Behind the Scenes of the Payroll Profession Confidence Survey

[00:00:08] I'm Peter Lyakis and is always enjoying by the legendary Julie Fernandez. Welcome, Julie. Thanks, Pete. Hey, this is a special meeting for us. You kind of called a call that I'm here. We have some cool topics to talk about.

[00:00:22] I can't wait to share something special here with our listeners. Yes, yes. My passion project has finally come to life. My Payroll Profession Confidence Survey is out. You know a lot about it. I know you've seen sneak peeks of it. You've helped me do some input to it.

[00:00:38] Yeah, I just want to share. I want people to know how this came about, what it's about, why it's important and just see what we can do to get more eyes on it around the world. Because we're doing really well, but we need to get everyone's voice heard.

[00:00:50] Yes, so you know what? It's awesome to be talking about it. And it's also a little strange at the same time because I know it's something you've been working on forever.

[00:00:57] Right, and it's finally here. And so we'll be talking, I think about some things that that we've been bouncing around together for quite some time.

[00:01:05] And in fact, even some elements that we've done podcast topics about and incorporated in other ways, but why don't you start by just sharing, you know, how you got to this passion project and what it is that makes you so passionate about it.

[00:01:19] Yeah, absolutely. So look, you're right. This show has absolutely influenced and inspired some of what I did in this survey, right?

[00:01:28] You're we're going to get to that. I think a little bit as we talk about it, but yeah, look so one of the things that I think we have failed to do for payroll professionals in the marketplace is truly listen to them.

[00:01:39] We tend to create surveys and I'm guilty of it. I've helped vendors shape these, I've helped the payroll org shape these, these very lead generation slanted surveys that are mostly about understanding the operational nuances of payroll, right?

[00:01:53] How many people are you paying, you know, who do you report to whether it's HR or finance or somewhere else?

[00:01:59] You know, how many how many FTEs do you have paying those people all the operational sort of benchmarks and what do you have? What can we sell you kind of slant?

[00:02:09] And that's all valuable, right, for various different reasons. Deloitte does a great survey on that every whatever a couple of years. I know you've done some good stuff over the years and there's many many that are out there they're fantastic.

[00:02:21] But what I think most of them fail to do is take the pulse of the profession from a sentiment perspective and fundamentally that's what this is based in, right?

[00:02:31] This is all about how are you doing, how are you feeling, why do you feel that way? What can we do to make you feel better about what you're doing in your future and how can we really help you?

[00:02:41] Is it another piece of technology? Is it AI? Is it, what is it? Right? Is it resources? Is it education?

[00:02:47] And so I want to go beyond the normal again, what do you have? What can we sell you and get down to that to that sentiment based analysis and really start to peel back the onion if you will?

[00:02:57] What's really going on for the payroll practitioner? But at the same time understand how they can be more successful, not just personally professionally as a profession but in their organizations and bring more value and impact to their businesses.

[00:03:09] And drive better outcomes and so that's the whole purpose of this. I think that's awesome and I can't wait to see what sorts of responses you get to this. I do wonder, you know, so we're talking about sentiment and really you're focusing in on who's sentiment, right?

[00:03:23] And then also how do the other parties, you know, how is their sentiment or their confidence reflected in what you're doing?

[00:03:31] That's a great, that's a great point. I would love if we could interview seesweet folks and get to get to that as well from the other side of the coin because I think that there is, I got a lot of hypotheses about that.

[00:03:44] But what we're doing with this is really starting this as a baseline, right? We're going out and taking the pulse of payroll. And if that, I think that may be something that we find that we need to go dig into some other areas of the organization and gain their perspective for how payroll could be more effective for them.

[00:04:00] Above and beyond what payroll already does which is going above and beyond as most of us know.

[00:04:05] And in this survey, one of the things we do do is talk about their relationships. We ask about the health of their relationships with broader organization around HR and finance and legal.

