Canadian Payroll Reporter

Published 12 times a year by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Subscription rate: $179 per year Customer Service Tel: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5106 E-mail: carswell.customerrelations @thomsonreuters.com Website: www.carswell.com One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1T 3V4 Director, Carswell Media Karen Lorimer Publisher John Hobel Managing Editor Todd Humber Editor Shela Brawn sbrawn@rogers.com Marketing Manager Mohammad Ali mm.ali@thomsonreuters.com (416) 609-5866 Circulation Co-ordinator Travis Chan travis.chan@thomsonreuters.com (416) 609-5872 Payroll Reporter Can R adian a www.payrollreporter.com ©2014 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-7798-2810-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher (Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business). Return Mail Registration # 1522825 | Return Postage Guaranteed Paid News Revenue Toronto Canadian Payroll Reporter is part of the Canadian HR Reporter group of publications: • Canadian HR Reporter — www.hrreporter.com • Canadian Occupational Safety magazine — www.cos-mag.com • Canadian Payroll Reporter — www.payroll-reporter.com • Canadian Employment Law Today — www.employmentlawtoday.com • Canadian Labour Reporter — www.labour-reporter.com See carswell.com for information May 2014 | CPR News from CHANGING on page 1 Learning, development are key and software implementation specialists typically range from $60,000 to $90,000, with some earning upwards to $150,000. On average, the survey expects payroll salaries to rise by about 2.7 per cent this year. The results are based on a sur- vey of employers and over 2,000 payroll practitioners in Canada, conducted with the help of the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA). The survey also looked at how payroll practitioners spend their time, the types of com- puter systems they use, the most important job benefits and em- ployer hiring plans. Fifty-eight per cent of em- ployers and payroll professionals surveyed said their company's business activity increased in the last 12 months, but only 24 per cent said their permanent recruitment numbers went up in that time. Looking to this year, 64 per cent expect business activity to rise, but only 12 per cent plan to increase permanent headcount. "Companies are expecting a heck of a lot more from their payrollers," McElwee says. "In the past, companies were just happy that someone was there and paying the payroll and pay- ing people correctly and doing it on time. And they weren't nec- essarily that worried about how many people they had in payroll or how they were running the processes or what effect that had on the business." With a sluggish economy, more employers are looking for ways to be as efficient as possible and McElwee says he sees this trend in payroll recruitment. "The most common brief that we get from clients when we are asked to recruit someone in pay- roll, whether that be at a junior level or a senior level or even a manager level, is we would really like someone who could think a little outside the box and im- prove processes." Steven Van Alstine, vice-pres- ident of education at the CPA, agrees that a shift is taking place in the way employers perceive payroll. In the past, he says, "Employ- ers viewed it more from an ad- ministrative, functional perspec- tive and I think they are starting to realize with the magnitude of legislation and the changes that take place and how important it is to remain up to date and the compliance risk that exists with payroll, they are coming to rec- ognize the importance of the role that payroll plays within an organization." He adds, "When you consider that payroll does compose, in many cases, one of the largest expenses in an organization, it's pretty important from a compli- ance perspective that those that are in that role know what they are doing (and) can do it effec- tively because it does have a big impact on the organization." Annually, payroll practitio- ners pay about $860 billion in wages and benefits and remit close to $270 billion in statutory remittances to the federal and provincial governments, he says. "They play a very significant role. If practitioners weren't complying, if they weren't knowledgeable in what they are doing, it could have a significant impact for an organization from a compliance risk perspective." McElwee says when employ- ers are looking to recruit for pay- roll, they search for specific skill sets and payroll professionals who have them are sought after. "The key things that can really advance your career would be, obviously, to get your designa- tion qualification. The second thing would be to deal with as complex a payroll as you can. When I'm talking about com- plex, I'm talking about the mul- tijurisdictional or the number of different unions so that there are a number of different collective agreements you are dealing with. And the third thing would be system implementation or im- provements. Those are all very attractive things." He notes that the need for payroll professionals with the ability to handle multijurisdic- tional and international payrolls is becoming more prevalent due to business mergers, takeovers, expansions and relocations, as well as globalization. "It's something that on the face value seems like a very simple thing to deal with, but when you start thinking about all the logis- tics of paying payrolls in a lot of different jurisdictions, it's quite a hard thing to do," he says, adding, "it can cost your business a lot of money if you've got bad people on your payroll team." Company demands can be challenging for payroll practitio- ners, said Van Alstine, especially since 79 per cent of payroll func- tions in Canada are carried out by payroll departments staffed by only one to three people. In a one-person department, "that payroll person is operat- ing solo and is commonly the communication conduit for the whole organization when it comes to issues around individ- uals' pay," he says. Payroll certification is an essential tool to help payroll practitioners succeed in a chal- lenging environment, says Van Alstine. "At one time it certainly gave you an advantage, but now employers are demanding it." Payroll professional develop- ment and staying on top of legis- lative changes are also important. "Because of the 190 federal and provincial regulatory re- quirements right across the country, it can be challenging to make sure that you are keeping up to date, so you really need to be tapped into a resource where you can do that," he says. In addition, Van Alstine says it is essential that payroll practitio- ners develop good communica- tion skills. "Payroll plays a very key role in communicating. And that's push-and-pull communication, you know, understanding when you are receiving communica- tion about changes and how they impact on the organization and being able to push that informa- tion out to the employee popula- tion and being able to effectively communicate with the employee population." McElwee agrees that strong communication skills and pro- fessional development are vital as payroll becomes more com- plicated. "Those people who have been successful in payroll are the ones who are upskilling and they're going and getting their designa- tion or their qualifications from the CPA and they are doing more than just processing the payroll," he says.

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