Hi all,
I recently took on a new role as HR Manager (UK) for a tech sector employer with 100+ employees in the UK and a HQ in NL. Although there was no mention of payroll in the job description, and even at offer stage, it became clear when I took on the role that I was expected to take on payroll responsibilities for the UK.
We have two payrolls, one for 2 staff and one for everyone else. Prior to this role, I've never operated Payroll before and was clear at interview that I had no Payroll experience. I have taken over from an HR Director who had Payroll experience and ran the Payroll through an outsourced bureau for a few months.
The main duties are putting together a big salary spreadsheet with all the starters, leavers, overtime, commission, and any changes and then checking the reports which are returned from the bureau. We don't have an HR database so I have to use a range of different documents and data to ensure the data I am inputting is correct. I also have to check my own work when the reports are returned from the bureau and forward on reports to various other people such as our Finance team and pension provider. On a personal level, I find this to be a very time-consuming task (it takes me about a day a month to do the processing and about another day or so a month to check the files and deal with any queries out of 20 available days) with the attention to detail it needs a really poor fit for my skills. Additionally, I have a major concern about the risks inherent in allowing an essentially untrained person to carry out an important task with no checks and balances in place.
I have a couple of questions I'd appreciate an objective view on from you, my lovely Community colleagues:
1. Is this normal or am I making a fuss over nothing?
2. Is there some training I could do which would help me in this task?
3. How typical is it for a small employer with an HR team of 0.8 and a Finance team of 6 to delegate this task to HR?
4. Is there any other advice you can offer me to help me feel less stressed about this task? Every month I have an absolute horror that I will make a mistake. The first month I did it, I had a horrendous night's sleep as I was so worried about it. I have made a few minor errors and I am constantly discovering new aspects to Payroll that I knew nothing about.
Thanks for your time in reading this post and please be gentle, this is probably the first time in my HR career I have taken on a new task which has made me feel so vulnerable and inexperienced!
Kind regards,
Gemma
