BY TONI COON, CPP

When I grow up I want to be a payroll professional. Has any grade school student ever said that on career

day? Probably not. So, it’s likely that attracting young professionals to a career in payroll services is going to be a tough sell for your organization. There needs to be a clear incentive or other reward your organization can offer to attract new recruits. But there are other challenges.

For example, wages—especially at entry level—don’t provide much of an incentive. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2016, the average annual wage for payroll and timekeeping clerks was $43,580.

Attracting New Generation of Payroll Pros Can Be a Challenge

Toni Coon, CPP, is an Industry Marketing Manager at Kronos. She has led a variety of payroll focused onboarding classes and developed and led a global project team to streamline timekeeping service offerings around the world.

Reprinted From Aug/Sept 2017

Additionally, payroll jobs are not typically what might be considered glamorous positions. Most of the time, entry-level payroll professionals are dealing with employee questions or complaints about pay and wages. Rarely do they receive a thank you or acknowledgment for tasks such as timely bank deposits (sometimes into three to five different accounts) or reporting to health and welfare vendors so that services can be delivered when employees need them.

Payroll … Exciting? Yes! It’s clear that to attract a new generation of workers to the payroll profession, you must emphasize not only payroll processing itself but also what makes payroll exciting. This may sound more challenging than it is. Payroll tasks are constantly changing and are never boring, and there is always work to be done, because paycheck processing never ends.

How should you pitch prospective talent to consider a career in payroll? The best place to start is by showing them the many interesting ways in which they can start and grow a payroll career. For example, payroll professionals: • Work closely with other departments—such as HR,

finance and accounting, legal and compliance, and operations. • Need to know and understand all company policies

that may affect employee paychecks—including aligning with HR on policy management to improve the employee experience, which can involve changes to the payroll system.

• Must be fluent in the HR style of employee-to-company interactions—although payroll communicates with employees nearly as much as HR and represents the organization, it must also be able to relate to the employee and resolve a variety of employee-related issues.

• Must understand basic accounting and work hand in hand with accounting partners—to create accurate reports and general ledger posting of data.

• Need to stay up to date on changing federal, state, and local labor laws and regulations—from pay rates to taxes to deductions; knowing the compliance requirements related to the paycheck and the company is critical for all payroll professionals.

Perhaps most importantly, prospective employees should know that payroll is an operations center with the core task of producing employee paychecks in a timely and cost-efficient manner—which requires the same foundational skills as running the organization’s main operations.

Change May Need to Come Sooner Rather Than Later There are other organizational reasons to attract and retain new payroll employees. After years of service, payroll professionals in the baby boomer and Generation X generations are starting to think about retirement. To maintain continuity within the organization, attracting fresh talent and starting the process of knowledge transfer are necessary before that knowledge is no longer available.

Here’s a current snapshot of payroll workers in the United States:• According to SalaryGenius.com, the average age of a

payroll professional is 38 years • Baby boomers—who made up 29% of the U.S.

labor force as of 2015—are retiring at a rate of approximately 10,000 per day, according to the Pew Research Center and Investopia.com

• According to the Pew Research Center, as of 2015, Generation X made up 34% of the U.S. labor force

It’s clear that with these two generations having so much experience, the time is now to start planning who will be next in line to process payroll when current lead payroll professionals are no longer with the organization. To start building a strategy for this critical transfer of knowledge, ask yourself the following questions: • Have knowledge and processes been documented,

and are they ready to be shared with new employees?• Have knowledge holders passed down their

wisdom and experience to the next generation of payroll professionals so they don’t have to learn from scratch?

• Have you prepared new payroll professionals—and your organization—to succeed and not fail?

Finding What Today’s Workforce WantsThe new talent coming into the payroll industry are millennials and Generation Z-ers, whose overall philosophy toward work is centered on a need for learning and development, feeling valued, and working for a purpose.

Recent industry research bears this out. According to the 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, “Millennials want to contribute to the positive impact they believe business has on society, but in so doing, they wish to stay true to their personal values.” Additionally, 70% of millennials believe their personal values are shared by the organizations for which they work.