[00:04:15] That's one area I know you and I were kind of talking before we started recording about I love your perspective on because I think you are as a consultant out there helping companies transform you're probably talking to a lot of these, this this audience that often has to influence payrolls future.

[00:04:32] Or otherwise, you know, their existence it all in the organization and how that gets invested and funded and how they're viewed and cared for right. So yeah I'd love I'm anxious to learn that and see where is payroll getting the best champions and partners.

[00:04:48] And what do we need to do to help get that going better right where we can they can be a, have champions in every part of the organization.

[00:04:56] Yeah, you know that's okay because you know there I'm sure we'll find there's lots of sentiment out there but some of that is actually likely because of constraints in being able to accomplish things are achieve things whether it's budgetary or resources or you know vision or cultural support right so.

[00:05:17] So I think we'll see that reflected you know you're going to get some insights some really cool insights into that reflected and the results you know you mentioned you mentioned something about the server that I want to point out that maybe most people might not really realize how these things are how the sausages is made right on the back end but.

[00:05:37] I think it's it's really neat and people should understand that this survey is not a survey survey that's sponsored or monetized right and you know that that that's a world you're super familiar with you live in all the time and and it's really about bringing insights broad based insights to the community by the community for the community right as opposed to.

[00:06:00] As opposed to the way that these things usually happen. Yeah, no absolutely yeah no look this this is something that I've been working on now for probably about 18 months.

[00:06:09] I've put a lot of thought into this I've written this from my heart as a practitioner as a consultant as an analyst who studied this and advises most of these the modern solutions that are out there and so this is written by practitioners for practitioners for payroll leaders right for all stakeholders of payroll really.

[00:06:26] We we've designed this survey to together the feedback from not just the front line payroll professional but the but the leader the shared services leader anyone who is sort of.

[00:06:35] Owning payroll if you will or has a has a major stake in that so we want their perspectives and yeah, this is this is coming we've come at this from the the payroll point of view by you for you and we have incorporated the opinions of many thought leaders like yourself.

[00:06:51] Anita Latinka good friend of the show we involve Stacy Harris Steve Goldberg we reached out to the payroll org and we had input from from Linda overton and her team there she's the president of payroll org is and and a few of their senior leaders.

[00:07:03] We're looking at the leaders waiting as well as a group as well as Nathan North who know and so we we took a lot of feedback on that and we and we worked very hard to shape this again by payroll for payroll.

[00:07:15] The other thing is yes 100% this is non monetize this is a this is a contribution of my of my free time labor of love.

[00:07:25] I don't know if I'm not a very religious person but I do I feel called to do this and I feel like somebody needs to.

[00:07:37] shine a light on what's really going on and payroll because there's still a lot of ignorance and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I think in the C suite and even in HR for what really goes on and payroll.

[00:07:49] The power of what they control and you power how they can impact or you know make or break maybe executing on a strategy. from a compliance perspective and a risk management perspective, that is far undervalued.

[00:08:02] And then you think about what they're what they're curating, right? The data that they're curating in the insights and the information that they have, the fact that they're not being engaged in a more proactive basis to drive better business outcomes

[00:08:12] is what we're really hoping to do here. But bottom line yes, there is no monetization to this. We are not profiting from this. We are sharing this to the fullest extent. We have made it so that

[00:08:25] we can have every payroll organization around the world and so many of them have gotten involved from Australia to Europe to the payroll org, the GPA. They're all trying to help out and we're

[00:08:36] trying to get this in the hands of everyone we can. We're giving the results to all of them absolutely complementary and we will unveil this obviously in May at the payroll orgs

[00:08:46] Congress but we are willing to share it with anyone and everyone and we're trying our best to and the lovely thing is we've got vendors stepping in to help us, put it into their client

[00:08:55] communities, pace lift has helped us, Niyama has helped us, safeguards getting on board. We've got others coming on board every day so yeah this is non monetizes is unsponsored and the best

