The Rewards 2025 Outstanding Payroll Leader of the Year went to someone whose career has shaped not only payroll operations, but the people who power them. With more than 45 years in the profession, Rob Evans has become known for his deep technical mastery, his unwavering fairness, and his ability to bring humanity into one of the most high-pressure areas of any organisation.

Rob spoke with award category sponsor JGA Recruitment Group’s Alexandra Walker about what this win meant to him.

Rob, what does this recognition mean to you personally?

It was amazing, to be honest. I was stunned. When I looked at the people who were up against me for the outstanding leader award, I didn’t actually think I’d win, I was pleased to just be nominated!

So, when they called my name, I was absolutely shocked. I would say it’s one of the few times in my life that I have been really speechless. And anybody who knows me will say “that’s true, because he’s normally got a lot to say for himself!” 

When I look at all the judges, they are people who I consider to be some of the most illustrious payroll leaders and influencers in the business. When you get recognised by those sorts of people, it does add an extra bow to the present! 

I had 10 colleagues with me, which made it even better, because other people in my company got to see – and as I said to all my team who were there and I’ve said to them individually over the last couple of weeks, the award is ‘outstanding leader’, but I’m only as good as the people who work for me. It really is a testament to them as well and they should be equally as proud.

Over your career, which moments would you say have shaped the payroll leader that you are today? Is there anything that stands out? 

I started in payroll in 1980 – that’s 45 years (I started when I was 5!) And back then, everything was calculated manually. My learning curve is that I know what the system should do because I used to do it manually. That gives me a great understanding of what I would expect the payroll system to do, I had to rely on my own knowledge and understanding of tax NI, SSP, SNP all of that. It gave me good grounds.

When I worked at Westminster City Council, they had 11,000 weekly paid employees. You can imagine the pressure and the time to turn around on a weekly payroll. And above that, when you finished payroll on Wednesday, Thursday you’d go out on foot to the depots, physically pay people, and then you were back in the payroll cycle again on the Friday! You’d start getting the time sheets in to do next week’s payroll. So yeah, the pace and the pressure was something that helped make me the leader I am today. 

I’ve also done pretty much every role in payroll, from administrator to head of. I’ve set up bureaus from scratch, built shared service functions, onboarded new business, built systems, you name it! 

I think I’ve got empathy with anybody in the job, I understand the pressure in each of those roles, and that helps me to understand when something goes wrong, or right, and how to react to it.

And that, I believe, feeds into the type of leader I am.

How would you describe your leadership style, and how has it evolved as the payroll landscape has become more complex?

I don’t think I’ve changed much – maybe I’m a little bit calmer now. I think that’s just getting older, but my passion for payroll has not dropped in any way, shape or form. I’ve been doing this for 45 years and I’m as passionate about delivering an accurate, timely and flawless service to clients I was in 1980/81. 

Back then, there was no training for payroll people. There was no such thing as the CIPP. So, one of the big the big things I’ve always insisted as the world has moved on over the years is the training for payroll teams. We can’t expect people to do a good job if we don’t give them the tools to do the job, so I am huge about people having access to training. If you want the leaders of tomorrow, you must invest in them today! 

I also always strive to be honest and fair with people regardless of their level. I don’t treat people any different. I say to them, “if you want to have a conversation, ping me a message, phone me, my door is open.” I never turn anybody away. 

If we have to have tough conversations, I tend to do it myself. I’m the leader and I have to lead. 

That’s how I am. 

I love to empower people as well. I want people to make decisions and understand how things work. I want people to own stuff because I’m not going to be here forever doing it. At some point I want to retire… although not yet! 

There are a lot of people out in the payroll industry today who are now leaders who have worked for me before, so there’s something I think probably I’ve done right in my style as work, because they’ve gone on to be leaders. 

What principles guide you when making high stake decisions that impact people’s pay and well-being?

Firstly, it’s understanding. Understanding that if there’s an issue, or if there’s a decision to be made, you need to have all the facts around it first. 

When it comes to discussing with stakeholders, go in with a clear plan of what you’re going to do so that everybody’s on board with the plan.

Focus on what the solution is and get that right. What we’re going to do, and how we’re going forward. 

What do you see as the most overlooked skill or behaviour that sets exceptional payroll leaders apart?

It’s having a blend of technical knowledge, and empathy. The human touch.

Payroll has always been looked at as a back office - I think that’s changing, not fast enough, but it’s definitely changing. And every decision we make touches somebody.

Something someone said to me a couple of months ago is that payroll is the only department that touches everybody, every month, or every week. And I thought, yeah, I’ve got 400 clients, 28,000 people that I pay every month, and I touch every single life every month, 12 months of the year. And if I get that wrong, the impact is huge for the individual.

What is that going to do to their family? What is the effect? Could it impact on their Christmas? Could it impact on where they can go on holiday? So, it’s having that empathy and understanding that there’s a human being at the end of what we do in every process.

When you when you look at payroll, it can be a high-pressure environment. How would you say that you build resilience and confidence within your team?

I promote well-being initiatives, and we encourage flexible working. We try to rotate responsibilities on payrolls because some are more difficult than others. I don’t want some somebody stuck on the same role for months, or years, on end - I want to move people about. 

I also try to make sure people know when something’s going well and give them that shout out.

