Professionals who don’t keep up could put employer, job at risk
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
While Dr. Seuss may not have had payroll in mind when he wrote those two sentences in I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!, they sum up the importance of continual learning for payroll professionals.
Besides having to understand and comply with numerous laws and regulations that govern payroll, those working in the profession must also learn and adapt to continually evolving technologies. Payroll professionals who do not keep up run the risk of putting their employer on the wrong side of compliance and possibly stalling their own career.
The Canadian Payroll Association (CPA) sees continuing education as so vital to the profession that it requires its certification holders to obtain a minimum number of continuing professional
education (CPE) hours each year to continue to be certified.
“Continuing professional education is important because it keeps people abreast of what is happening within their particular discipline and in payroll, particularly, because (of) the magnitude of legislation that is associated with payroll, the 200 regulatory requirements federally and provincially,” said Steven Van Alstine, vice-president of education at the CPA.
The association offers two professional certifications —Payroll Compliance Practitioner (PCP) and Certified Payroll Manager (CPM) — that payroll practitioners can obtain after successfully completing required educational courses and, for the PCP, obtaining at least one year of payroll experience.
To retain the certifications, the CPA requires payroll professionals to be members of the association, adhere to a code of professional conduct, and complete 14 hours of continuing professional education for PCP holders and 21 hours for those with a CPM certificate each calendar year.
Besides ensuring that individual members stay current on issues affecting the profession, the continuing education component also gives weight to the payroll certificates in the business community, said Van Alstine.
“When a certification has all of those components, with the CPE being a key one, that validates the certification. Anybody that is hiring someone that is certified with our payroll certification will know that these are individuals that have requirements to adhere to,” he said.
To accumulate the hours, the CPA allows members to choose from a variety of options within the association and outside of it.
“We want our members to embrace the concept of new learning, continuous learning, so we gives lots of suggestions of the kinds of things that we would recommend,” said Van Alstine.
Qualifying CPA-run activities include attending the association’s annual conference, professional development seminars, webinars and networking events, such as National Payroll Week, taking place this year from Sept. 11 to 15.
Members may also accumulate hours by participating in seminars and webinars that the Canada Revenue Agency, Service Canada or other government bodies run, attending conferences in related areas, and taking post-secondary courses in HR and accounting.
“We understand that the influencer areas of accounting and HR, which commonly payroll touches on, would be important learning that someone could have as well, so we don’t restrict our members by saying it only has to be something that we run,” said Van Alstine.
Other activities that count include acting as a guest speaker on payroll at special events, developing training/education courses, teaching related post-secondary courses, and providing/receiving internal training at work.
Work-related activities, such as implementing a new payroll system or working on a company merger, may also qualify for continuing professional education hours.
Members could also accumulate hours by reading payroll industry publications or contributing articles to them, he said.
Certificate holders can also include the hours they spend in activities that develop their leadership and communication skills. While learning to lead is important for payroll professionals who seek a managerial role, Van Alstine said the ability to communicate well is essential for everyone in payroll.
“One thing that employers really rely on payroll to have is good communication skills. They are often communicating things relevant to people’s pay to them, so it is important that they can write clearly, concisely, and effectively,” he said.
To ensure that members obtain the minimum number of hours, the association requires them to make an annual declaration each year by Dec. 31, confirming that they have met the requirement. Members do this online via the CPA’s website.
The association randomly audits members to make sure that they are meeting the requirements. Those who do not will lose their certification.
The CPA switched to the annual hours and the declaration requirements last year.
While it moved to an online declaration to improve administrative efficiency, Van Alstine said the reason for the change to annual hours was to put more emphasis on continuous learning.
Before 2016, the association used a three-year education cycle.
PCP certificate holders, for example, had to obtain 42 hours of continuing professional education over that period.
“Formerly, somebody could take one course at a college or a university and that would meet the requirement for three years and they wouldn’t do anything else. We felt strongly that it was important that there be a continuation where it is on an annual basis,” he said.
Getting members used to both the annual cycle and the declaration presented some challenges, said Van Alstine. Previously, members would use a CPA online tool to document their education activities and the system would tell them whether they met the minimum hours threshold.
With the declaration, it is now up to members to track their hours and decide if they have met the requirement. The CPA provides a tracking tool that members can use to log their education if they want, but they must still keep personal records of the activities, as well as proof.
“It was a bit of a behavioural change and we had to understand that shift in getting people to understand that you just basically have to go in and make that declaration. It’s not enough to just say, ‘Well, OK, I’ve done it, so, therefore, I have met the requirement,’” he said.
To help members understand the changes, Van Alstine said the CPA put a lot of effort into communication. “We calculated that, on average, people were getting 13 communications.”
In addition to letters and e-mail messages, the association phoned members who were short on hours.
“After people would spend five minutes on the phone talking to somebody about the different things that they could utilize that they didn’t even really consider, they realized how it wasn’t difficult to come up with 14 hours for a PCP on an annual basis to maintain their certification,” he said.
Through their efforts, Van Alstine said 92 per cent of CPA members met the minimum hours’ requirement last year.
The new continuing professional education requirements are one of a number of modifications that the CPA has made in the last decade. Among the changes, in 2006, it implemented its code of conduct and in 2015, it added the work experience requirement to its PCP certification.
Van Alstine said the changes have helped to raise the profile of payroll as a profession in the business community. He added that the association is seeing this reflected in employer hiring requirements and salaries.
“We track job-posting services to see if (employers) are requesting certification and we are seeing that it is definitely on the rise,” he said.
Van Alstine also noted that an annual salary survey that staffing firm Hays Canada does with the CPA continually shows that certified payroll professionals earn up to about 20 per cent more than those without certification.
“It’s really been a journey to bring the profession along, to have people embrace that we are a profession,” said Van Alstine.
“(From) where we were 20 years ago to where we are today, there has been a real shift and part of that has been because of people’s increased recognition of the certification and the value that they place on it.”
