When I left school at 18, I went straight into working towards becoming an Electrician. After a while I decided it wasn’t for me, I had enough of crawling under floorboards already!
After having a think about what else was out there and taking into account the interests I had at school, I decided to apply for IT apprenticeships. I managed to land a role with Phase 3 and from the get-go tried to get involved in as many different areas of the business as I could. I started with Phase 3 four years ago and I haven’t looked back since!
I’m an Application Consultant working across the Payroll and Consulting teams. My main responsibilities include end to end processing of payroll, project scoping, implementation, UAT, client training and support.
My day can vary quite a bit depending on what time of the month we’re in, as with any profession in payroll.
I have days in the month I am not available to work with clients on consultancy projects as I am responsible for running multiple payrolls.
On the days I am not processing payrolls, I am booked to work with clients on developing or making improvements to their current system. I am also involved in helping them fix issues that may come up with their system. My day can vary quite a lot!
To fully understand customer requirements, communication skills both written and verbal are critical. You also need to be a skilled listener. Time management and the ability to prioritise which tasks need to be dealt with in order of urgency is also a crucial part of this role. To work in payroll and consultancy, you need the ability to work under pressure and meet project deadlines.
The biggest challenge for myself is to manage my time effectively to ensure clients expectations and deadlines are met. This can be difficult due to the many different teams and projects I’m involved in. It’s important that I’m able to communicate with each of my clients effectively to understand the scope of their requirements and to establish a suitable deadline as to when the work will be completed. By communicating with clients and managing expectations it makes it much easier for me to plan my diary to ensure tasks are completed in order of priority and everyone is happy!
I love that I’m involved with loads of different teams at Phase 3, this is one of the main motivators for me. Everyone is great to work with and the fact I’m involved in many different areas means there is quite a lot of variety in my day-to-day work, so it definitely never gets dull.
My main piece of advice for people who may be entering this world without any prior knowledge like myself, would be to get involved with as many different projects as possible and say yes to as many opportunities you can without overwhelming yourself. There are so many different areas within the HR tech space and by gaining experience in multiple areas you can start to filter out which aspects you enjoy, focus on them and become an expert. It is a challenging career, but definitely rewarding.
Our team of HR tech and Payroll experts cover all aspects of HR & Payroll systems consultancy. If you’d like to learn more about our team or more about our business and what we can offer, you can contact one of our specialists today.
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Laura’s role as Head of Marketing sees her continually looking for new opportunities to tell the world how great Phase 3 is.
