Have you ever consider what key traits will a successful payroll professional will have? Most business owners and leaders understand that efficient payroll is crucial to the success of any organisation. However, given the ever-changing regulatory landscape coupled with the varying legislations in each country, payroll remains a highly complicated and specialised affair.
Payroll staff have to be able to handle the demands of the job or risk costly payroll errors, miscalculations and unhappy employees.
Having a payroll professional is imperative to ensure that all your payroll responsibilities and obligations are met. However, how do you ensure that you are able to identify the right candidate who possesses the right skills and traits?
Here are some key traits to look out for when hiring a payroll professional.
Logician
Logicians are known as flexible thinkers. They are capable of spotting a problem, drilling through the endless possibilities and details that encompass the issue. Logicians are also known for taking unconventional approaches to solve problems, experimenting practicality with creativity.
During payroll processing, most organisations tend to rely on their payroll software to automate the administrative payroll tasks. However, errors may occur from time to time and given the extensive processes involved in payroll, it may be difficult to identify the bottleneck at first glance. This is where having a payroll professional who is detail-oriented can help to rectify potential payroll issues.
Mediator
Mediators are caring in nature and value authenticity, empathy and harmony. They are known to be extremely dedicated, considerate and feel most motivated when they are thinking of ways to help others.
Managing payroll involves dealing with sensitive and confidential employee information. At the same time, payroll professionals need to have a comprehensive understanding of the organisation’s finances and partner closely with the respective team to resolve any payroll issues. Having a Mediator as a payroll professional becomes crucial as this individual needs to be able to possess the necessary soft skills to deal with various stakeholders with tack and diplomacy. At the same time, they also need to be able to handle any payroll situation well while showing empathy towards employees’ payroll concerns and frustrations.
Executive
Executives are representatives of tradition and order. They utilise their understanding of what is right, wrong and socially acceptable to bring communities together. At the same time, they are strong believers in the rule of law and authority.
In payroll processing, it is all about precision and confidentiality. Not only does the individual have to be meticulous when it comes to calculating payroll, they also need to stay abreast of the latest changes in payroll legislations. Payroll professionals need to be well-organised and be aware of important payroll deadlines such as tax submission and payroll disbursement dates. Payroll professionals with Executive personalities tend to be highly efficient in organising and maintaining the confidentiality of payroll data.
Virtuoso
Virtuosos love exploring with their hands and eyes, examining the world around them with cool rationalism and spirited curiosity. Individuals possessing a Virtuoso personality are natural Makers and tend to move from project to project in building useful and superfluous ideas and solutions while learning from their environment as they go along.
In the payroll context, as payroll systems gradually shift from on-premise to cloud solutions, the entire user interface of a payroll software may change from time to time. A Virtuoso payroll professional will be the first to embrace any payroll changes. At the same time, they will be keen to find out what and how the new payroll software features are, leveraging on the existing features to drive process efficiency in payroll processing. Virtuoso payroll professionals also tend to be well-versed in various types of payroll software, making it easier for them to pick up new payroll software easily.
While these traits are certainly good to have when hiring a payroll professional, it ultimately boils down to the potential candidate’s skills sets and fit with the organisation culture. Use this list to identify potential candidates that are a great fit with your workplace culture and goals, before making them an offer that they cannot refuse.
Change and disruption is the new normal within workplaces today. This poses new challenges for organisations – including digital transformation, evolving employee needs, and meeting changing compliance mandates, while ensuring revenue growth and remaining operationally efficient. As such, employers and employees alike need to focus on new skills that will allow them to thrive in the constantly transforming workplace.
Here are the top 9 job skills for 2021.
1. Creativity
Developing new ideas and applying new solutions to address existing problems is essential given the disruptive workplace. As new business challenges continue to emerge, employees need to be creative in creating new and innovative models to tackle tomorrow’s challenges.
2. Persuasion
Persuasion remains one of the most in-demand soft skills and is highly sought-after in aspects of sales, marketing, leadership as well as project management. The ability to communicate effectively and convince the target audience of a particular product or concept is key for ambitious startups and small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Given the mushrooming number of startups and unicorn companies today, persuasion is certainly an important skill to master.
3. Collaboration
Today’s workplaces encourages an open-office concept to encourage collaboration amongst teams and facilitate exchange and generation of new ideas. This results in high functioning teams, which are likely to increase productivity as opposed to teams working in silos.
4. Adaptability
Advancements in technology has changed the way businesses function today. As more processes are being automated, employees have to be able to adapt to the ever-evolving business landscape. This also means the ability to embrace change and maintain a professional attitude in high-stress situations.
5. Growth Mindset
In order to keep up and adapt with new changes, employees have to adopt a growth mindset and be willing to change. The skills of today may no longer be relevant tomorrow. As such, employees need to be willing to continuously learn in order to ensure that their skill sets remain relevant for the workplace.
6. Communication
Strong communication skills is essential to share information as well as facilitate exchange of knowledge and ideas. Effective communication also allows information to be delivered quickly and accurately. Essentially, to communicate well is to understand, and be understood.
7. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the ability to analyse objectively and make objective judgments on topics and ideas. It helps employees to diagnose problems and identify all possible solutions. Given the constantly new challenges that arise in the workplace, critical thinking is essential to ensure that employees are able to derive on the best solution to a problem. Concurrently, critical thinking can help to resolve conflicts in the workplace by working out issues in an amicable manner.
8. Leadership
Leadership is key to providing guidance within the workplace. A good leader is able to bring out the best ability within his or her team and motivate them to work effectively and productivity in achieving a shared goal. As organisations strive to growth, competent leaders are require to motivate and guide their employees in line with the organisation’s vision and long-term goals.
9. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, evaluate and respond to one’s emotions as well as the emotions of others. Today’s workplace focuses on cross-team collaboration which requires the need to be able to effectively interact with and respond to co-workers. Emotional intelligence is closely tied to other key soft skills including leadership, adaptability, and communication.
