So, a staff member does payroll - trained in house. Also does admin associated with this as well as bookkeping etc.
Errors tend to be lack of attention to details - eg P45 wrong employee, processed pay as normal rather than Furlough. We haven't had many issues before, only recently.
In a larger firm, the owner probably wouldn't be aware that this has happened, but we are a small office.
What would you do - ignore this, have a chat etc.
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Well, obviously you need to raise it but:
1) You need review
2) You need capable staff who understand "why" rather than just doing things from sitting next to Nellie,
3) Are you paying appropriately for what you are asking for.
4) Payroll is something that really benefits from checklists. Do you first prepare a schedule of gross pay that you are then looking to 'match' against the software output?
I have run payroll for 20 plus years, and would not like to do it without having a source and an output to compare.
Of course if we are taking 2 staff per payroll on a flat salary and no variation that is I suppose different.
If it has only been happening recently, I would be inclined to chalk it up to fatigue after over a year of furlough & additional work that has been landed on the payroll departments.
I'd keep an eye on it but not choose to make an issue at the moment, particularly if you feel this employee stepped up well with the challenges presented.
The others will be along shortly to suggest flogging or even shooting for offending the almighty gods of GDPR.
Do not ignore
Thereafter it is people skills and I would treat my employees differently for same issues as they are different people
Wages is the thing that MUST be right first time every time
So create a self check system for the employee
Eg print the email that says Fred left to make sure it is Fred that gets the P45 treatment
Ignoring it is definitely the worst of all your possible options, but the first point at which you address the issue should be fairly gentle, in my experience, however you have to stress that each of the employees on these payrolls is a person whose life is not going to be ruined but could easily be significantly impacted if they don't double check and pay attention.
Start requesting to sign things off before they are finalised. Have your staff member sign off and even use a tick list to identify all things you'd like checking before it comes to yourself.
It sounds like lack of training?
If this has only started recently have a word with employee to find out if there are any issues - work or personal as a first step. You need to consider the pressure the employee could be under. How many times have Awebbers posted in the last year at their wits end with the changes in payroll due to Covid. Your employee could be under pressure - we've all acknowledged that the volume of work required to run a payroll in the last 12 months has increased. This employee could have been managing the workload ok before Covid but is swamped now and is doing the best they can to meet deadlines and keep afloat. Just giving a helping hand be all they need to get on top of things until things settle down.
Payroll IS detail.
Bookkeeping can always be adjusted after the error is discovered (as can Payroll but usually with greater effort/complexity) ... but the key point is that Payroll directly impacts on individuals who can end up in invidious positions through no fault of their own.
RTI ensures that the impact is felt in (near) real-time ... not just in employee's bank account, but potentially in interaction with UC and other benefits. The resulting detriment can be impossible to rectify instantly ... so the individual (and potentially her/his family) suffers because your employee didn't pay attention to the details!
Obviously I've no idea as to whether this problem is a recent facet of your employee's behaviour, or indeed the frequency of these errors, but you cannot let it continue.
Others have mentioned check-lists (for the employee), cross-checking (by others) and so on ... but these are 'after the horse has bolted' actions. What you have to decide is whether the person is capable/amenable to changing their attitude? And, if so, whether you are prepared (and can afford) to introduce ameliorative processes?
If No to either of those, then you need to re-allocate duties and quickly.
You list out some problems and as one of your solutions suggest you ignore them. It sounds as if you aren't very confident about supervising staff.
You don't have to rugby tackle the staff member about this.
But if you don't discuss errors with them as you find them (and not weeks later) you aren't doing your job as a senior member of staff.
I regularly find little things that someone I'm supervising hasn't done right or doesn't understand. I tell her about them and she improves. But I try very hard not to sound bossy or like a bully. And I want to have a friendly relationship where there is mutual respect.
Thanks, and you are correct. Last year I was abused on social media by someone who I asked to leave after 2.5 weeks as every payroll was incorrect ( I was checking every one before going to client). 9 attempts at getting a one page letter correct with information drops to put in, amongst a really bad attitude and aggressive to another staff member
The said individual was the most incompetent person I have ever come across, on £ 30k, but it was all my fault in the end and they took to writing 3 reviews online, from 3 different email accounts as if it was 3 different people, but sentences used are copied in parts, accusing me of being a 'bully' because I told her things were wrong.
I have been stepping on eggshells with other staff since then
My heart goes out to you. Have a look at supervisory courses online. I went on a half day course when I got my first member of staff, and was surrounded by other accountants! That course was all I needed to see what the boundaries should be.
For example, after just one day of someone not being suitable, if they were as bad as you say, you should have told them it wasn't working out. Keeping them on for 2.5 weeks is just ducking the issue.
I've had to sack people early on, but I've done it in a friendly way and told them it was my fault that it didn't work out. That bit was true. Had I checked their abilities harder first I wouldn't have employed them to start with.
I regularly find little things that someone I'm supervising hasn't done right or doesn't understand. I tell her about them and she improves. But I try very hard not to sound bossy or like a bully. And I want to have a friendly relationship where there is mutual respect.
