Ian Giles

Ian GilesAug 24, 2026

Coming soon to a Payroll Department near you! This National Payroll Week, I'm proud to acknowledge the dedication of payroll professionals who make sure everyone gets paid. Never let anyone tell you it isn't essential work creating real impact! #PayrollWeek More: https://lnkd.in/ej4vVVEY

Ian GilesAug 26, 2026

A little over a week ago... I did a webinar for the National Payroll Institute (NPI) of Canada. To say I'm "chuffed" with a an overall evaluation score of 94% for the session is an understatement. I'm truly grateful it was appreciated. Thank you once again Steven and team once again for the invite.

Ian GilesAug 26, 2026

Part 2 of the Global Payroll’s Biggest Problems series focused on the people and structures that make global payroll work. Guess what? The operating model determines whether the service works.  They were, and you can find them here; https://lnkd.in/eA9DNnPK Governance  Transformation  Payroll payments  Talent and knowledge  Technology attracts attention 𝗧𝘄𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼, payroll depended heavily on experienced local professionals.  They knew the legislation, systems, deadlines, exceptions, providers, and workarounds. The knowledge was valuable, but it was rarely documented properly. 𝗧𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼, organisations centralised services and introduced global leadership. They created shared-service teams, governance forums, responsibility matrices, and transformation programmes. But centralising activity did not always centralise capability. Some businesses moved work before transferring knowledge. Others assigned global accountability without providing global authority. 𝗙𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗼, the pandemic exposed the weaknesses.  Key-person dependencies became business continuity risks, unclear decision rights delayed action, remote working disrupted manual processes, payment models struggled with changing approvals, funding arrangements, and bank cut-off times and transformation programmes accelerated, sometimes faster than organisations could absorb the change. 𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, a strong payroll operating model needs more than defined processes. It needs clear ownership, decision-making authority, documented knowledge, capable people, strong controls, visible payment governance, effective vendor management and continuous improvement Key lessons from these five posts? Payroll is not complete until employees receive their money. Go-live is where the new operating model starts being tested. Shared responsibility must not become diluted accountability. Payroll’s talent shortage is also a succession and knowledge-management problem. Most payroll failures are described as system errors, provider failures, or individual mistakes... Look closer and you often find an operating-model problem! The wrong person owned the decision. The team lacked authority. Knowledge sat with one individual. A control existed on paper but failed in practice. The payment left payroll with no clear owner. The implementation finished, but continuous improvement never started.  A payroll operating model should answer four questions clearly... Who owns the outcome?  Who has the authority to act?  Who knows how the service works?  Who confirms the employee was paid? 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂... Can your operating model answer all four? #PayrollLife #GlobalPayroll #GlobalPayrollsBiggestProblems #PayrollOperatingModel