Brought to you by JGA Recruitment Group:
Payroll is a critical aspect of a company’s operation. Every company needs to pay staff accurately and timely, to improve employee morale and performance and to avoid legal problems that will not only cost a company a lot of money but also damage its reputation. Therefore, hiring the right people for your payroll staff is extremely important.
Here are some ways to recruit higher-quality payroll staff:
1. Know the Different Payroll Positions
Payroll is a department that workers depend upon to ensure they receive accurate pay for the hours they worked for the company and have the correct deductions taken for insurance, taxes, and so on. In some companies, individuals with different payroll tasks fall under the finance department – from payroll clerks to administrators and managers.
Before you search for individuals to make up your payroll team, ensure you’re familiar with the different payroll positions and roles, so you’ll know what you are looking for. Some payroll responsibilities include creating records for new hires, verifying employees’ working hours, processing employee entitlements such as vacation and maternity leaves, and ensuring correct overtime and shift payments. Other duties of the payroll staff include administration and filing.
When looking for individuals to fill entry-level payroll jobs, it’s worth choosing candidates who passed higher education courses, such as GCSE in mathematics for candidates in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and have prior office experience. They should also be familiar with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft databases. If you need to hire for senior positions, look for those with AAT or IPP certificates in payroll administration.
2. Know What Problems You’re Facing
You’ll likely encounter problems hiring higher-quality payroll staff, just like hiring any other positions for a company. Knowing these potential problems can help you find the right solutions, allowing you to recruit the right individuals for your business needs. Of course, the biggest challenge would be finding the most suitable candidates in a pool of unqualified people.
Remember that the best candidates are the ones that get contacted by recruiters. To find high-quality payroll staff, you must put more effort into encouraging higher quality candidates to choose your company over competitors. Before you contact a candidate, research what motivates them and makes them stay in their job. From this, you can personalize your sourcing message to describe what you can provide instead of what they can do for you.
You may need to hire fast since vacant positions could affect your business operations. However, you should take your time because you could hire the wrong employees if you do it in a rush. Take the time to review your hiring process and ensure you have proper strategies. Make sure your recruiting process is efficient. Your recruitment team knows how to evaluate payroll candidates and choose the right employee for the tasks.
3. Use a Specialist Payroll Recruitment Agency
Sourcing the right talent to fill payroll positions can be an arduous process. It can become even more challenging if you need to hire employees for a specific niche, such as experts in payroll. When it comes to this, you can rely on a specialist payroll recruitment agency.
A specialist payroll recruiter can hold valuable experience in the payroll sector. Their expertise and knowledge mean they know who and where to find the best talent. In addition, specialist payroll recruitment agencies have a pool of payroll professionals and can provide you with high-quality candidates.
One of the advantages of using a specialist payroll recruitment agency is avoiding bad hires. Hiring the wrong people to fill the payroll positions in your company can be expensive. But specialist recruiters can put in more time and effort to find a candidate who is not only suitable for the role but is also culturally fit for your company and has a passion for developing a long-term career in your company.
A specialist recruitment agency can help you avoid bad hires by consulting your job brief, reviewing the salary offer to ensure it’s competitive, and thoroughly screening candidates.
4. Outline the Role Carefully
When hiring payroll staff, you must outline the role carefully. Clear descriptions and specifications can help you hire the best candidates. The job descriptions should serve as an outline of a candidate’s responsibilities, which helps in attracting new talent. It should not only be a case of sprucing up standardized text. Instead, it should also give potential candidates a clear idea of the position they are applying for.
Carefully outlining the payroll roles through accurate job descriptions can help filter unsuitable candidates and entice high-quality payroll staff. It will give a clear idea of a candidate’s responsibilities and duties while outlining the chain of responsibilities and highlighting expectations.
When you interview potential candidates, the job outline will be the starting point for questions, giving you and the candidate a formal structure, which you can expand during the interview. You can also use the job descriptions as evaluation checkpoints for recruits, helping you to monitor each person’s performance and their role’s functionality within the organization.
5. Select Your Location
The location is an important consideration when hiring payroll staff. You might need employees who live nearby, making it easier for them to come to work. Therefore, choosing the right location to advertise your payroll roles is an effective method for attracting high-quality candidates.
Most candidates prioritize comfort and well-being when looking for a company to work for, which they can achieve if they work for a company near their home. According to studies, more than 30% of applicants will not accept a job requiring them to commute more than 30 minutes to work. It’s for this reason that location-based recruitment is essential.
