Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a payroll clerk and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
Payroll clerk issues accurate pay to employees by calculating earnings and deductions by the established rules and guidelines. To get the final payment owed to each employee, he/she must compile and record time and payroll data; time worked, production, commissions, deductions, post wages and then prepare paychecks.
Other important tasks for this position includes maintaining the payroll information by collecting, calculating and entering data, updating payment information by recording changes in insurance coverage, savings deductions, job titles and department transfers, preparing reports by collecting summaries of earnings, taxes, deductions, leave, nontaxable wages, Resolves payroll discrepancies by collecting and analyzing information
Core Skills Required to be a Payroll Clerk
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A payroll clerk should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Presentation Skills:
Presentation Skills are useful in getting your message or opinion out there in many aspects of life and work, though they are mostly used in businesses, sales, teaching, lecturing, and training.
A Payroll Clerk must develop the confidence and capability to offer excellent presentations and captivate the audience when the need arises; it requires a lot of preparation to stand out from the crowd, and a manager should be willing to invest in it.
Innovation:
Innovation is the process of translating new invention into a service that creates value or brings better solutions that meet the requirements.
A Payroll Clerk ought to introduce innovation in their business to help save time and money giving a competitive advantage to grow and adapt the business in today's marketplace as well as creating more efficient processes and ideas with a likelihood for your business to succeed.
Multi-Tasking:
Multi-Tasking allows one to juggle and perform more than one task at a time without losing track of what you are working on or dropping the ball.
A Payroll Clerk must learn the trick of multitasking and help the staff balance the competing demands of their time and energy that they are expected to handle multiple priorities every day without compromising on the effectiveness of the work done.
Appraisal and Evaluation Skills:
Appraisal and Evaluation Skills are services that allow employers to assess their employees? contributions to the organization for the period they have been working with them.
A Payroll Clerk must creatively develop a robust evaluation process that includes the standard evaluation form, approved performance measures, guidelines for presenting feedback and disciplinary procedures to promote staff recognition and rewarding following a fair assessment and appraisal process.
Ethical Behavior:
Ethical Behavior is acting in policies that are consistent with what the society and individuals typically think are good morals or values.
A Payroll Clerk should put emphasis on ethical behavior as best as he does to performance because it's as important as high morale and teamwork to all individuals who are committed to keeping the company values as well as speaking up when such costs are broken.
Personal Growth:
Personal Growth is the improvement of one's awareness, identity, developing talents and potential to facilitate the growth of oneself and the position they handle at the workplace.
A Payroll Clerk ought to assist his employees in finding themselves by introducing or referring them to methods, programs, tools, techniques and assessment systems that support their development at the individual level in the organization.
Enjoyment of the Job:
Enjoyment of the Job is the ability to enjoy what you do rather than enjoying what you earn from it.
A Payroll Clerk needs to creatively learn of ways to motivate his employees to benefit from the workplace by matching their personality to the culture of the organization where they fit best and allowing them to explore their hidden talents to grow and mature with the team.
Problem/Situation Analysis:
Problem/Situation Analysis is the ability to solve problems and assess situations to know what kind of solution is required to calm it down.
A Payroll Clerk should learn how to identify and analyze problems and situations as well as use available resources to resolve them constructively by reaching a consensus through looking at an issue in a professional, not personal way.
Financial Management:
Financial Management is the skill of learning how to handle accounting, finance, and organizational management through providing daily data on the operations that take place every day.
A Payroll Clerk ought to be highly effective in planning and organization, controlling and management of the financial resources to achieve the company's organizational objectives that are laid down to see the growth of the enterprise.
Knowledge Management:
Knowledge Management is the ability to manage knowledge and information that is presented to the company from different sources without overlooking any of them.
A Payroll Clerk ought to creatively channel all the new information, tools, input, and methodology mean by actively practicing the art of knowledge management within the business by harnessing the organization's inherent wisdom's platform in one place.
Hard Skills Required to be a Payroll Clerk
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A payroll clerk should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.