CAREER DEVELOPMENT INSIGHT
Diary of a student…
Matt Horlock Payroll clerk, University of East Anglia
How do you cope with work-life balance and study? At the beginning, with difficulty! Adjusting to find the time to study around working full-time was a bit of a culture shock. It took me a little while to find a routine that worked for me. Thankfully, I was very fortunate to have a supportive family who helped give me the time I needed to concentrate on my studies. With module one completed of your course, how do you think you did and was it what you expected? Module one was Objectives of the Payroll Department. I see now that from the very beginning the course gets you thinking about payroll in a wider organisational context, helping you to understand the importance of your day- to-day work. I was very pleased to have passed the first module, which highlighted to me that revision and research took longer than I had anticipated, and also that it took me an extraordinary amount of time to write just a few words. How did you see the rest of the course working out and were you getting used to making it part of your routine? After passing the first year, I became a bit complacent and this affected my grades in the second year, making it rather a struggle towards the end. Realising year three would be the most challenging, I got ahead with planning and researching for the work based project. This helped me become much more focused, and it paid off. I achieved my best grades in the final year, the highest grade of all for my worked based project. n
Tell us a brief background into your life Although originally from Romania I’ve lived in Norwich since being adopted at the age of one. I live with my wife and our dog, Oscar, nearby to our families. My wife and I both love to travel, and our last adventure was travelling around the Canadian Rockies in a motorhome for two weeks. Give us an insight into your career and background After leaving sixth form I started working full-time in retail before being made redundant from Woolworths in 2009. I then worked as a buyer’s assistant at a local business based on the Norfolk Broads, and after working in this role for five years I felt it was time to change my career-path. Having always had an interest in pay, deductions and figures, I decided on pursuing a career in payroll. This led me to secure a job as a payroll administrator at a media company based in Norwich. It was there I was offered the opportunity to study the Foundation Degree course. After completing the first two years I changed jobs and finished the final year of the course while in my current position. Which course did you study and why did you choose it? I studied the Foundation Degree in Payroll Management. The first year of
the course really appealed to me as it focused on the core principles of payroll processing and on technical calculations – which was ideal for me being new to the payroll industry. Did the fact that the CIPP is Chartered or recognised within the industry influence your decision to enrol ? Yes, it was aspiring to think that I could become a member of an institute that helps to raise the profile of the payroll profession. It wasn’t until I attended a payroll update event that I fully appreciated the work CIPP does to represent payroll at government level. This helped reaffirm my decision to study with the CIPP. How important is this degree in relation to your future career? I would say this degree has been very important for my future career. It seems that every advert I see for a payroll position asks for a CIPP qualification as a desirable or essential criterion. Having an industry-recognised qualification will give me an advantage and show my commitment to the profession. In achieving the Foundation Degree, I learnt a lot about myself. I know now that I am much more capable than I previously believed, which has given me confidence and determination to push myself to achieve more.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2019 | Issue 51 18
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