It has been a positive start to 2021 for the Dubai office, all team members received their Payroll Technician Certificate from The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) and passed with flying colours! The national average pass rate of 78% was exceeded by all the trainees, with everyone scoring an impressive 95% or above.
Having previously completed the qualification and successfully qualifying the team in Aberdeen, Payroll Operations Manager for the Middle East, Kimberly Morrison, saw the certification as a great opportunity to improve the competency levels of the team in the Middle East office. Despite having a wealth of experience and knowledge of payroll across the globe, only a few had previous experience of UK payroll. The newly gained UK payroll knowledge will allow the team to depend less on the payroll engine and experienced colleagues.
The qualification covered topics such as, identifying different tax codes, calculating income tax, calculating National Insurance Contributions (NIC) and then moved on to more complex rules such as Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) and Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). In order to gain the certification, the trainees had to complete two online assessments comprising of a timed question-based test, followed by a set of scenario-based exercises which required the trainees to prove competence with manual payroll calculations.
Kimberly Morrison, Payroll Operations Manager – Middle East, commented: “I am really proud of the team for not only successfully passing, but for passing with such remarkable scores, this really reinforces how much effort the team put into achieving the qualification. The team had the added pressure of working through the course in the GMT time zone, by the time the course was finished, it was often after 9pm in Dubai, despite this, they really enjoyed the CIPP learning experience. By improving the competency levels of the team through the training, I now have the added assurance that everyone can deliver a top-class service to activpayroll customers in the UK.”
