04:05 INTERVIEW
executives. Essentially, the payroll manager would be in the role of a workforce compliance manager. GPA: What do those in payroll need to start doing to prepare themselves for their future roles? Eric Liaw: One basic element is to know your craft. Understand the legislation, understand the awards, understand the enterprise agreements, understand the employment obligations and how to apply all this when you pay people. I think the payroll manager of the future could step away from just payroll and work together with lawyers, understand those employment obligations, and ask, “How am I going to apply this to payroll?” That requires curiosity, being proactive, and asking questions. They need an understanding of governance and should learn about risk management. As those in payroll become more visible, the ability to communicate becomes so important. It is a skill to translate something very complex into something that is so simple that HR, finance and the executives all understand the message, and they’ll take action.
I think the payroll manager of the future could step away from just payroll and work together with lawyers, understand those employment obligations, and ask, “How am I going to apply this to payroll?” That requires curiosity, being proactive, and asking questions.
Once they understand the moving parts, they have to assess the risk and when intervention is required. Translating that into payroll, payroll has got to have visibility across the employment landscape. If the payroll manager can have visibility across the hire-to-retire life cycle and be able to assess and manage the risk from end to end, which is, basically, managing the workforce, they become a very valuable component because they can explain why risk is occurring, what they can do to mitigate the risk, and what can prevent the risk. Those are the themes and topics that interest the board and C-suite
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GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE ISSUE 27
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