[00:09:05] part about this Julie is this is completely anonymous. This is one of the things that the feedback that we're given to me is that will payroll practitioners and leaders want to really be honest if

[00:09:16] they believe that their employer could find out what they might have thought of payroll or said or whatever. And that was really important to me so we've made this 100% anonymous. The only reason

[00:09:26] you are asked to give your first name and your email is purely if you want to be notified when this or any of the other research that we produce comes out but no one will be trying

[00:09:36] you're letting anyone's input, you don't have to give your name, you don't have to give your email and all we ask for you to do is just give us your voice and let us go be a voice for you

[00:09:46] and so that's the goal here and that's why no monetization. Yeah that's awesome you know the other thing that I think is really cool is people who are following some of the thought leaders

[00:09:55] and some of the things that are showing up on our podcast with guests are recognized will recognize the great interest in having a seat at the table or bringing up you know a higher calling for

[00:10:08] payroll and so it just makes me think like what are you what is it that you're hoping to learn through this survey and you know I'm sure that our conversations about a seat at the table

[00:10:20] have influenced you as you've tried this path right but what do you think you're going to learn? Yeah that's a that's an outstanding question and I'll be honest with you I think the answer to

[00:10:31] that is as a good researcher I'm going into this with a completely open mind saying I don't know what I expect to learn to be honest. I suspect that we're going to hear payroll

[00:10:41] is undervalued and that payroll is not driving the value they can I believe that's what we're here. I hope I don't hear that but I think that what we will what look no matter what what comes out of this

[00:10:54] right if everything in payroll is rosy and perfect and we're all wrong about what we about the idea that I think payroll is still largely treated as less than even if I'm wrong about all that

[00:11:05] which I hope what no matter what we what comes out of this I just want to be able to shine a light where I don't know that a light is being shined and so in other words I just want to tell

[00:11:16] the story for the community because listen I have the ear of the payroll payroll world they listen to me they follow me they connect with me I write content they're all engaged in

[00:11:28] and I have the the the the ear of the vendors making the solutions in the marketplace and and that's fantastic because I'm able to bridge those two together in my work and I'm able to influence how on behalf of the practitioner out there how how these modern solution

[00:11:44] should be designed to help them and marketed to them and and marketed to their leaders but what I think most important that we that we need to come away with is we need to be able to come

[00:11:55] away with data to back up a narrative that says payroll needs to be more important payroll can create more value and why aren't you tapping that strategic partner right and that's what I want

[00:12:08] and that so I really I think what I'm hoping to do this personally what I think we we should ultimately land on is is some hard data that we can get in front of it senior leaders and organizations

[00:12:19] and say payroll has to become more important and here's what you don't know about it or maybe this is what you do know about it and here's what could happen if you if you could if you could

[00:12:28] embrace that so that's what I hope to do is just amplify the voice collectively for the work for the whole community of of payroll owners and stakeholders around the world and shine

[00:12:39] a light on what they're what they're saying that's awesome okay so all the arms all you who are that there you know like following what happens in payroll in nature you know that whole idea is

[00:12:51] the more voices and you know in some sort of collective findings the better the better for everyone right yeah and this is a baseline year where we we understand this survey was a little longer than my

[00:13:03] style I'd love it to be a little slimmer but we really need to delay down a good foundation that's why we need participation from around the world from every continent from every country from

[00:13:12] every planet as I've been saying wherever you're paying someone we want to hear from you and yeah we need to be able to show like and I want to correlate big company small company

[00:13:23] this country that country and we want to be able to show what's really going on in payroll whether that's positive negative and where where we can help and again when I say baseline

[00:13:32] this survey will evolve year over year we want to create an index out of that oh my alarm is going off it didn't suppress my phone there my dog needs meds at this hour that's why

[00:13:43] the parking but the point here is we want to we want to create a baseline that then says where do we need to go and focus right and year over year we want to be able to shift that focus accordingly

[00:13:54] and report on that through this index that we hope will become a stalwart in the industry for what's read the pulse of what's really going on in the payroll profession because Julie one of the

