Payroll teams are amongst the hardest working departments in any business. During lockdown, whilst other teams were on furlough, they were working overtime to make sure everyone was still getting paid and navigating the confusing and ever-changing furlough regulations provided by HMRC.
A few employees found themselves with a lot of spare time on their hands after being told they couldn’t go to work and had to go on furlough. Payroll staff on the other hand, have never been busier and sometimes this hard work and dedication can be taken for granted.
The payroll department isn’t traditionally seen as a revenue generator in a business (although it totally can be) and this means it’s achievements can be overlooked when sales or marketing are shouting about the latest target they’ve hit.
National Payroll Week was introduced by the CIPP to address this situation. It gives payroll teams a much needed excuse to celebrate their successes and it provides them with a way to educate other people in their business about what they do.
To put it simply, National Payroll Week was established to raise the profile and awareness of payroll teams in the UK. This year it’s taking place between the 6th and 10th of September and aims to give payroll professionals an excuse to celebrate all the hard work they’ve carried out over the past year.
There are many misconceptions around payroll. National Payroll Week aims to address these misconceptions by showing colleagues how payroll departments can positively impact businesses through their strategic decision making, adoption of new processes and technologies and proactive work in payroll management.
The week-long event also highlights the important impact payroll teams have on the wellbeing of the UK. The payroll industry is the primary collector of National Insurance and Income Tax, both vital in keeping society moving.
The hard work and dedication payroll teams display on a daily basis is something that should be celebrated.
There’s plenty of ways to shout about National Payroll Week in your office. You can talk to colleagues, host payroll seminars, provide information packs to employees about what the payroll team does and much more. We’ve listed a few ways you can celebrate National Payroll Week below.
Get the whole office onboard with a National Payroll Week celebration. The celebrations don’t need to take place everyday, but make sure you spend an afternoon or evening celebrating the role the payroll team does. This could be a lunch time get together, a company meal or a few drinks on a Friday night.
Many employees aren’t aware of the hard work and time that goes into paying staff and you can use these celebrations as an opportunity to educate peers in other departments about the ins and outs of payroll.
For the duration of payroll week, keep the lunch time calendar free and bring some snacks into the payroll office. You can then encourage peers from other departments to come in for a friendly chat about their payslip and how it works. You can even make use of the CIPP’s payslip tool to help, it’s the perfect way to improve relations and make people aware of what’s available to them.
Use your company’s Slack channels, Whatsapp chats, Intranet and message boards to let people know its National Payroll Week. You can also add the date to your email signature, LinkedIn and write an article about it on your company blog.
Join the conversation around National Payroll Week online over on at the CIPP Twitter account @CIPP_UK and use the hashtags #NPW21 and #KeepUKPaid
There are several National payroll Weeks events available online to attend for free over on the CIPP website. We’ve listed a selection of our favourite, free events below:
CIPP bitesize training: manual tax calculation
6th September | 2 – 2:30pm
If it’s been a while since you’ve done manual tax calculations, this seminar is for you. It’ll let you brush up on your skills and get to grips with the basics of tax calculations again.
7th September | 12:30 – 1:20pm
Share stories about the challenges and hurdles brought about by the recent changes in holiday pay legislation.
Creating a culture of learning and development in a payroll team
8th September | 10 – 11am
How do you create a culture of proactive learning within your payroll department? This session will aim to answer that question and leave you with some actionable ideas you can take back to your own teams.
How payroll standards can deliver strategic value to organisations – panel discussion
10th September | 2 – 3pm
How can payroll teams provide strategic value to the organisations they operate within? This panel discussion answers that question.
National Payroll Week is more than just a celebration of the payroll department. If used correctly, it can really help open up communication channels between your payroll services and the rest of your company.
Whether you use an outsourced payroll provider, you’re considering payroll outsourcing or you’ve got all your operations in-house, it can be difficult at times to get employees to respond in a timely manner when your payroll team asks for anything from them.
This is especially true if you use an outsourced payroll provider. Often they aren’t seen as a “real” part of the company and this can lead to internal staff de-prioritising their requests for information. This can have a knock-on effect on the whole of your payroll services and it means the relationship with your payroll outsourcing provider could suffer.
National Payroll Week can help to improve these communication channels. By educating your staff internally on the importance and hard work that goes into running payroll, they’re more likely to understand the reasons behind any requests for information they receive and therefore more likely to get back to your payroll team in a timely manner.
Using National Payroll Week as a way to improve communication between your payroll team and the rest of your company is a great way to create lasting positive change in your business that’ll directly benefit your payroll department.
If you’re looking to improve your payroll processes or perhaps you’re interested in payroll outsourcing then we could help at Phase 3. We’re a specialist payroll and HR consultancy service that helps businesses who want managed payroll or their payroll services reviewed.
If this sounds like you get in touch to find out how we can help improve your payroll department. Contact us here.
Laura’s role as Head of Marketing sees her continually looking for new opportunities to tell the world how great Phase 3 is.
