The construction sector adds another layer entirely. With subcontractors, CIS deductions, and health and safety bonus schemes, payroll becomes part administrative wizard, part compliance officer, and part relationship counsellor when explaining why someone’s pay looks different this week. The AI Race: Keeping Up or Falling Behind? Enter the latest challenge keeping payroll professionals awake at night: artificial intelligence. The race is on, and everyone’s talking about automation, machine learning, and revolutionary payroll platforms that promise to solve everything. But here’s a question: are you implementing AI because it genuinely improves your processes, or because everyone else appears to be doing it? The “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality has infected organisations globally. Companies rush to adopt the latest technology without examining whether it addresses actual pain points or simply creates new ones. Some organisations have discovered that their unique payroll requirements don’t align
A pharmaceutical company’s payroll team navigates complex research and development tax credits, whilst their counterparts in logistics wrestle with driver hours regulations and fuel allowances. Both ensure people get paid correctly and on time, but their daily realities couldn’t be more different. genuinely interesting, and slightly chaotic. Every industry brings its peculiarities, and payroll teams become (sometimes) reluctant experts in areas far beyond traditional payroll knowledge. Take the entertainment industry, where payroll professionals must understand royalty calculations, union rates that vary by production type, and payment structures that would make accountants weep. Meanwhile, agricultural payroll teams navigate seasonal worker The Niche Factor Here’s where things get complexities, piece-rate calculations, and weather-dependent overtime rules. “I never expected to become an expert on seafaring regulations when I joined the shipping company,” admits James, a payroll specialist. “But when you’re calculating offshore allowances and international tax implications, you learn quickly or sink.”
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ISSUE 16 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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