People rarely talk about payroll… until it goes wrong, so I like to try and make sure that if we get good feedback from a client, it is flagged up to as many people as possible, including senior management.

We also have quarterly awards where people can be nominated for exceptional service or team work to make sure everybody knows they’re appreciated. You’d be amazed at how much that can mean to a payroll administrator, because they probably think those senior teams don’t even know them – so that message makes them feel seen.

As a leader, I have a responsibility to look at how I can reduce pressure on people. I am always looking at how we can automate things, because I think technology gives us an opportunity to get involved in more strategic projects.

What have you learned about developing talent in payroll that you wish more leaders would pay attention to?

Growth doesn’t happen by accident. You must train people. I’m a massive promoter of training, but it needs to be right. Not everybody learns from watching a video, or reading a manual, or sitting in a classroom. It’s about helping people to learn in a comfortable way and encouraging them to be curious.

I also think mentorship is important - I encourage my managers and subject matter experts to help people, coach people and talk to people about their career paths. I will support anybody’s aspiration to do a qualification, go on a training course if it’s beneficial to the business.  

So what about yourself? How do you keep yourself motivated?

My motivation starts from my belief that nothing is impossible. If you truly want it. 

I’ll give you a good example - I don’t know how much you know about me, but I decided at 54 that I wanted to start boxing. And I ended up stepping into the ring at 56, having white collar fights.

To me, navigating that is no different than navigating complex payroll challenges. It’s just wanting to do something different and move forward as an individual.

And of course, the value of preparation and concentration - because you can’t stand in a boxing ring thinking about work because you’re going to get hurt, you need to be focused.

I don’t think there’s a problem that occurs in payroll that hasn’t happened previously. I just need to think ‘have I seen this before?’ – then I can think my way through and come up with a solution.

Payroll is evolving very fast. What excites you the most, and what worries you?

I love the AI, the automation coming in. It’s something I’ve been pushing for years. Everyone used to think we had this magic button but never existed. So much can happen if we train this technology to take away the mundane side of payroll.

I think people worry a lot about AI – they often say to me “but that means we’re all going to be out of work, they’re not going to need any payroll staff” - and I go back to a couple of things. One, as I said earlier on, is that you have got to have the empathy in payroll. No matter what you do with AI or bots, they’re never going to have empathy with people.

And the other thing I say to people is I remember in the early 80s when payroll started to change from being manual to having computers do the calculating (here I’m showing my age!) but when all these payroll software platforms became available, everybody thought then, “oh, we’re all going to be done for, they won’t need us anymore”, and 40 odd years later, quite a lot of us who were doing it then, they’re still sitting in payroll today. Our jobs just developed.

How have you raised the strategic voice of payroll in your own leadership journey?

I’ve always believed that payroll leaders should be involved at board level because as I said earlier, payroll touches every employee and impacts the organisation. Payroll has the key to the important data. Personally, I think it’s important to build strong partnerships internally, with HR, Finance and leadership teams to help them understand the importance of payroll. To position payroll as a key to transformation, not just an operational necessity. 

If you can talk about the risk of payroll failing, or payroll technology not being updated to reflect legislation changes, you can show the risk to the business. If you’re not paying people the national minimum wage, there is a cost to the business. And I think it’s important to make people aware.

Then, as a leader, you find yourself in a much better position. 

Is there anyone in particular that has influenced your own leadership style?

If I had to pick one, it would be my manager at Westminster City Council, Peter Davis.
He saw something in me, and he took time to train me up, all while managing a huge local government payroll in Westminster – which, as you can imagine, is a very high profile payroll. He took me on a journey with him, from payroll admin all the way up to being his deputy, and he remained a friend all his life.

He took me from running Westminster, one of the first boroughs that were outsourced, to processing or running almost every London borough at some point.

He taught me to stay calm when something goes wrong. Not to make rushed decisions.  

Looking ahead, is there be any qualities that you think will define the next wave of outstanding payroll leaders?

Payroll is becoming more strategic. We’re going to move away from manual processing and towards technical mastery. I think we’re going to need a bigger vision – one of my favourite quotes is “standing still is not an option.” I can’t think who said it, but it fits that rule in payroll that you always need to be thinking forward.

I was in a seminar last year where it was said that 50% of the jobs people will be doing in 15 years from now have not even been thought of yet. So, strategic thinking is critical. 

I think digital fluency, understanding, automation, AI, analytics – they’re all there to help managers to embrace technology as an enabler, not a threat. 

Tell me one thing about your leadership journey that people may be surprised to learn. 

My first ever job was when I was at school and I was put in charge of running the school farm.
That was my first role in a responsible position. And at the time, I wanted to be a farmer. I used to go in every morning, feed the animals, clean the cows shed out, feed the animals – cows, chickens, ducks, rabbits. Then sort the greenhouse. Look after the plants and everything. And then every evening I used to have to go back and get the cow out of the field into a stall. And that was my job five days a week.

And that was my first leadership role – I had to have a plan for if I wasn’t going to be there. I had to make sure I had cover, make sure I had ordered enough food and straw, keep records, the lot. 

And it taught me about leadership and ownership and accountability –these animals weren’t staff, but they relied on me. I couldn’t say I’m not getting out of bed in the morning – I had to be responsible. And I think that kicked off my life as a leader.