Developing new technology skills to efficiently manage complex payroll

‘Not again!’ Not another article talking about how to manage payroll technology changes!

But you’re right! This isn’t another article talking about organisational change management and how payroll is going to be transformed as a result of new technology.

This article is fully focused on you, a payroll professional, and how you can achieve your personal goals through technology change. For example, you may wish to gain new skills or experience, utilise technology in a different way, or perhaps improve the way things are done.

Change – be it pay rates, local employment & tax laws, internal processes, etc. etc.- is the norm for a payroll professional. Your ability to keep calm under pressure and adapt to any given situation is critical, along with the need to always deliver to a deadline.

Although you may be accommodating to change, it doesn’t mean that it’s always welcome. Any talk of payroll technology change can cause a level of unease, the slightest hint that it might impact accurately paying your full organisation can increase apprehension.

But what typically comes to mind is, ‘What’s the impact on me?’. And ‘How much additional work is going to be involved?’. And in all honesty, there will be a level of impact. Equally, given the highly skilled role of a payroll professional, it will require additional inputs and subject matter expertise from those already managing the weekly/monthly payroll.

Reflective of the importance of your role in the payroll process, you will almost certainly be involved in a payroll technology change project. But whilst your organisation may be looking to improve aspects such as the accuracy and efficiency of the payroll process, or the ability to share (confidential) information more effectively, there will be other outcomes that you personally may wish to achieve as a result of a technology change, and those can really differ from person to person.

Let’s explore the types of new skills, experiences and capabilities that can be anticipated and also what individual benefits you may achieve as a result of being part of a payroll technology change project.

The ability to keep the lights on while also spinning plates and juggling balls

Enabling your organisation’s staff to be paid accurately and on time is fundamental to running a successful business. When payroll goes wrong, the negative impact can be enormous. So, it is not surprising, that many payroll professionals are keen to ensure that this is their top priority as it’s not something that can be paused while a new technology is being introduced.

This commitment is paramount, but you will also need to provide experts insights to the project team, gain an understanding of how the new technology will work, as well as be involved in testing and training. It may be a case of spinning plates while also keeping the juggling balls in the air, but not only will you be assured that your organisation’s staff are being paid as expected, but that you are also gaining new skills and knowledge in parallel.

One thing to bear in mind though is the importance of your role in ensuring the new technology performs accurately and consistently – this cannot be understated. So, communication is key here, don’t be afraid to speak up if you don’t think something is correct, and ensure you feel comfortable once the new technology is live.

Developing new payroll skills and project experience

Given the critical nature of payroll, technology change or upgrade projects are few and far between. Resultantly, the opportunity of being involved in a project can provide you with invaluable new skills and experience, which can be equally beneficial when looking to move into a more senior payroll role.

The insights into how projects are run and the subject matter, business and IT inputs that are required, plus being actively involved in testing and training, can provide an outstanding foundation for undertaking a project in the future – it also helps you to think about what could be done differently or better on future projects too.

Being part of a project team can be quite different from everyday working – your interpersonal skills such as collaboration, communication, problem solving, negotiating and influencing may be called upon in different ways, and potentially with project team members you are not used to working with.

You can gain many new experiences and understandings from having worked within a project team, the vast majority of skills will be reusable in other environments.

Gaining new data and AI capabilities

As with all technologies, data structure and data accuracy are critical to running an efficient & compliant payroll but also to help with budgeting, forecasting, and understanding workforce costs, as well as providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making. And with AI already being embedded in many technologies, the ability to improve accuracy further and reduce timescales is easier to achieve.

You may wish to gain a wider understanding of how to prepare and structure master data, how it will be mapped within a system(s) or how the standard of data will be maintained in the long-term.

In addition, if you have a particular interest in analytics and reporting, the system integrations to and from payroll can significantly reduce manual tasks, enabling you to focus on more value-add activities and greater in-depth analysis of your organisation – enabling you to bring insights and suggestions of potential further areas of gain for teams, departments and the organisation as a whole.

The pairing of modern integrated technology and well-informed payroll professionals will bring significant value to any organisation – and a very happy workforce who are paid accurately and on-time.

Changing your perspective of the organisation

Many of the new payroll technologies are highly integrated with other functional areas in the business. This means that rather than the traditional “payroll island”, there is even more reliance on other departments maintaining data upstream to ensure that payroll runs successfully. Getting involved early on in a payroll technology implementation allows you to understand these dependencies and build the inter-department relationships needed to make these cross departmental processes work well to deliver an excellent payroll.

Where can payroll technology change take you?

Ultimately, the world’s your oyster. You can take any learnings and technology advancements to provide the best payroll service an organisation could want or need. Your steadfast nature and reliability to consistently deliver accurate payroll on time is highly regarded by any manager or organisation.

But perhaps your payroll career is taking a slightly different path and you have a new or greater interest in the data, technology and AI that is driving payroll – perhaps your knowledge and experience could be beneficial to others that are about to embark on a payroll technology change.

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘The only constant in life is change’. And so we should look at how we can best respond to any situation, and look at the optimal value we can deliver at any given time.