MY CIPP
Spotlight on... Materials team
Can you describe the materials team – who are they, what do they do and what are their various backgrounds? There are currently seven of us in the materials team and we form two streams: the writing team and the digital team. Terri Bethel, Diana Bruce and Lauren Handley are the subject matter experts (SMEs or ‘writers’) and are responsible for creating and maintaining the CIPP’s expansive catalogue of education and training material. Our SMEs come from various payroll backgrounds, and between them have 46 years’ experience spanning the broad spectrum of knowledge required to administer and manage the payroll function successfully. On the digital side is Ricardo Costa, who is our technical author. He’s responsible for developing and implementing the software tools the team uses [to create and manage the materials], as well as delivering content to trainers / tutors and attendees. Emily Malin and Ibukun Sobola are our learning technologists (LTs) and are responsible for developing and maintaining digital content for our products. Caroline Henderson is the technical project specialist (TPS) for the whole team. She’s responsible for liaising with internal and external ‘customers’, scheduling our workload, and monitoring projects to ensure publication deadlines are met. What are the priorities of your roles and how do they fit together? The SMEs must ensure all materials are accurate and appropriately tailored to the needs of the audience, whether it be developing a qualification for someone new to payroll or creating a training course for an experienced payroll manager. Several months of the year are allocated to the important task of ‘tax year updating’. This is
to ensure all our materials are in line with the routine legislative changes that take place each April. Governments also like to throw in a few surprises to keep us on our toes, a recent example being the mid-year change to the National Insurance contribution (NIC) primary threshold, from 6 July. Our materials are updated and reviewed by the SME team and then moved across to the LTs, who are responsible for creating and maintaining the visual elements and any interactive content. As so many of our products have online components, it’s important the materials created are translated into a digital environment in an effective way, so the digital team liaise closely with the SMEs. The digital team also track the latest technologies that may be useful for our products, while striving to ensure the highest quality and excellent delivery of all our digital services. Caroline monitors all our projects and tasks to ensure progress is where it should be to meet publication deadlines. Basically, she’s the glue that holds absolutely everything together, and always ensures a cohesive and successful outcome. What skills does a materials team member need? A core skill that’s fundamental to us all is the ability to create informative material in an understandable and engaging way. The SMEs must research and digest legislative information and turn this into relevant payroll and pension content, with often complex examples and calculations. Other SME skills include writing, proofreading, editing and learning design. They must also have comprehensive technical knowledge of, not only payroll, but also pensions, reward and employment law. Where the material is interactive, the digital team need to ensure the information
is transferred in an understandable and engaging format for end users. They need to have visual flair, a comprehensive knowledge of digital tools and learning design, and awareness of new technologies. These skills enable them to continually evaluate our products to make sure we’re using the most suitable and innovative solutions, all with the aim of continually improving the learning experience for our students and delegates. Our TPS has a unique role within the team and is affectionately referred to as ‘the juggler’. The skills required include time management, project management, planning, liaising and negotiating. As with the mid-year NICs change, unexpected announcements can happen any time and derail the perfectly planned schedule. Caroline must recast priorities to accommodate new tasks while keeping current projects on track. How do you keep all training and qualification materials up to date, to provide students with the best possible user experience? The SMEs regularly monitor legislation and guidance for changes in the industry that affect the administration of payroll and payroll-related pensions. This is critical to ensure students and delegates are taking the most up-to-date information back into the workplace. While the SMEs thoroughly review the traditional course materials, the digital team rigorously test all digital content before it’s released. This includes completing all graphic work, adding narration where required, user-experience testing, user- interface testing and other necessary checks. Our trainers and tutors provide us with useful feedback ‘from the front line’, which we use to continuously improve our materials and their delivery, keeping them relevant and engaging. n
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2022 | Issue 81 8
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