[00:14:03] things that I know you know and I know and I'm sure you see this with your clients we're losing talent very quickly out of payroll and there's many factors to that but we need to preserve

[00:14:15] that and we need to make sure people these people these very skilled practitioners that frankly turn the world economy are appreciated and that they are going to be appreciated and more

[00:14:27] than valued in the future of work and we need them to be to be a part of that so I hope we're preserving the profession if nothing else yeah for sure hey so so should we talk a little bit

[00:14:37] logistics because I'm pretty sure the surveys up in life now right it is and if you can't you haven't seen my face selling it all over the internet well then you're not looking right no but yeah

[00:14:48] really look go out there you can go to my LinkedIn I'm going to put it in the in the description you can find that on my Twitter I know you're going to share it or have shared it to me

[00:14:56] absolutely HR and payroll channels are sharing at 360 insights are sharing it many vendors around the community are sharing it and we have many many thought leaders so find that and get engaged with it and know that it's running it's going to run from now until about March 22nd

[00:15:11] gives you plenty of time take you 10 maybe 15 minutes at the very most the only asked is the challenges take it and put and share it take take it and make sure someone else takes it and I think

[00:15:22] if we all do that we'll create our own little payroll pyramid scheme and we can get the voices in but but really I think I think it's all about helping me help you right just just get your peers

[00:15:36] in yourselves to concentrate your time on this and I promise you people are listening there are so many executives across vendors across organizations I've talked to you just anyone that I've

[00:15:48] talked to about this are absolutely intrigued to be a part of it and I'll tell you we absolutely did turn down vendor money to sponsor this for all the reasons I explained it. We had every

[00:15:59] opportunity to sponsor this out we had plenty of that but we don't want that right we want this to be free of any brand just like this podcast free of any sort of conflict and we want to make sure

[00:16:10] that people can come in and be completely authentic and completely open and let me take that collective openness and go and tell a world what's really going on. That's right so don't put

[00:16:20] off today if residents take them then you haven't done this then don't let the the look of the Irish and say pats day come around because that means you're really at the tail end just jump in

[00:16:33] and more than that spread the word yeah share it we really want to kind of get some volume some good volume of responses from all walks of life and all walks of the globe or the planet as you

[00:16:45] have to say. All walks of payroll everybody's welcome everybody's welcome and again anybody it's not just for frontline payroll practitioners and leaders if you're a shared services owner CFO you know anyone who has a vested interest in the ongoing activities of payroll and

[00:17:00] your organization we'd love to hear your opinion and yeah we want and we even ask that right we were even asking the sort of role that people have in the organization so we can correlate it

[00:17:10] to how those opinions are tying out and people are viewing it so. That's kind of unique too when you're doing a sentiment analysis oftentimes when when you're regular surveying you want each company somebody to respond on behalf of each each person or company but when you're doing a

[00:17:25] sentiment analysis you know it's okay if more than one person provides sentiment. Yeah totally totally and I would love her yes it's you bad we can't correlate the we can't do this

[00:17:36] within an organization by itself I'd love to do that right going to a big company you and I have both work with many many massive companies where there's a lot of opinions about payroll right I mean

[00:17:46] we talk about I always talked to folks about selling payroll you're never really selling to one persona in the organization you're selling to an audience of the business and the HR and finance

[00:17:56] and IT and there's a lot of folks that have to weigh in on that I'd love to take this survey and drop it into a big organization you know like the conversation we had about CVS right that was a great

[00:18:08] yeah he had a big big big size of an operation I would love to have seen all the perspectives from the internal and external stakeholders to that to understand their perception of payroll's value that

[00:18:20] would be fascinated and maybe that's a part two wave two of it's been off but but we got to start somewhere and this is this is the beginning and I hope this is something that we will all be

[00:18:30] be able to look at and say that we anticipate being a part of that we anticipate watching the movement and I hope that we can start a trend of of changing the trajectory for payroll the attitude towards

