What are the most significant challenges facing payroll/reward professionals today?

I think there are 2 things that are challenging our industry today:

1) Being prepared for the future with the revolution of AI becoming ever more presence in our lives today, and

2) Encouraging our next generation to thrive in our industry.

For me, the exciting thing is that these 2 areas, when combined, could be the answer we’re all looking for.  

What excites you most about participating in Reward & Payroll Summit this year? 

This year’s agenda looks amazing and there are so many things I’m curious to see to learn more, particularly ’Preparing pay for the future’ session with Jeni, Karen & Sherene, and the main stage session with Nick, Max, Ana & Karen on the ’Future of Pay & Reward’. Overall every session looks great, I’m sure there will be incredible insights I’ll take away, my trouble will be choosing between 2 great breakout sessions. That’s a great problem to have.

Which session or theme are you most looking forward to, and why? 

Ensuring our industry thrives in the future is something I’m deeply passionate about, so I’m really keen to understand more about what industry leaders are thinking about direction of future trends and addressing areas that can attract and retain great talent to our market, or even where the market may go in the future, so I’ll definitely be attending those sessions. 

What advice would you give to companies looking to innovate while ensuring compliance in today’s regulatory environment? 

Compliance is critical in any company. My advice would be to start with your compliance framework and layer over opportunities for creativity and innovation to advance the employee experience over the compliance frameworks. Those organisations who keep the overall mission simple and engage their employees and customer’s feedback into their change journey are the organisations that see the highest engaged cultures, which delivers the greatest overall growth and success.

What role does technology and/or AI play in transforming payroll/reward, and how can businesses leverage it effectively? 

We live in an AI technologically driven world, however, there is much learning and education that needs to happen to ensure that we are all leveraging the absolute maximum value from technology. Unfortunately, over my career, I have all too often, many organisations that invest in technology yet still do not have the full capability within their HR & Payroll departments to master their technology investment. Through focusing on that lens, organisations can really improve their employee experiences, focusing on those ’moments that matter’ for people within their daily work and still save time, effort and money by using their investments wisely. I believe there is still a significant journey for our industry to go on to get to this space, and hearing the sessions at Reward and Payroll Summit will really help to accelerate that journey.

What inspired you to have a career in payroll/reward, and what keeps you passionate about it?

 
The people I’ve met and their passion towards the work they do. I’ve loved it over my career and it honestly make me get up every day to see how can I support to make it better for them, in any simple or small way. That small thing could really help make a difference. 

What do you hope attendees will take away from your session at Reward & Payroll Summit?

 
I’m looking forward to hearing thought provoking insights, see what is out there in the market from networking with the sponsors and more importantly, make some new friends.