To attract millennial talent to your organization’s payroll department, you must make a very compelling case that a career in payroll can align with their needs and values. They may be unaware of the many roles within payroll, so the following points could be made as you attempt to attract this young talent to your organization: • Within the payroll world, you could become a

specialist in a variety of areas, allowing you to continually challenge and build on your experience within your organization. These areas include taxes, processing, reporting and analytics, accounting and GL reconciliations, and benefits administration

• Payroll professionals contribute to the employee experience every day via service interactions and, most importantly, the paycheck

• Requiring a blend of HR skills, process efficiencies, service delivery, and accounting, a career in payroll can let you flourish in your own way and contribute to your organization’s goals. This is a big positive if you’re looking to make a difference in the workplace

Drawing in New Talent With Technology Employees today, regardless of their generation, want their employers to be invested in delivering a positive employee experience—and using advanced technology is the best way to deliver this. From streamlining recruiting and interviewing to easing daily processing and offering more challenging work, your organization’s level of technology is one of the most important elements of attracting and retaining an engaged and productive workforce.

Technology and digital communications are huge parts of young workers’ lives outside work—and a workplace that doesn’t offer them will seem old-fashioned and therefore unattractive to prospective hires. According to a Forbes magazine article titled “How Your Millennial and Gen Z Employees Are Changing Your Workplace,” the best technology solutions an employer can offer to satisfy millennial (and later, Generation Z) employees are those that improve their work-life balance.

Making a positive impression on talent goes a long way. Potential employees want to know that you have invested in technology to manage everyday processes, including payroll. Because millennials want to contribute and make a difference, having advanced technology provides a platform through which they can embrace their roles and feel engaged in their work. And they want the ability to contribute fresh ideas and concepts to make work easier and ease the path to organizational success.

Once you’ve hired and trained young payroll professionals, you must be able to retain them. This is easier said than done, considering the track record of millennials in the workplace. The Deloitte survey stated that two-thirds of millennials plan to leave their current organizations by the end of 2020, and one-quarter see themselves elsewhere within a year. In addition, only 16% of millennials see themselves with their current employers a decade from now. So, technology is more important than ever to help your organization gain a hiring edge.

What About Gen Z?The generation after millennials, Generation Z, is just starting to enter the workforce. The group consists of people born beginning in the mid-1990s.

Overall, Gen Z doesn’t breathe without technology, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. There are so many moving parts in the technology world, and things change so quickly, that it can be hard to keep up. Growing up in a fast-changing technological world has required them to be constantly learning new things—so who better, then, to help your organization embrace new technology to find the best ways to improve your business?

Gen Z talent will need to see that you offer the technology they want before you can attract and recruit them to your organization in the first place. If your organization is still using outdated legacy systems or manual, paper-based processes, it will negatively affect your ability to attract quality talent. But given a chance, their fresh eyes and the speed at which they can see changes coming could be advantageous to the future of your organization.

For example, having the ability to work across multiple locations and connect with employees and vendors regardless of time zone via technology such as Skype and FaceTime not only enhances payroll team customer service but also is very attractive to young talent today. A workplace without that level of technology is a nonstarter for them.

Moving ForwardAt some point in preparing for the future, the payroll torch must be passed. It only benefits you as an individual and as a contributing member of your organization to ensure that your successors have the knowledge and tools they need to be successful.

Implementing a unified human capital management (HCM) solution such as that offered by Kronos® can better prepare your organization for attracting, managing, measuring, and retaining talent. HCM solutions help streamline the entire employee lifecycle from pre-hire to retire, creating stronger efficiencies and greater satisfaction not for just employees but for your entire organization.

Keeping pace technologically has another advantage for your organization. Advanced payroll technology is changing the way companies process payroll. Organizations moving toward technologies such as cloud-based systems, mobile capabilities, and systems that integrate payroll, HR, and other functions will attract the highest-quality tech-savvy talent. It’s in the very best interests of your organization to explore its benefits further. ■

The American Payroll Association (APA), www.americanpayroll.org, is the nation’s leader in payroll education, publications, and training. This nonprofit association conducts more than 300 payroll training conferences and seminars across the country each year and publishes a complete library of resource texts and newsletters. Representing more than 21,000 members, APA is the industry’s highly respected and collective voice in Washington, D.C. Get more information at www.americanpayroll.org.