National Payroll Week 2020 is taking place between the 7th and 11th September this year. It’s held annually to raise the profile of the payroll profession and to celebrate everything that it’s achieved over the past year. And what a year it has been.
Unsurprisingly many of the celebrations are taking place virtually, with events like the Future of Payroll Roundtable and Conference being held online. To see what people are up to during the week itself you can follow the hashtags #NPW20 and #KeepUKPaid on social media.
The week’s organised by the CIPP – the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals – which this year is also celebrating its 40th anniversary. The not-for-profit organisation is the only chartered institute for payroll and pension professionals in the UK.
It supports its members in various ways including through education and continued professional development opportunities, as well as by representing them on various consultation forums. Chartered membership is a sign that those members are at the top of the profession, meeting demanding payroll quality and compliance standards.
Celebrating national payroll achievements during 2020
It’s always good to pause to reflect on what’s been accomplished. But this is certainly going to be a National Payroll Week 2020 like no other in a year where professionals found themselves designated as key workers and then had to deal with unprecedented circumstances: not simply in terms of the logistics of carrying out their roles but also coping with and implementing a raft of emergency payroll legislation that was introduced at a phenomenal rate.
Usually, payroll professionals would have plenty of forwarding notice about changes to be implemented. They would have the time to work through those changes and prepare accordingly. But within a matter of weeks, payroll professionals across the UK had to get to grips with how to furlough staff, deal with the complexity of making claims and ensure they were using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme correctly.
And to add to the challenge, the scheme kept being updated – sometimes literally overnight. Timescales were tight, requirements were complex – and yet the payroll profession has risen to the challenge, doing its utmost to make sure employees were being paid on time and giving them as much support as they could during a time of considerable stress for everyone.
It’s often easy to lose sight of the contribution payroll makes
There are many contributors to business success and payroll isn’t necessarily the first one you’d think of. Yet as the pandemic has highlighted, it’s an absolutely vital component.
If it’s working well, it might not be something that gets noticed as it quietly ticks over smoothly, ensuring people are paid on time while supporting a whole range of important strategic business issues like reward and pay fairness. But if it goes wrong, it can have considerable consequences. There are many potential ways payroll errors can cause problems for businesses.
It can be costly in terms of disruption, fines and penalties that the company could end up incurring. It can affect employee trust and engagement. Payroll’s impact is significant and National Payroll Week 2020 presents a valuable opportunity to celebrate that.
We’ll be celebrating what we’ve achieved at CPS
We certainly feel proud to have played our part in supporting our clients and keeping their payroll running through what has turned out to be a year like no other.
Comments we’ve received from clients over the past few months include that our CIPP-accredited team members have been “a calm voice of reason and sanity in this time of furlough and fast changing rules”. They’ve told us “Claiming for furlough or COVID-19 related SSP has been incredibly straightforward and simple … it’s been straightforward to process everything remotely when necessary too”. It’s certainly been a really challenging year but during National Payroll Week we’ll be celebrating the fact that we’ve met that challenge.
If you would like to know more about our Legislator™ payroll software and outsourced payroll services then please do complete our contact form and one of our team will be in touch. Alternatively, give us a call on 01442 285460 for a chat with one of our team.