Five opportunities for payroll professionals to raise their profile

1. It’s what you know…

It may be an age-old saying, but there’s a lot of truth in the phrase ‘knowledge is power’. In a seemingly volatile business environment – being continually rocked with the uncertainty of Brexit – payroll professionals need to maintain an unswerving focus on professional development. By remaining abreast with, if not ahead of, industry trends and legislative changes, payroll teams can speak to customers with confidence. There has never been a more important time to provide organisations with a ‘safe pair of hands’.

2. …And who you know!

Savvy payroll professionals know there’s far more to the job than simply hitting a button and remunerating people, but it’s not something we should keep to ourselves. There needs to be a greater level of interaction with employees – and clients in the case of bureau providers – to highlight just what we do.

3. Be a compliance champion

Helping to ensure legislative compliance is another fundamental requirement of a payroll professional. From gender pay gap reporting to GDPR, regulatory changes in recent times have been vast, and amidst this sea of complexity, we have the opportunity to once again ensure we’re viewed as a safe pair of hands. Business owners and management teams have enough compliance headaches to worry about – how great to show that we can remove a couple of those headaches, just by doing our job well!

4. Amplify our voice

It is important to have a voice not just within the businesses we work for, but in the wider landscape too. This is achievable by contributing to both internal company-specific publications and external forums such as LinkedIn groups. Whether we use these channels to transfer knowledge, seek advice or build connections, payroll’s voice will be amplified as a collective and our profile will raise as a result.

5. Celebrate our successes

It’s perhaps a huge generalisation to make, but a number of payroll professionals seem to shy away from shouting about their successes. 2019 should therefore be the year that we challenge ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and applaud our achievements. There are a number of celebratory award schemes in the industry, but they can only recognise talented individuals, teams and successful projects, if they are aware what accomplishments have taken place.

I therefore urge my peers to research what opportunities exist to raise their profile – and that of their colleagues – as the year unfolds, as it will benefit morale, professional development and the profile of the industry altogether.