MY CIPP
# Be Payroll Rebecca Russell MCIPPdip, payroll expert at PayFit UK, shares details of her experience studying with the CIPP and her payroll career to date
Can you describe your payroll journey to us so far?
it in a logical way, and they add it to the software. It’s almost magical. Working in payroll is also a community of passionate people. They’re very active on LinkedIn too, which doesn’t happen in many other careers. I love to hear about all the exciting things everyone is getting up to. I’ve seen people hosting webinars and podcasts, writing articles and attending festivals and events, I also love to see the team pictures. What are your hopes for your future career? I want to continue down the road that I’m headed, merging my technical and payroll skills. Perhaps I’ll include another technical qualification, but technology and payroll are always evolving – now more so than ever – so it should keep me occupied for a while. Why did you choose to become a member of the CIPP? I initially joined as an associate member so I could start my Foundation Degree in Payroll Management. Before that, I thought maybe I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be associated with such a prestigious organisation. I didn’t have any official payroll training – I’ve learned through experience, which is difficult to prove. Once I was accepted, I’ve seen a huge change in my confidence and my knowledge of payroll legislation by using the membership benefits. What membership benefits have you used or enjoyed the most and how have they helped you? The Advisory Service team. They’re a godsend to me, especially while I’m still interpreting legislation from years ago. They have confirmed there’s no limit on the number of questions I can ask, but I sometimes wonder if they’re just being polite.
Also, the CIPP BeKnowledgeable events, where topical knowledge is communicated clearly. The events give us a chance to ask relevant questions at the end. We know someone will ask the question we were afraid to ask. I always learn a lot from these events. What qualification have you studied / are you currently studying? I graduated in November 2023 with a Foundation Degree in Payroll Management. With excellent grades, I might add! Why was it important to you that you gained this qualification? To become recognised as a qualified payroll person through the most recognised payroll institution in the UK. Senior leaders who knew about my passion for payroll urged (some might say pushed) me to go for it. Of those colleagues who’d completed it, they waxed lyrical about the experience and the feeling at the end when you hand in your final project. I wanted to feel that too. Also, being able to use the MCIPP post-nominals means that when someone asks a payroll question, they know they’re speaking to an expert. What advice do you have for someone thinking of studying a qualification with us? Do it. As someone who thought their knowledge was average at best, it brought out the confidence I needed to really succeed in my career. If I hadn’t already spent my company’s annual training budget on my foundation degree, I’d for sure already have taken up the Payroll Specialist Certificate course to solidify my knowledge. You can never know too much payroll legislation. n
This is quite a long story. I started out 13 years ago, before real time information and automatic enrolment existed. I’ve worn many hats in that time. I started out in payroll software technical support, helping customers use our software. It’s then that I quickly had to learn payroll legislation to understand what they were asking. It took longer than I’d like to admit to understand the difference between gross and net pay. After that, I added another few strings to my bow: interpreting payroll and benefits legislation as a technical writer, and user acceptance testing. I’ll skip the parts in between, but they included working with payroll software developers to ensure compliance, working in bureaux and in-house roles. Those positions led me to where I am now, which is my favourite role to date. I work in payroll software compliance at a payroll software company. My career has come full circle. Having started as a Microsoft certified IT technician, I’ve always been keen to get back to my technical roots. The two combined create a very particular set of skills that are incredibly useful. What does working in payroll mean to you? To me, it’s being able to help people by using my knowledge. My knowledge allows me to explain a tax code, tax relief on a pension and how HM Revenue and Customs knows all of this. I make sure they’re getting the most out of their pay and help my family create their own net pay calculators to rival mine. The knowledge also needs to translate well to our software developer team. I tell them what’s in my head, together we organise
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 101 | June 2024
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