Businesses have to pay attention to a number of different laws related to how they pay their employees and what taxes are owed to the government. All of these intricacies make payroll a critical role within any given organization. However, those working in payroll need to make sure they fully understand all of these different challenges associated with payments and taxes and what they mean to your specific business. Small mistakes in one part of the process can quickly become large errors to fix.
An effective payroll training program can help you ensure that all the professionals working on your payroll understand the latest best practices and how to manage your accounts. These programs set employees up for success so they can thrive in their positions.
Let’s look more closely and how you can create effective training programs that benefit your employees.
Designing Payroll Training for Your Business
An effective payroll training program will be fully customized to your organization's needs. The different payroll laws that apply to your company based on factors such as your exact location and business size will impact the type of training your employees need.
Therefore, the payroll skills development courses should be tailored to your specific business. This allows the employees to become familiar with all the local laws and legislation that they will reference in their position. Here are the steps you should take to design your training program.
- Research all the laws that will apply to your payroll. Laws will differ on the state and federal level. Familiarize yourself with both sets of laws as they relate to your payroll. Make sure this includes information like local minimum wages, time off, and benefits.
- Construct lessons that will walk your employees through completing payroll in compliance with all these local regulations.
- Give employees the chance to practice their new skills by providing hands-on learning opportunities. As they master their skills, transition them to more responsibilities until they can effectively manage payroll independently.
- Check in with your employees as they transition into their payroll responsibilities to make sure they understand their job completely. Ask them if they would suggest any improvements to make the program even stronger.
The Importance of Updating Your Payroll Education for HR
While it can be tempting to design your education course and declare your goal met, you need to be proactive to ensure that the information your employees learn remains up-to-date.
Since both local and federal regulations impact different components of your payroll, you have to keep track of all these sources of information. Payroll training best practices tell us to have a system that alerts you to any important changes related to your payroll.
This might be factors such as an increase in the minimum wage that was passed or a change in how paid time off applies to employees. When these shifts go into effect, you need to make sure the information was added to your training program so it remains up-to-date.
Similarly, when designing payroll training and adding updates to your course, you also need to provide ongoing learning opportunities for those who work in HR on the payroll.
Creating a Learning Program for All
As you set out to improve HR payroll training strategies and build an effective course, creating an inclusive learning environment will generally work best. People learn in a variety of different types of environments. Some people will learn by listening to someone explain what they need to know. Others will better remember the information if they can read it themselves.
Given the variety of learning styles present in any given group, offering a mixture of these different techniques often works best. For example, people might hear a description of a payroll regulation and then get a workbook page that asks them to reread the definition and then try to apply what they have learned to guided exercises. By using multiple forms of education and practice, businesses can feel confident that they have provided their employees with comprehensive, effective learning programs.
Build Your Business with Effective Employee Payroll Planning
Few roles carry more importance for a business than the professionals who manage the payroll. With all the different information that businesses need to verify as they set up their payroll, it quickly becomes clear why running payroll training opportunities will help businesses operate optimally.
An effective training course for payroll carefully examines what laws and regulations apply to their specific business. It will also provide candidates with extensive hands-on opportunities to learn about how these laws impact their payroll and how to go about the process efficiently but also correctly.
If you're interested in learning more about payroll training or educating members of your staff on payroll and human resources, you can visit the Society for Human Resource Management education resources or the American Payroll Association’s learning programs. These provide a helpful pathway for further education and development.