REWARD
paying employees and the technical skills involved. It’s a field that encompasses areas such as: l finance l HR l customer service l information technology (IT) l data analysis l people management l compliance and risk management. Finance Payroll and finance overlap, as you’d expect, on the technical side of payroll. Payroll is about the numbers and so is finance. The link is seen in areas such as: l general ledger postings to ensure costings are accurate l the reconciliation of tax and NI to ensure payments are correct l preparing and submitting returns, such as P11ds and P60s to HMRC l receiving and checking third-party deductions and payments to ensure they’re paid on time. HR Payroll professionals need several of the core HR skills to perform their role. They need communication skills, as HR / payroll professionals will be communicating with different stakeholders, and at different levels of authority and influence. How they communicate with the chief executive officer of a company and then with more junior staff can be very different. Therefore, the ability to connect well with all kinds of employees and people, leaving a professional and positive impression is a skill that’s required. Strategy creation and execution has been seen more in the payroll professional’s job description, mainly as organisations are realising the value of the data payroll holds. Payroll professionals must adopt a strategic mindset. This will allow them to create a payroll strategy which aligns with the organisational strategy. One of the key HR / payroll professional skills is being a credible and trustworthy advisor to different stakeholders. They must effectively advise employees, line managers and senior managers on personnel issues and interpreting company policies. Coaching skills are helpful for HR / payroll professionals in one-on-one or group sessions, such as objective reviews. A payroll professional should be able to share information or train people.
Payroll and HR need a commercial awareness to understand how the organisation makes money. Only when this is known can the department properly support strategies and tactics, ensuring HR / payroll adds value to the organisation. Customer service The payroll professional can clearly be seen as a customer service representative (CSR). A CSR is the first person most customers / employees communicate with when they have a problem. They must handle complaints, provide appropriate solutions for customers / employees, and follow up to resolve any issues their customers / employees experience. IT How the payroll department aligns with the IT department can be seen in many ways. They both look at helping the company become more productive and assess how to save time. It’s important that payroll / IT safeguard data, with password protection, encryption etc., especially with General Data Protection Regulation and the penalties surrounding this. Payroll / IT both look at ways to save the business money, whether it be in new software, or new processes enabling the organisation to reinvest and grow. They both try to improve customer experience, satisfaction and communication, so employees understand and get the information they require first time. Data analysis A payroll professional must analyse data. Payroll data should be reviewed, questioned and reconciled in a timely manner. The payroll department sends out a vast number of reports to customers in lots of different ways. There are various steps a payroll professional / data analyst will follow when analysing data, including: l identifying the question / issue l collecting the data to be analysed l cleaning the data to prepare it for analysis l analysing the data by manipulating it, using various data analysis techniques and tools (e.g., V-look ups or pivot tables) l interpreting the results of the analysis to see if they’re the desired results.
as ‘soft skills’ and can be harder to define than technical skills. They include skills such as communication, trust and patience, to name a few. Put simply, they’re the skills a payroll professional needs to treat, communicate and lead with, to obtain maximum results for the organisation. Payroll teams are made up of different ages, from various backgrounds, and with different ideas on how to work. This means different groups within the team will be motivated by different things and will work best in differing ways. To ensure everyone reaches their potential, a toolkit of people management skills is needed. This improves productivity and boosts staff morale, but also offers support and reduces stress in times of change, disruption or uncertainty. Compliance and risk management A compliance and risk manager coordinates the creation, review and implementation of policies and procedures, and the same can be said for the payroll professional. They both apply and interpret audit and compliance requirements. They’ll also interact with internal and external auditors on matters related to internal controls, and assess potentially fraudulent activity, plus develop segregation of duties within the department. All payroll professionals will be part of an audit, as payroll costs are among the highest an organisation has. The payroll professional will develop the skills of a compliance and risk manager, as their career develops. These skills include: l analytical risk assessment l problem-solving mantras l strategic thinking l financial knowledge l regulation rigour l ability to build relationships l working under pressure l being adaptable to new concerns and changing environments. What next? As you can see, payroll has many ‘hats’ and covers other professional roles so, if you’re willing to learn the relevant skills and knowledge related to these disciplines throughout your career, you could make the payroll career path even more rewarding than it is today. n
People management People management skills are also known
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 90 | May 2023
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