Is Payroll actually evolving?

Today, I read a post about people thinking Payroll is just numbers, clerical work, or the click of a button. Mihaela-Claudia Tudor MAAT MCIPPdip greatly reflected people's perception of Payroll. I shared some thoughts about the topic and received feedback that converting them into an article may be best. Payroll IS a strategic function. Knowledge is power, and OMG, how much knowledge do we have! We need to be better in payroll analytics to work with the business and help them improve the bottom line. Payroll analytics isn't just the typical dashboard splitting CTC per country, the ratio of payrollers to employees, or even the KPIs, OKRs, or SLAs. We can do more with the collection of data that we have. We need to learn to take that data, sit at the table, and create a Value Proposition that will bring value to the business. HR has Dave Ulrich and other thought leaders who have worked to bring HR to the table for years. Who do we have to take our industry to the next level? Do we have an official set of competencies and skills that help us identify what each of us needs to be great at being a Payroll professional? We need to shift the paradigm around Payroll and work together to do this. Payroll isn't a clerical task, as most compensation surveys define it. Tell me, in how many countries is Payroll a University career? How many certifications are there for the profession vs. country expertise? I agree that we should be recognized more. What are we doing about it? I wanted to show you the 30 years of evolution HR has documented by Dave Ulrich. Could you look at where HR was back in 1987? Does it look different from where Payroll is today? We need to change this, and we need to change it together. We need a payroll standard that isn't linked to a country or software. We need to define who we are as a function. Let’s stop the debate about where we belong: HR or Finance. We don’t belong to either. We are a vertical of our own. I dream there will be such a thing as a Chief Payroll Officer. We are not victims of injustice. We all do our jobs with the utmost respect and feel the?weight of the employees we pay. That is what we do all day, every day. We must take our heads off the desk and make our beloved Payroll a formal institution with requirements, standards, and?exams. We need to show the world what we do. It is on us. I see Ian Giles posting incredible insight into different Payroll challenges and what to do. I see Melanie Pizzey ?????? doing her best effort to bring a global community together.

How do you all feel about this?