In the lead up to the Anna Alderson Awards we’ll be announcing one nominee each weekday. The winners will be announced at
our end of year event. Today’s nominee is:
The Payroll Team
(Gordon McMaster, Tracey Ward, Sharlene Mirco and Emma Waters)
“I believe the Payroll demonstrated outstanding service to our staff over the last year, but particular examples of the Rise values are as follows:
Integrity – the Payroll team passionately believe in people being paid correctly for their work at Rise, on time. This often means they have gone above and beyond existing processes, within the always tight fortnightly timetable for pay, by personally reminding line managers to submit their staff’s timesheets or leave requests when they have failed to do so. As a result of this approach, many staff have benefited from being paid when they should be, and not having to wait a further fortnight for their pay due to an error on behalf of their line manager. In terms of Integrity for Rise, this is followed by a no-nonsense approach for line managers who fail to follow the correct process on a repeated basis – whilst efforts are made so that the staff member involved suffers no detriment, the team are clear on what the line managers role is, and escalate instances of non-compliance.
Respect – as the face of Finance to many Rise employees, the payroll team are unfailingly polite and respectful to our staff. They direct queries to the appropriate person, deal sensitively with people unsure of what to do, and they always remember that every one of our 600+ employees is a person, not a payroll ID number.
Optimism – this is a value that has been strongly tested over the last year for the Payroll team, given the challenges faced, as noted in the section above. However, I have been strongly impressed with their belief that improvements can and will continue to be made, They participate in workshops to identify root causes of problems, they liaise with software vendors of systems beyond their own payroll software to identify where improvements can be made, and they constantly seek to improved communications and education to staff of how best to complete their payroll processes correctly.
Having a high standard for all the Finance team, I often take strong performance levels in my team as a given, but I think I have called out the Payroll team almost every month this year, in our Finance team monthly meetings, to applaud their resilience, their teamwork, their ethics and their all round amazing efforts to ensure that all Rise staff get paid accurately and on time, no matter what significant distractions are occurring behind the scenes.
And so I feel compelled this year to call out the Payroll team as a very worthy nomination for the Anna Anderson Values Award.”