COMPLIANCE
The ‘Dream Maker’ Jeni Morris, IPPE Consultant, shares her ambitions growing up, and how her career path (although not what she originally dreamed of) has allowed her to help others through sharing guidance and support on complex national minimum wage (NMW) rules
W hen we were young, a lot of us had a very defined career aspiration, and I wanted to be a ‘Disney Dream Maker’. Not some fuzzy ‘follow your dreams’ motivational poster type thing, but a big fat official ‘Dream Maker’, which also had pixie dust, castles and a job description. The notion that people could be paid to help and to make other people smile felt like the highest happily-ever-after for me. Fast forward a couple of decades and, with no castles and pixie dust, my world consisted of clipboards and legislation binders and the world of NMW enforcement. Not so much fairy godmother as HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) inspector. But as I slowly learned, getting people paid fairly is a magic of its own. The civil service years I went into HMRC, and that passion for making a difference remained evident. I was called Mrs Christmas, as it was well known that I’d refuse to send out tax underpayments from the end of November every year. Instead, I stuck to issuing only the repayments for that month. I really didn’t want to send that dreaded brown envelope to drop down on someone’s door mat and ruin their festive season. I worked my way around pay as you earn and self-assessment departments, working my way up to the NMW team. At that time, new inspectors were required to do a long 12-18-month course of extensive training. Every piece of legislation, every loophole, every term buried in statutory guidance, we learned from it all. By the end, we could quote pay rules faster than some people could read a takeaway menu. The one thing the training didn’t include? Payroll. Yes, payroll, the system
that employers do actually use to pay their employees. Pretend you’ve been training as a chef for a year and a half and you discover nobody has ever shown you how to turn on the stove. That was us. Enforcing pay legislation but not fully understanding the very machinery that drove it. When worlds collide This gap was more significant than most people thought. Inspectors and civil servants had encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules but little idea of what payroll from another perspective looked like. Employers, for their part, knew payroll well enough but often found NMW legislation a source of confusion, sometimes even conflict. I lost track of the times that an employer sat with brows furrowing about deductions or how salaried workers were to be treated, while inspectors sat opposite them, perfectly polite but totally unable to give practical guidance and advice. Enforcement is one thing, clarity another. This is where my frustration and impulse to help deepened. The growing frustration This hit me hard. I knew most businesses weren’t maliciously underpaying workers. They weren’t villains in a Dickens novel, taking away employees’ pennies. More often, they were tripping over regulations written in a manner few real-life employers could sensibly understand. It wasn’t usually a matter of intention; it was down to a lack of clear education. I kept hoping we could give more direction rather than brandish the rule book and an enforcement notice. A ‘Big Four’ detour That wish came true eventually. I was asked to head up and lead the first NMW compliance team at one of the ‘Big Four’
accountancy firms. I traded investigations for education overnight. Rather than catching people out, I was helping them keep out of trouble in the first place. And it soon became quite clear: the need for NMW know-how didn’t end with large corporates. The same risks occurred for both multinational and much smaller businesses. For eight years, I had the opportunity to lead that team, which is a celebration of my career and one I’m super proud of. I got to work alongside amazing colleagues and large and multi-faceted clients, while trying to navigate the ever- evolving world of wage compliance. Making the leap This year, I felt it was time to pen my own chapter. I gave up the leadership position and opened my own consultancy specialising only in NMW compliance. It’s hard to get around it, but the goal is simple: provide expert support for employers from all backgrounds. Because even if multinationals have big budgets, smaller employers will have the greater need, as they’re much less likely to have costly advisers on speed dial and are more likely to be ripped to shreds if something goes wrong. ‘Dream Maker’? No, I don’t provide magic wands, or fireworks over castles. But, if I can help a company avoid a time-consuming investigation, or make sure workers are paid correctly, then perhaps in my own way, I’m still making dreams come true. I’m sharing my knowledge and advising businesses to help save their brand from reputational or financial damage just through their lack of NMW understanding. And honestly, that’s kind of magical. n
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | November 2025 | Issue 115 38
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