04:05 INTERVIEW
To get into it though, there is this realism that you have to give up your maybe more secure job to go and do something, to set up that business and earn income. For me, I mean, I’m a married mom with three children. I started thinking, one’s in university, the other’s just about to go. I can’t just go and set up a business! But for the past four years, I feel like I’ve had a hand in every role. I no longer was in the day- to-day processing of payroll, and moved more into reforming the way people work. I’ve done lots of work looking for efficiencies. Payroll in the last five years has jumped into technology, and I’m a true believer in upskilling. I want my teams to know as much as I do. I want my clients to have belief in the people providing their service. GPA: What got you into payroll? Chanelle Webb: Well, I didn’t go to university. I think I felt a bit lost
Payroll in the last five years has jumped into technology, and I’m a true believer in upskilling.
on what I wanted to do. I wasn’t particularly academic. I was at a recruitment agency in Oxfordshire, and it all happened very quickly. The main partner went on maternity leave and suddenly I had 100 staff that needed paying. I’d never touched a payroll before. I was 19 years old. I had to use a very basic payroll system. Back then, we were still writing out submissions manually. The recruitment agency was so manual, we were handwriting P60s. The key to staying afloat in that fire was to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. It was then I kind of figured out that I needed a bit of an education. After that job, I went back
to college to learn HR and business management, and it was during that time I realized I actually really did like payroll, and I wanted to go back. I suppose that was the first step of realizing it could be a career. At my next employer, I got a supervisory job in payroll for them and was using a DOS system and a dot matrix printer. In that role, I was exposed to all kinds of contracts, multi- company transfers and a lot more. Around that time, I went on to do my CIPP qualifications. I realized during this that payroll was an incredibly difficult career. It was never valued. You were always the add- on piece, and so it never paid particularly well. I grew into roles where I
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GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE ISSUE 11
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