FEATURE TOPIC
SJ: Long gone are the days where payroll was merely processing some numbers and handing out brown envelopes. Payroll leaders must now have a knowledge of pensions, HR, General Data Protection Regulation and finance to have a good handle on their function. Therefore, the top skill I would say is adaptability. Many areas of the payroll function offer opportunities to businesses to increase their offering, save money or maintain compliance in an ever-changing landscape, so having communication skills to promote the opportunities to senior leaders is essential in maximising positive outcomes. Payroll managers play a key role in the success of a business, with the role requiring collaboration across the organisation more than ever. WM: Payroll leaders have to think like business owners. The reality is there’s a huge amount of data audited through the pay cycle. That payroll data quality is often how businesses report their overall performance. Having a solid reputation for quality, expertise in compliance and ability to advise on strategic initiatives for business growth is something payroll leaders can do. However, sometimes they are held back by limited resources, poor technology or simply the inability to demonstrate their value to the C-suite. Let’s face it – if you have people, you have payroll and compliance. If you mess up payroll, it has devastating consequences to businesses if their people leave en masse. There is power in the work that payroll departments do. Demonstrating their knowledge, expertise and capability in newer technologies will help payroll departments be seen more as a strategic function rather than simply operational. SW: Problem solving is number one for me. Be curious as to how you could make changes and be critical in your thinking. “There must be a better way to do things” is not a bad starting point; it doesn’t mean it’s completely broken but by making small incremental gains in the payroll process could have massive returns. Finally, be brave. It’s really hard to let a payroll process fail, but payroll professionals have to hold others to account if deadlines are missed. Payroll professionals are great at filling gaps in other people’s processes but in the longer term, this needs to stop. n
cause employee dissatisfaction if done wrong and also the function trusted with generating accurately the largest cost to the business. So having to demonstrate the importance shouldn’t be something that needs to be done. However, this is where the problem could lie as a lot of organisations will want payroll to focus on the basics and focusing on other agendas could be seen as a distraction from this. I don’t think as professionals we do enough to correlate the link between the activities carried out by professionals and employee satisfaction. We should be doing more surveys and sharing the results – surveys not just on accuracy but on customer service, supporting resources to understand pay and finances better and the availability of information. I also believe we can present the payroll function as strategic rather than transactional, influencing policies, remuneration and reward to support the attraction and retention agendas. Employee experience is now a real expectation and producing a roadmap for how payroll services will be delivered and accessed will also demonstrate the alignment of progressing the technology, suite of services and organisational culture to demonstrate value. This can also be overlaid with reports that highlight the constant change driven by legislative compliance or government change. SJ: Payroll is an increasingly important area of the business and includes more than just salaries. Automatic enrolment and the apprenticeship levy are areas where payroll can make an impact. Effective implementation of a salary sacrifice pension scheme with the help of HR could save an employer National Insurance contributions, while offering tax relief to employees, enhancing the appeal of roles within the organisation to potential recruits. Many organisations pay into apprenticeship levy funds and do not utilise the account to fund apprenticeships for their staff. Hiring an apprentice can be a cost-effective way of expanding staff numbers, while also giving staff the opportunity to expand their knowledge in a field and further their career. WM: If payroll departments don’t give a business update to C-suite today, I’d recommend that they push to get on their agenda. In the UK, we recently had the budget by the new Labour government
and that significantly impacted every employer across the country. Educating C-suite of the compliance updates and the impacts these changes can have within the business is an expertise many payroll departments share. I’ve always found this is the best way to get on the board’s agenda. Gain the trust of the C-suite and present your department from a strategic lens to earn the right to your regular invitation to participate. SW: Be curious, and experiment to show the real value of payroll insight. Try a ‘what if’ scenario or two and show the business that payroll can explain how small changes could have significant upsides and downsides. People are often the biggest cost to a business so showing how to manage and create savings by simplifying or reducing unnecessary costs such as overtime (through poor shift planning) can deliver real change. What different skill sets are becoming important for payroll leaders in the overall move from operational to strategic in terms of the function’s impact? IH: Payroll leaders need to be able to influence and create a presence for themselves in the right organisational networks to be seen as influencers and valued contributors. Being curious, collaborative and a good communicator will all help raise the prominence of the function being involved in shaping and decisions rather than being seen as a non-influential stakeholder. Payroll leaders should also be able to put a lens on activities that focus on managing risk to employee pay or current policies through change to ensure that the employee experience is not impacted. Leadership skills and team development are enablers for being perceived as a collective team that understands its purpose. Strong customer service skills are becoming more valued as we transition our profession from back office transactional to outward focused. Finally, I believe it’s important for leaders to be proud of what they do. We often play down our roles but now is the time for our leaders to represent us as the enablers to much that unlocks employee satisfaction going forward – so let’s shout about it a little more.
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 106 | December 2024 - January 2025
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