Confessions of a payroll manager – A new addition to the team
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. I ’m a little emotional, sat listening to the constant pinging of emails and texts knowing those sounds have nothing to do with payroll. No quizzical queries or mystery missives – just constant congratulations! No, it isn’t about an award, or a record sales year, or even the launch of a brand new Crumbitt confection. It’s the pitter patter of tiny feet. Especially wonderful (and tear inducing) is that the new Crumbitt’s baby is actually a payroll baby and his proud parents are our very own Jace and Billie. In payroll we see so many parental activities – maternity, paternity, adoptions, childcare vouchers – but it all gets a bit ‘Matrix’ when you’re just looking at figures and surnames. Having a new arrival within the team has brought ‘parental activity’ into sharp focus now that it pertains to valued colleagues. After the ‘whoop-ness’ of Jace’s and Billie’s exciting news nine months ago I entered an elongated panic mode and daily catastrophised dramatic payroll scenarios. How would we ever cope without them both once the baby was born? We’re a small team and they’re both integral to the smooth running of operations (not to mention the morale of the group). We have pressing payroll deadlines, the imminent release of Mr Crumbitt’s (frankly, nuts!) online payslip which asks employees to click on a variety of ingredients and a virtual
cookie before access is granted to the grail- like payslip at the end, and the fact Billie’s the only person in the office who can make a cup of tea exactly as I like it! Before I drove myself to the point of insanity, encouraged by the ever calm and supportive Tom, I called a meeting with the team to work out contingency plans and coordinate activities for when the new parents were on leave. It took a while to settle everyone down as Jace and Billie had just returned from a scan and everyone suddenly became embroiled in an unofficial game of ‘is that it’s head?’ Still, once the tea was made (another exemplary mug-full by Billie) and the flip chart paper and pens were out, we managed to put together a pretty solid plan (and my sleepless nights were thankfully at an end). We agreed that Jace would take his two weeks of paternity leave immediately on birth, and Billie would plan to take the full year of maternity and use keeping-in- touch days to help out at year end. Well, Billie absolutely loves completing a PAYE settlement agreement – so who am I to deny a prospective mum her heart’s desire? Once the plans were sorted the team moved on to the important work of setting up a sweepstake to guess baby’s weight and a possible name. This being Crumbitts, the weight wasn’t in pounds but in numbers of Crumbitt’s Crinkles. A jar containing fifty cookies sat next to a weight chart was cradled like an infant by many employees attempting to figure out if it weighed more or less than a newborn. Choosing a name was equally biscuit- based, with guesses ranging from ‘Shortcake’ to ‘Gary – middle name Baldi’. Thankfully, there were also a few sensible suggestions including mine, which was my
favourite grandpa’s name: Albert. Suddenly, it was time for Billie to start her maternity leave. Just as quickly, Jace changed from a laughing, carefree project officer to a phone-obsessed anxious dad- to-be. If Jace couldn’t take his phone into a meeting he left it with one of us – and the responsibility was almost too much. We found ourselves shouting round the office “who’s got the phone?” every five minutes and then screaming at the inevitable telesales person on the other end who had really, really rung at the wrong time. When ‘the call’ finally came it was a text from Jace asking “Is it ok to start my paternity leave? It’s a boy, can you let the team know?” Since announcing the news this morning we’ve gone in to full-blown ‘baby fever’ with photos of the new arrival popping up all over the place and squeals of delight around the factory. Seeing the joy this has brought to the entire workforce has made me think. Sometimes you forget when you are processing payroll that the names on the paper are real people with real lives and with real life changing events happening to them. Payroll plays a really big part in making everything run smoothly for them and it’s not until you really know and care about the people you work with that you understand how important what you do is to their lives. Well done my fantastic team, and congratulations to Jace, Billie – and Albert. 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 | February 2019 | Issue 47 56
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker