be more effective and efficient. Networking can also help you expand your professional confidence by giving you the opportunity to talk through challenges and ways of working with others within the same or similar position and learn from their experiences as well as your own. It can help you build meaningful connections to support your growth. Whether you’re a sole payroll practitioner, or working in a team, networking still has value as it’s a great way to learn and grow through sharing experiences. There are many ways networks can be developed, especially with technology. Within your organisation, it’s important to develop a network across different teams and departments so you can work effectively and efficiently to benefit your organisation and customer experience. Outside of your organisation, you can build a network by attending industry events and meeting people face-to-face, or through online forums such as the CIPP’s specialist interest groups, which are hosted in a secure online environment, or social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook, where professionals will post questions to communities. I have developed my own network through a mixture of attending industry events and online forums – both have value. Samantha Johnson: Networking is essential to a successful payroll career. A strong network can provide job and development opportunities, coaching, mentoring and compliance advice, while also being a key source of personal support. Developing a network takes time and investment. My network has been built up through working with colleagues in my current and previous roles, working on projects with payroll software providers, attending payroll events both in-person and online and using LinkedIn to maintain connections. Nick Phillips: Networks composed of people have the same properties as computer networks, which are designed to create, receive and transmit information. In payroll, we’re dealing with challenges which are rarely unique to our own organisations. Somebody somewhere is facing the same
problem as you and may already have a solution. Networks allow us to leverage that to our mutual benefit. The ‘network effect’ is particularly magnified in sectors like local government or the National Health Service (NHS), where employees are governed by national terms and conditions and use the same pension schemes. Personally, I’ve used my network to huddle for warmth against the legislative headwinds we’ve experienced in recent years, whether it be trying to interpret the latest update on the Brazel case or implementing monthly contributions reconciliation for teachers’ pensions. Networks are also great for baselining your service against similar organisations. As a training provider for the payroll apprenticeship operating in the financially constrained public sector, we don’t have a huge marketing budget, so I’ve used my network to grow our offering by word of mouth. Networks have emergent benefits. I can think of someone in my network who I originally connected with because we’re using the same payroll system, and I ended up delivering the payroll apprenticeship course to them and their team. The UK payroll community has a very impressive presence on LinkedIn – this is the place to start if you’re trying to build a network. By all means, add me! Once you start creating your network, you’ll very quickly add valuable nodes. Jim Woodlingfield: Networking is a key skill, and one that can be learned. When I started in payroll and pensions, I had no idea there was such a strong, vibrant and welcoming community of professionals. I started out by going to software user groups, attending training sessions and reading articles online. Once I discovered the CIPP, this expanded to include conferences and in-person events. I also use LinkedIn to keep track of people I’ve met. When I go to an event I always try and meet one new person and write down one thing I’ve learned. How important do you think qualifications are for the payroll and reward professional? VG: Your people costs are often the biggest costs within any business. The cost of salaries, attrition and retention are important to the C-suite, who are looking at ways these costs can be optimised to ensure the organisation is profitable. Mistakes, or perceived mistakes, within payroll can be costly to any business due to the time
required to resolve the issues. In some cases, employees leave due to issues with their salary, and this can be extremely costly to the business. When looking online, costs of recruitment vary depending on the role, but you can expect to pay a recruitment agency up to 25% of a salary and the hidden costs in terms of lost time, while training new starters can be between £5,000 and £15,000. This is why it’s essential to have someone qualified in payroll and reward to limit the risk of payroll errors, but to also: l challenge an organisation to consider its overall people strategy l analyse the payroll data l make recommendations for reward packages which will engage employees and encourage them to stay. It’s also important to have someone who can communicate the payroll and reward initiatives on offer effectively to ensure they’re relevant to employees, understood and taken advantage of, to improve employee engagement and motivation. SJ: I think qualifications are essential in payroll and reward. Experience will provide great opportunities and exposure to payroll practices, processes and compliance, but a structured qualification is a perfect foundation to underpin that experience. NP: When teaching the payroll apprenticeship programme, a proportion of that time is spent reinforcing concepts for which learners have some pre-existing understanding, or a method they’ve been taught in their organisation, but they might not understand ‘the why’. Sometimes ‘the why’ is being aware of the legislative underpinning, e.g. Section 8 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 tells us what we need to include on a payslip, or it might mean somebody has heard of the lower earnings limit, primary threshold and upper earnings limit and is aware how to apply them in a National Insurance calculation but has no idea what they’re for or why they exist. If you’re someone who needs to know ‘the why’ to derive meaning and purpose from your work, then I think qualifications are essential. Then there are learners who know a technique, i.e. ‘the how’, but because they’ve never had formal training, they might be using a method which isn’t quite right or risks leading them into non-compliance. An example could be payroll administrators with no formal training who rarely use Tables A to
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 97 | February 2024
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