About 9,000 practitioners taking new courses online or in-class
Enrolment has far exceeded targets for the new certification program launched by the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA) in January 2006. It could see 9,000 participants this year, compared to 6,000 during the last year of the old program, says Cathy Cummings, manager of certification at the CPA in Toronto.
There are now 30 colleges and universities involved in the Certified Payroll Management program, with a school in Prince Edward Island expected in 2007. About 8,000 students enrolled last year while more than 1,200 have graduated with the Certified Payroll Manager (CPM) designation and 1,600 as Payroll Compliance Practitioners (PCPs).
Currently the PCP courses are available online and in-class, while the CPM program is being piloted and will be available in the fall.
The two levels replace the previously offered Payroll Administrator, Payroll Supervisor and Payroll Manager designations that made up the Payroll Management Certification Program (PMCP).
Improved content and structure
The new structure, with two levels, clears up confusion for students and potential employers, says Richard Durk, director of finance and administration at the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation and a CPM teacher at George Brown College in Toronto.
Overall, students have said they like that each course builds on information from the previous course, rather than being stand-alone topics, and they prefer the options and flexibility of course offerings, such as online courses beginning each month.
“The new certification program assists everyone in the understanding of the student’s payroll training. Payroll Compliance Practitioner certification assures employers that the student has been exposed to all aspects of the year-end payroll cycle,” says Durk. Even certified general accountants are taking the PCP certification to gain a competitive edge.
“The CPA has done so much in re-engineering their program,” says Cindy Forget, payroll manager at JDS Uniphase in Ottawa. “It’s much more professional and, as an individual looking at it, I can see where I could have benefited from the layout they currently have versus what I had.”
Forget, who is also on the CPA board, said the new program makes it much easier for payroll professionals “to take it back to their offices and managers and show it’s a much more professional tool for them.”
An experienced payroll professional with PMCP certification, Forget is now considering going back to school to check out the new payroll courses.
“I can see how the people in the programs now are going to benefit that much more than I did.”
The new certification program has more payroll content, with five of nine courses focused on payroll. Topics covered include payroll compliance legislation, payroll fundamentals, payroll management processes and practices, accounting, organizational behaviour management, and compensation and benefits management.
The content will continue to evolve along with industry trends and developments. For example, the CPA is planning to develop an optional course on payroll technology.
“If they’ve chosen payroll as a profession, they often don’t have exposure to software,” says Cummings.
The old program focused only about 30 per cent on payroll, with the remainder devoted to areas such as supervision and accounting, she says, while the new certification is “better, more comprehensive, geared to adult learners. We wanted to put a lot of academic rigour into the courses because the ultimate goal is to have them as credit courses in business programs across the country and we started to see that happen.
“We spent a lot of time developing the learning outcomes and then working the content to meet the learning outcomes.”
Networking luncheons
Also new are networking luncheons that recognize recent graduates of the program. Held across the country, they were introduced along with the new program and are valuable because many payroll practitioners work as a community of one in their own organization and it’s hard to network with people because of privacy and confidentiality concerns, says Cummings.
The new program also introduced professional development as part of the certification. Payroll practitioners with the PCP certification are required to do 15 hours of professional development every three years while those with the CPM must do 37.5 hours to stay current.
Nearly all transitioned over
The old program is being phased out by 2008 and so far about 95 per cent of those with the Payroll Manager certification have switched over. Graduates are being grandfathered to the new program, with Payroll Managers becoming Certified Payroll Managers and Payroll Supervisors and Payroll Administrators (with extra courses) becoming Payroll Compliance Practitioners.
That original program made more sense 20 years ago when most people were already in payroll and took courses halfway through their career.
“Now, people more often are choosing payroll as a profession and doing certification first rather than falling into payroll and doing certification after,” says Cummings.
There is also greater appreciation for certification, she says.
“Sarbanes-Oxley and the whole Enron thing really put in place some measures for companies to be more compliant and more aware of risk management... If you have a $10-billion company and $6 billion of that is in payroll, you want to have somebody’s who pretty competent in charge.”
