The truth is, when I was Head HR, I didn’t understand payroll. Everytime the accountant would send payroll to me for approval, I would silently pray that it was accurate. The most I could check was joiners and leavers. At least, I could advise on start dates and exits for salaries that required proration.
Sure, some people would say as head HR, I didn’t need to know the technicalities of payroll and I agree. Infact, I was honest about not knowing payroll with my CEO and still got the job. But I didn’t like the idea of total cluelessness of an activity in my portfolio.
I didn’t understand the payroll components nor computation. Like many people, I received my payslip, but was more interested in the pay that made it into my bank account.
To top it up, we had this unscrupulous tax consultant who charged exorbitantly. Rather than help us institute best practice, he turned our payroll into a complex landmine, costing us fines with the internal revenue service.
I eventually faced my fears after I founded Kendor Consulting an HR consultancy. I said to myself, the people who know payroll don’t have 2 heads. I began by getting abreast with employment and payroll related law. I wanted to understand how payroll was done step by step so I took to Microsoft Excel and learnt payroll the manual way. I didn’t want to ever feel vulnerable about something I was in charge of, relying solely on what the accountant said. As I understood the logic, it was clear payroll wasn’t rocket science. Infact, it was not even basic arithmentic.
So much has happened since then. Shortly after, in 2011, I started consulting on international payroll and even formed an employment outsourcing business with a UK partner. In the same year, I designed a payroll workshop which runs at least once a year since inception.
Till date, through my firm, I have helped organisations save payroll costs, restructured their payroll components, advised on best practices, addressed their payroll concerns, generally saving them headache.
Today, software can do your payroll in seconds, so you may think knowing payroll doesn’t matter. But if there are issues and errors, you can only troubleshoot, if you understand payroll. Even if you don’t need to ever compute payroll, the knowledge could save you a lot of time and money.
One thing I have learned in life is, that no knowledge is ever lost. Truly, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Something as simple as learning payroll, opened doors for me and enabled me help so many others.
I don’t consider myself technical, but I like to explain and teach the things I know and have learnt on the way.
How are you with payroll or something else you should learn? Were you ever like me or have you always been a winner?
Do share your thoughts and experience?
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