By Melanie Pizzey - Global Payroll Association (GPA) CEO
I thought long and hard about making this post because a big part of me felt that the problem had passed by without too much of a dramatic impact on payroll so perhaps I should let it go. But two days ago another, smaller, series of outages hit Microsoft and reminded me how close we are to such issues disrupting our daily lives. We have very few chances to help the wider world understand the global payroll industry so I want to comment on July’s global IT outage.
As the extent of the CrowdStrike/Microsoft IT outages became apparent on the morning of July 19, my phone started to ring. And it didn’t stop until late into the evening. Many of the calls were from clients with concerns about access to their payroll software but many more were from media outlets wanting me to comment on the ongoing issue. Through these conversations, one thing became really clear…people still do not understand payroll.
While I was busy trying to emphasise how important contingency plans are so that key payroll data is accessible in times of emergency, I found myself taken off on tangents to clear up basic confusion about why being without tech might be an issue for payroll professionals at all. I had to explain to one researcher why Elon Musk (who, as we all remember, fired Twitter’s entire payroll department) might not be the wisest person to take payroll advice from and, to another, why we need to be able to see payroll data to deliver accurate pay.
These were intelligent journalists from major news networks. I was quoted in Fortune, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mail and beyond. I even spoke on the BBC World Service. On air and in print the reporting was considered and, for the most part, correct. But behind the scenes, I was astonished by how little our industry is understood. For me, it was a huge wake-up call to remember that we can’t be shy about spelling out the basics. Sometimes stripping things back to ABC can be the quickest way to help people understand.
Inside the payroll community, the outages were a sharp nudge to ensure we always have our ducks in a row for times of chaos. Beyond it, they were a signal that we should all embrace every opportunity to educate and inform. From essential lessons about how to read a payslip to deeper conversations about the insights that payroll data holds - and what is at stake when we have to do without it - I think we need to get better about stepping into the spotlight when it is on offer. Whenever we take the time to share our knowledge we all win!
By Melanie Pizzey - Global Payroll Association (GPA) CEO
I thought long and hard about making this post because a big part of me felt that the problem had passed by without too much of a dramatic impact on payroll so perhaps I should let it go. But two days ago another, smaller, series of outages hit Microsoft and reminded me how close we are to such issues disrupting our daily lives. We have very few chances to help the wider world understand the global payroll industry so I want to comment on July’s global IT outage.
As the extent of the CrowdStrike/Microsoft IT outages became apparent on the morning of July 19, my phone started to ring. And it didn’t stop until late into the evening. Many of the calls were from clients with concerns about access to their payroll software but many more were from media outlets wanting me to comment on the ongoing issue. Through these conversations, one thing became really clear…people still do not understand payroll.
While I was busy trying to emphasise how important contingency plans are so that key payroll data is accessible in times of emergency, I found myself taken off on tangents to clear up basic confusion about why being without tech might be an issue for payroll professionals at all. I had to explain to one researcher why Elon Musk (who, as we all remember, fired Twitter’s entire payroll department) might not be the wisest person to take payroll advice from and, to another, why we need to be able to see payroll data to deliver accurate pay.
These were intelligent journalists from major news networks. I was quoted in Fortune, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Mail and beyond. I even spoke on the BBC World Service. On air and in print the reporting was considered and, for the most part, correct. But behind the scenes, I was astonished by how little our industry is understood. For me, it was a huge wake-up call to remember that we can’t be shy about spelling out the basics. Sometimes stripping things back to ABC can be the quickest way to help people understand.
Inside the payroll community, the outages were a sharp nudge to ensure we always have our ducks in a row for times of chaos. Beyond it, they were a signal that we should all embrace every opportunity to educate and inform. From essential lessons about how to read a payslip to deeper conversations about the insights that payroll data holds - and what is at stake when we have to do without it - I think we need to get better about stepping into the spotlight when it is on offer. Whenever we take the time to share our knowledge we all win!