COMPLIANCE
T he world of payroll has changed dramatically through the course of history, and as digital transformation gathers pace, the way employees are paid will continue to evolve and adapt to changing trends. Pay day through the ages One of the earliest known examples of a ‘payslip’ dates back some 5,000 years to the city of Uruk, now modern-day Iraq, and shows images of a bowl and a vessel of beer inscribed on a clay tablet alongside scratches recording the amount the worker was entitled to. While payment in beer might look very different to what today’s employee can expect to receive on pay day, it shows that the concept of employer- employee payment records has been in existence since the dawn of civilisation. This form of bartering carried on right through to the Roman Empire, when legionaries were occasionally paid in salt, a highly valued commodity at the time. In fact, the word ‘salary’ is derived from the Latin word ‘salarium’ which translates quite literally to ‘salt money’. “ The word ‘salary’ is derived from the Latin word ‘salarium’ which translates quite literally to ‘salt money’ ” However, it was the Industrial Revolution that proved a real turning point for payroll. By the late 1700s, many people could no longer earn a living working in agriculture and as new manufacturing processes and inventions began to emerge, large swathes of people chose to move from farms and villages into towns and cities to find work. The rise of mass production and mass employment brought sweeping changes to the way people worked and were paid. Employers recognised the need to be much more diligent in keeping track of employee wages, while the introduction of income tax in 1799, although wildly unpopular, called for even greater monitoring, regulation and oversight. In the years that followed, a record of
The history of the payslip: from clay to cloud – the role technology has played
Anton Roe ACIPP, chief executive officer, MHR, takes a look back at the history of pay and payslips, and discusses the digitalisation of payroll
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | February 2023 | Issue 87 26 March 2023 | Issue 88
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