Sarah Dobson is editor of Canadian Compensation & Benefits Reporter, a sister publication to Canadian HR Reporter. For more information, visit www.hrreporter.com/ccbr.
There are now 30 colleges and universities involved in the Certified Payroll Management program, with a school in Prince Edward Island expected in 2007. About 8,000 students enrolled last year while more than 1,200 have graduated with the Certified Payroll Manager (CPM) designation and 1,600 as Payroll Compliance Practitioners (PCPs).
Currently the PCP courses are available online and in-class, while the CPM program is being piloted and will be available in the fall.
The two levels replace the previously offered Payroll Administrator, Payroll Supervisor and Payroll Manager designations that made up the Payroll Management Certification Program (PMCP).
Improved content and structure
The new structure, with two levels, clears up confusion for students and potential employers, says Richard Durk, director of finance and administration at the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation and a CPM teacher at George Brown College in Toronto.
Overall, students have said they like that each course builds on information from the previous course, rather than being stand-alone topics, and they prefer the options and flexibility of course offerings, such as online courses beginning each month.
“The new certification program assists everyone in the understanding of the student’s payroll training. Payroll Compliance Practitioner certification assures employers that the student has been exposed to all aspects of the year-end payroll cycle,” says Durk. Even certified general accountants are taking the PCP certification to gain a competitive edge.
“The CPA has done so much in re-engineering their program,” says Cindy Forget, payroll manager at JDS Uniphase in Ottawa. “It’s much more professional and, as an individual looking at it, I can see where I could have benefited from the layout they currently have versus what I had.”
Forget, who is also on the CPA board, said the new program makes it much easier for payroll professionals “to take it back to their offices and managers and show it’s a much more professional tool for them.”
An experienced payroll professional with PMCP certification, Forget is now considering going back to school to check out the new payroll courses.
“I can see how the people in the programs now are going to benefit that much more than I did.”
The new certification program has more payroll content, with five of nine courses focused on payroll. Topics covered include payroll compliance legislation, payroll fundamentals, payroll management processes and practices, accounting, organizational behaviour management, and compensation and benefits management.
The content will continue to evolve along with industry trends and developments. For example, the CPA is planning to develop an optional course on payroll technology.
“If they’ve chosen payroll as a profession, they often don’t have exposure to software,” says Cummings.
The old program focused only about 30 per cent on payroll, with the remainder devoted to areas such as supervision and accounting, she says, while the new certification is “better, more comprehensive, geared to adult learners. We wanted to put a lot of academic rigour into the courses because the ultimate goal is to have them as credit courses in business programs across the country and we started to see that happen.
“We spent a lot of time developing the learning outcomes and then working the content to meet the learning outcomes.”
Networking luncheons
Also new are networking luncheons that recognize recent graduates of the program. Held across the country, they were introduced along with the new program and are valuable because many payroll practitioners work as a community of one in their own organization and it’s hard to network with people because of privacy and confidentiality concerns, says Cummings.
The new program also introduced professional development as part of the certification. Payroll practitioners with the PCP certification are required to do 15 hours of professional development every three years while those with the CPM must do 37.5 hours to stay current.
Nearly all transitioned over
The old program is being phased out by 2008 and so far about 95 per cent of those with the Payroll Manager certification have switched over. Graduates are being grandfathered to the new program, with Payroll Managers becoming Certified Payroll Managers and Payroll Supervisors and Payroll Administrators (with extra courses) becoming Payroll Compliance Practitioners.
That original program made more sense 20 years ago when most people were already in payroll and took courses halfway through their career.
“Now, people more often are choosing payroll as a profession and doing certification first rather than falling into payroll and doing certification after,” says Cummings.
There is also greater appreciation for certification, she says.
“Sarbanes-Oxley and the whole Enron thing really put in place some measures for companies to be more compliant and more aware of risk management... If you have a $10-billion company and $6 billion of that is in payroll, you want to have somebody’s who pretty competent in charge.”
Sarah Dobson is editor of Canadian Compensation & Benefits Reporter, a sister publication to Canadian HR Reporter. For more information, visit www.hrreporter.com/ccbr.