Sometimes easier said than done. Over the years I have had to supervise staff several times and hoped I was being reasonable and fair but have still had problems - the first time when in the Revenue as a Group Leader I asked junior staff (tax officers) to help with a job that strictly belonged to clerical assistants (the issue of coding notices), as they were under pressure and I thought it reasonable to help them. It practically provoked a walk out and ended up with the Tax Officers (Higher Grade), including myself, helping out instead! I never understood then and still don't now why they objected so strongly to helping others.
The second time it was just myself and a tax assistant in an accounting practice, where I asked her to do some work I would not have hesitated to do myself. She also took umbrage, so clearly I was not cut out to be a supervisor and I ultimately left the firm and started my own business. Much easier to have no-one (except my husband) to worry about..
There could be many reasons, beyond your control, that the staff resented your request.
I'm very lucky in that I supervise one person per client's business. I get to know the person and create an understanding with them. I don't have the sort of time pressures that many employees have, and I can build up a good relationship both with the employee and the client.
I bet if someone employed me to do that it could be a very different scenario.
In my experience there is no one correct way to handle this because each person is different.
We recently had a new member of staff make a couple of mistakes but the attitude was - I am really annoyed with myself, I am very sorry, I have learned from it and it wont happen again.
compare that with another person that tries to excuse or even hide mistakes and that would be a very different conversation.
I always instil into staff from day one - accuracy is very important but no one is perfect, we all make mistakes and as long as you are honest about it and willing to learn theres no issue.
I prefer big mistakes because they always stand out :)
But, I agree with PP - bookkeeping can always be fixed, with no drama.
Payroll less so.
@murphy1 - have you impressed on your clients the need to get information to you correctly and in a timely fashion.
My payroll supervisor had a note on her door:
" A lack of preparation on your part does not create a priority on my part"
Yes Tom. This was simply an issue of my employee reading the email and incorrectly inputting to payroll. I have stressed that ‘we can only get payroll wrong’ so we need to double, and triple check everything.
Yes Tom. This was simply an issue of my employee reading the email and incorrectly inputting to payroll. I have stressed that ‘we can only get payroll wrong’ so we need to double, and triple check everything.
I tend to use you the sandwich approach start on a positive, discuss the issues of concern and always finish on a positive. Where a staff member struggles with a specific area, just offer additional support normally with a smile if I can. I always bring up my mistakes too, this shows we are all human!
It's often referred to as the collaborative or inclusive style of team-leading ... and is an excellent way of influencing the personal development of shyer team members.
However, if a person continues to drive an HGV with their eyes looking down at the floor where they've dropped their fag (despite potential consequences being drawn to their attention several times), then you need a more interventionist approach!
Only the responsible manager can decide where between these two extremes the member of staff's behaviour/attitude lies, but they cannot afford to be abstemious merely they see confrontation as something to be avoided.
Firstly, we all make mistakes. And no amount of training, education, or support will wholly eliminate them.
Secondly, the pandemic has probably generally increased stress levels and potential for errors. And accuracy in calculating, recalculating and recovering furlough payments has surely been very stressful.
I think your colleague deserves your continuing support.
I genuinely feel for payroll employees at the moment. The nitty gritty of their job is changing on an almost monthly basis. They are trying to cram more in to the same amount of time and are often learning on the job as they go along due to information being released at the last minute (although I accept that that is happening less now).
When I am dealing with staff who are at their wits end with Covid and the effects that it has had on them in the past 14 months, I try to look at it from my own perspective - we've all had our own stresses, whether that's children at home, working from home, illness, bereavement, etc.
I try to sit down with the person and say that I appreciate that they've probably had personal as well as work stress within the past year (I avoid saying "I understand what you've had to deal with..." because I probably don't). However, we have to address issues that have arisen. I look with them at whether I'm just plain expecting too much of them - and stress that it is my responsibility to get that right and that them coming to me and telling me I'm being unrealistic is not them saying they're failing but just that they need help. I stress that whatever stresses I have going on that they may or may not be aware of, they should not be keeping their issues to themselves to protect me - that is my responsibility.
I tell them what I expect of them going forwards and look at procedures or checklists that they could be putting in place (assuming that they don't already exist and aren't being used). I do stress, with payroll, that any mistake has a very real consequence on someone's life (or, in the case of CJRS, on a company's cashflow) and can't be tolerated on an ongoing basis, therefore it is even more important that they talk to me, check things with me if they aren't sure and generally cover their backsides by double checking everything. I remember a job where the first month they entrusted me with running the payroll by myself, I had just lost my grandmother and made a catastrophic error due to a formula being incorrect. I learnt my lesson pretty rapidly - but I also learnt by how I was managed by my then boss.
Murphy1, did you perchance acquire your errant payroll employee from an employment agency?
The point I took from your posting is that they were doing ok and now they aren't - so clearly something has changed. That is your starting point for the conversation with them. Tell them exactly that - that it isn't like them to make this many errors (we all make some errors - we are only human) and you are concerned that there may be a problem - and you'd like to work out what it is and what to do about it. It sounds like this person needs support rather than castigation but you can't do that until you understand what might be causing the mistakes. I've seen all sorts of reasons over the years - from failing eyesight, to too much pressure at work, to issues at home - but usually there is a way to work with them to solve the problem. If they've been a reliable member of staff up until now I think you have a responsibility to find out what the problem is. Ignoring it and hoping it goes away just isn't an option.
You're too kind and forgiving!
I say put a little something extra in her wage packet this month: her P45!
