REWARD
Sarah Sharpe MCIPP, Founder, Payroll Ninjas, gives an update on the group, which has steadily grown in popularity since it first launched in 2019
W ow. What a year for Payroll Ninjas – we now have over 8,200 members, and there are no signs of it slowing down. Since its conception in 2019, the Payroll Ninja community has grown beyond my comprehension. I knew payrollers needed a safe space for support, but I never realised just how much. Sometimes in payroll, you work in a one-person team. Standalone roles are common and sometimes there’s nobody within your business to share ideas / knowledge with or to put questions to, and that’s why Payroll Ninjas was created. My career started in human resources (HR), which remains a passion of mine, and I continue to practise, educate myself and keep up to date with employment law and policy changes. They connect with payroll and often the impact of these changes will result in differences to the ways in which people are paid. Every day presents a new challenge for payrollers and if you ask us what our day looks like, most of us would find that difficult to answer or quantify, as no two days looks the same. The only constant in our roles is the payroll deadlines we must meet, we don’t have the luxury of ‘putting it off until tomorrow’ or ‘it can wait until we return from leave’. That simply isn’t possible in our world. The Payroll Ninjas community is a very
busy hive and is constantly buzzing with the questions which may sometimes seem simple to some, but to the person asking the question at the time it’s difficult and they may have lost sleep thinking about it (we’ve all been there). “Every day presents a new challenge for payrollers and if you ask us what our day looks like, most of us would find that difficult to answer or quantify, We, as a community, encourage Ninjas to ask their questions. We don’t judge or patronise each other and I believe that’s the core principle of our group and the reason we’re so successful. I hope to continue to grow the group and encourage other experts to join me in providing factual and useful content to group members to enable our up-and-coming and existing payrollers to learn, grow and use their skills and knowledge. We were recently joined by Jeni Morris as no two days looks the same”
from Minimum Wage Specialists for a national minimum wage overview which was informative and highly successful, and I intend to bring more of this content to the group. The CIPP will also be delivering a webinar focussing on salary sacrifice, due to an ever-increasing number of questions from the Payroll Ninjas on this subject. Over the last 12 months, we’ve been developing and introducing a website, on which we’re offering free job advertisements for payroll positions for Ninja members. We also have an offer with the CIPP for a discount on membership for Ninja members. We intend to grow the website to offer more content and are busy working behind the scenes to make this a useful resource for anyone in the payroll space, no matter what position they hold. We’re also building some fantastic relationships with software companies who are the 3 Ts: tried, tested and trusted by Ninjas who have first-hand experience using the products, and can feedback real and honest experiences. I’m championing payroll as a standalone function. I stand by the idea that, although payroll often sits within either the finance or HR space, it’s a function in its own right, which works hand in hand with finance and HR. I would hope it has a seat at the top table, bringing about more opportunity and
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | October 2025 | Issue 114 38
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker