Confessions of a payroll manager – I like driving in my car
Another episode in a series of occasional yet insightful/inciteful, anonymous and whimsical reports revealing the arcane, weird and sometimes torturous world of payroll frequented by payroll professionals. Y ou find me this month in a state of emotional turmoil, almost Madness. On the one side I am grief stricken – my beloved Fernando the Fiat has finally gone to the great scrap dealer in the sky (well, down Barnett Street, but you get the idea). But on the other side I am now the very excited owner of a nifty hybrid soft top Mini wonder called Barbara. Oh, was ever a payroll manager so conflicted?! It has to be said that despite my long- lived affection for Fernando, Barbara is winning me over with her virtually silent running and her excellent fuel economy. Anyway, how did all of this come about? How did I find myself ensconced in a brand-new vehicle when, quite honestly, the thought of changing cars had barely crossed my mind? Well, being in payroll can be a funny experience as we spend a lot of time out and about promoting voluntary benefits or doing the administration for them, but never actually finding the time to join up ourselves. This is what I discovered when I took a quick glance over my payslip last month. I know from what goes into my bank account each month that the deductions are all working correctly. What I didn’t realise however was that I was only taking advantage of one voluntary benefit – a charity donation to Mrs Perriwinkle’s Home for Homeless Hedgehogs which I
signed up for after a particularly winsome hedgehog was brought in to the office for ‘cute critter therapy’. Now, it so happens that at the same time as me coming to this realisation, I also happened across an article on tax efficient green car schemes (total coincidence). As I marvelled at the serendipity of the situation, I approached Mr Crumbitt with the idea and, after a few minutes of gently explaining that ‘green’ cars aren’t necessarily green in colour, and he’d be welcome to a purple one, he gave the scheme the go ahead. I arranged for the supplier to come on site and put Jace in charge of running the event. He was in his element. In his leather jacket and turtle neck sweater there was more than a touch of the dodgy 70’s car salesman about him. Still, everyone at Crumbitt’s knows and loves Jace so they joined in the joke and allowed themselves to be led to ‘Jace’s Wheeled Warriors – Cars of the Future’ showroom. I popped over a couple of times to see how things were going and all I could hear was Jace sales chatting: “You look so good in this one” and “With this being electric you will be rich by this time next year”. We had an added perk of being able to offer free electricity to staff – Mr Crumbitt even agreed to fit five charging points to help staff save the environment. I think he was enjoying his ‘Captain Planet’ role almost as much as Jace was enjoying being a 70’s-car-dealer. He even made some comments about our lorries going electric long-term.
It was during one of my visits to the ‘Showroom’ that I caught site of Fernando the Fiat – looking rather shabby (and not in a chic way I’m afraid). While he’d never let me down and we’d got from A to B without fail many times over during our years motoring together, the lure of a tax and National Insurance saving along with saving the planet was too much to refuse. At Jace’s recommendation (he really was very persuasive) Evie and I test drove a nice little hybrid soft top Mini. With the top down and the wind in our hair we were like Thelma and Louise – setting out on the open road of … well, Barkleydale, Yorkshire. As we parked up, cheeks flushed and faces aching from giggling I was sold. Soon there would be one extra deduction line on my payslip. It felt strange to sign off my own P46(car) form (after the team had completed it, naturally) and stranger still to wave goodbye to my plucky little Fiat – but as Barbara purred in to the car park this morning, powered by free electric, it all felt right. Sometimes it is easy to forget that the benefits that get introduced are for the payroll team as well as other employees. After the success of ‘Jace’s Wheeled Warriors – Cars of the Future’ event – and acquiring lovely Barbara, perhaps it’s time to have another read of that gym membership deal… o The Editor: Any resemblance to any payroll manager or professional alive or dead, or any payroll department or organisation whether apparently or actually portrayed in this article is simply fortuitous.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | April 2019 | Issue 49 54
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