PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
The future of payroll
Ian HodsonMSc ChMCIPPdip, head of reward/deputy director of human resources, University of Lincoln , presents his vision for the profession, arguing that the crisis is another opportunity
O ften in history there are trigger events that seem to fast-forward change or make us rethink how we do things and look towards the future. At present we are in one of those moments. The landscape of work has changed in just a few months. We find ourselves learning new skills more rapidly than ever and often things that previously we thought were important do not now seem to have the impact they once did. Throughout the crisis one thing has remained a constant – the need for the population to continue being paid. This has elevated our payroll departments to new heights and new importance in the business: as controlling the cash flow and looking after our employees have been the two priorities of most businesses across the world. So, now presents itself as a good time to consider the future of payroll and how the events of recent months may be a game-changer for our profession. Payroll people Payroll departments are certainly on a transition journey from back-office operational to front-office customer facing. This has meant that as technologies have become more developed and reliable in performing payroll processing we have looked to recruit individuals to the payroll team who will bring a different skill set. Individuals who are great at
communicating, marketing and activities such as events and promotions. Much of the credibility of the team now often comes from the customer service feedback and the visibility of the team in the business disseminating knowledge on pay or pensions, promoting employee benefits operated through payroll and providing services that are both easy to use and available. In the future we can expect to see this trend continue with the payroll department hosting a variety and broader set of professionals than the traditional team of administrators with the recruitment processes changing to focus on the skills that are needed not those that were. Ways of working Whether working late to hit deadlines or the annual workload that has always supported year end, payroll team availability has always been within traditional working hours i.e. when the business is open. Perhaps all of this is about to change. In respect of management we can expect to see a change in habit where team members will be measured by output rather than by presenteeism. The need to work around caring responsibilities or changing schedules over recent months has helped us all appreciate that we may not all be working together at the same time in payroll processing departments.
We can expect to see managers develop ways of coordinating team members where the collective focus is on the achievement of a task by the deadline even if this means many people working at different times of the day or night, with managers also focusing on the engagement and motivation of their colleague. We will also see new technologies introduced to support an increase in agile working. Often payroll professionals have been prevented from moving away from the head office because of either a restriction on accessing specialist software or the need to collect paperwork and post. But these days are gone, and perhaps the final ‘seal of approval’ has come in these past few months where departments have worked from home, accessing multiple systems, using multiple communication tools such as Teams or Zoom to resolve queries. Does this mean that we can finally be more adaptable around individuals and embrace the concept of the virtual payroll team? Accessible technologies The traditional measure of output of payroll has almost always been about the end product of the pay advice, and its opening by the employee was a measure of our engagement. Realistically we have always known that many people don’t open them, and even with the migration to online payslips they are often left unviewed. The technologies that can be attached to payroll processing are now far more complex with greater capabilities to give an enhanced, rounded customer experience. In the future we can expect to see the pay
...often things that previously we thought were important do not now seem to have the impact they once did
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2020 | Issue 61 16
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