[00:18:42] awesome well how about when we're thinking about the report unveil and the results and making those available I hope to be with you in helping you in any way I can in your big unveil coming

[00:18:54] up at the payroll org congress right yep and I actually even I hope to be inspired on my own talk trek there which has to do with the different roles in the organization and how the various stakeholders

[00:19:08] impact each other and collaborate or don't collaborate right yeah that's that's a topic we've spoken about a lot anything else to know about about May and and the excitement that you

[00:19:18] hope to build up on the way to unveiling the results yeah I you know I think it's important that you and I talk about the day one at at the payroll congress the Super Bowl of payroll as I call it

[00:19:28] it's going to be in Nashville great city to be in if you want to spend a weekend and have a good time I live here in Atlanta so I'll be driving up but May 7th to the 10th I think I'm presenting my

[00:19:39] findings for this report on that Friday if I'm not mistaken but you and I are going to be a part of an executive group right a workshop or a private thing so if that's something that you're interested

[00:19:48] in reach out we'll see if we can get you connected but what excites me about that Julia is is we're talking about the first ever payroll executive sort of forum if you will ahead of of of the

[00:20:01] excuse me and executive forum for payroll and I think they're inviting C-suite type type folks into that to talk about payroll then the context of exactly what we've just talked about

[00:20:11] here around the survey so I don't know what your opinion is but I'm really excited to see that addition and hope that that's kind of the first step towards us starting to help shape that narrative

[00:20:21] about payroll towards the C-suite to you know to educate them on what's possible safe here and I actually think what'll be fun about that is you'll have some insights already into what sentiment results are and will have a very collaborative session working session with

[00:20:38] executive with executives that touch payroll or responsible for it and and I see that as our chance to really add some color to the story and and get that conversation moving so I'm excited

[00:20:49] to be doing that with you and I'm just overall excited to to get together with a lot of colleagues and folks in the profession at that particular event and if you're from another place don't

[00:21:01] fret we'll make sure that we get you information then you're not entirely left out. Yeah no absolutely and look for us yeah look for the survey please share it get it out there

[00:21:10] and two things I want to tease Julie that I am doing along this line that I think is important to share number one I have been working with my my payroll executive council at 360 insights so it's a

[00:21:22] small group of payroll leaders like Sarah Chasney and Danny Show to our friends of the show and Jim Cole and a few others where we are really looking at how we can as a group do something

[00:21:35] similar to what we do here on HR and payroll 2.0 but maybe some sort of a LinkedIn live or some sort of a hangout where we can start to share you know those sort of what I'll call payroll executive level

[00:21:47] skills and tips and tricks right like just like a Marie and Marie is a part of this group and she has had some wonderful blogs on building your own table we did a great podcast it's

[00:21:59] had fantastic engagement so I'm trying to work with that crew to figure out how do we create even more complementary education and so I'd love to have you be a part of that as well Julie as we

[00:22:09] maybe host a few Lincoln live kind of events we haven't totally fleshed this out but know that we're working on something like that to share with the community. Absolutely go ahead

[00:22:18] to mention that any last any other last things you wanted to toss out? Yeah one more thing I also had a conversation recently with a gentleman from the Australian workforce compliance council they have a really interesting payroll education program that's going on in Australia that I want

[00:22:34] to bring them onto the show and talk about I think this is really really unique it's a different approach to preserving the industry and so look just teasing an episode here for the future

[00:22:46] for that one but otherwise find the survey please take it please share it reach out if you have any questions if you're a vendor and you want to share it at scale reach out I'll help you with

[00:22:56] the communications if you're a payroll association that hasn't engaged with me yet I would absolutely love for you to engage with it and I'm happy to help you there as well so tell me what I can do to

[00:23:06] get it in the hands of more and more your members. All right it feels like ready set let's go come guys go out and take the survey. Let's do it thank you so much Julia it's always always a pleasure. Have a good one. All right.