The Payroll Podcast

Most organizations are treating the EU Pay Transparency Directive as a compliance deadline to hit. But the employers who will come out ahead are the ones who understand what it actually represents: the biggest shift in the employer-employee relationship since the internet changed retail forever. In this episode, Vickie Graham is joined by Stuart Hyland, Partner at Ellason, to tackle the EU Pay Tra...

In this episode: Zero-Hours Reform, Umbrella Liability and Payrolling Benefits | Payroll Question Time Payroll Question Time is brought to you by SD Worx. SD Worx offers smart, tailored and integrated HR and Payroll solutions, along with the local expertise, global reach and reliable service you need to grow your business today! UK payroll is in one of its busiest consultation periods yet. Are you...

Most businesses think payroll is working. People get paid, deadlines are met, and no one raises a flag. But compliant payroll is not the same as strategic payroll, and in a regulatory landscape that is shifting faster than most employers realise, the gap between the two has never been more costly. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitment, sits down with Julie Gunnell...

Most payroll professionals spend their careers heads down, processing pay, managing compliance, and keeping systems running. But the payroll leaders who will still be standing in ten years are the ones lifting their heads up right now, investing in their people, embracing AI before it is forced on them, and refusing to let the profession stay invisible. This is the final episode of our three-part...

Every year, the conversations at Payroll Congress shift. Five years ago it was platforms and providers. Then remote work and resilience. But at the 44th Payroll Congress in Nashville, every conversation kept circling back to the same two questions: what can we actually trust AI to do, and what is going to be inside our payroll teams in five years' time? In this special live episode of @thepayrollp...

Most organizations are rushing to add AI to their payroll stack. But here is the uncomfortable truth. AI does not fix broken payroll. It amplifies it. And if your foundation is wrong, your AI strategy will fail before it even starts. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitment, sits down with Rick Hammell, Founder and CEO of Globalli, to go deep on what intelligent payr...

In this video: How Payroll Is Moving from Back-Office Processor to Strategic Powerhouse in the Age of Automation | The Payroll Podcast Live from Payroll Congress 2026 For years, payroll has been treated as a back-office function. A necessary process. A cost center. Something that just has to get done. But something significant is shifting across the global payroll profession, and the professionals...

Does Payroll Need a Rebrand? | The Payroll Podcast with Vickie Graham, Nick Day, Ana Laiu, Ian Hodson and Melanie Pizzey For years, payroll has been viewed as a back office function focused on processing pay, managing compliance, and making sure employees are paid accurately and on time. But payroll has evolved far beyond that, and many organizations still do not fully understand the strategic val...

Tom Heys has spent years inside the complexity of pay gap reporting and pay transparency law. And along the way, he learned something most organizations only discover when it is too late. The problem was never the reporting. It was the data behind it. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitment, sits down with Tom Heys, Co-Lead of the EU Pay Transparency Directive Pract...

In this episode: Day-One SSP, Mandatory Payrolling & the New Rules Reshaping UK Payroll | Payroll Question Time Payroll Question Time is brought to you by SD Worx. SD Worx offers smart, tailored and integrated HR and Payroll solutions, along with the local expertise, global reach and reliable service you need to grow your business today! UK payroll is facing one of its most demanding periods e...

Miranda Humphries has spent her entire career inside payroll. Not on the edges of it, not adjacent to it, but deep inside the complexity, the pressure, and the transformation of it. And along the way, she learned something most organizations only discover too late. The vendor is rarely the problem. The process that chose them is. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitm...

Most payroll teams are still viewed as operational functions focused on processing pay, maintaining compliance, and keeping systems running. But payroll is changing rapidly, and the organizations that understand this shift first will gain a major strategic advantage. Behind the systems, spreadsheets, and workflows sits one of the richest sources of workforce intelligence in any business, yet most...

In this episode: SSP Changes, Holiday Pay & Payrolling Benefits | Payroll Challenges for 2026 & Beyond Payroll Question Time is brought to you by SD Worx. SD Worx offers smart, tailored and integrated HR and Payroll solutions, along with the local expertise, global reach and reliable service you need to grow your business today! Payroll complexity is increasing fast. Are your payroll proce...

Most payroll systems work. People get paid, compliance is met, and no one questions it. But working payroll is not the same as good payroll, and good payroll is not the same as modern payroll. Hidden behind the usual systems are inefficiencies, friction, missed insights, and a quietly eroding level of employee trust that most organizations never see coming. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, N...

Tricia Hartley spent 47 years doing the latter. From a chance encounter with a clock card-carrying HR manager at Heathrow Airport in 1977 to becoming one of the first women ever appointed as Director of Global Payroll Services, hers is a career that did not just keep pace with the payroll profession. It helped shape it. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitment, sits...

Most companies think payroll integration is an IT project. They build it, they test it, they go live. Done. But here is the truth nobody is saying out loud: payroll integrations rarely fail on day one. They fail on day 100, day 300, or the moment something in your organization changes and the integration that once worked perfectly stops being reliable, compliant, or predictable. In this episode of...

Imagine attending Payroll Congress for the very first time and within a year becoming part of the PayrollOrg team responsible for training payroll professionals across the world. That is exactly what happened to Christina Ruderer, CPP, and her story perfectly captures what makes Payroll Congress unlike any other event in the profession. In this episode of @thepayrollpodcast, Nick Day, CEO of JGA R...

In this episode: April 2026 Payroll Changes | Tax, SSP, NMW & EV Salary Sacrifice Explained Payroll Question Time is brought to you by SD Worx. SD Worx offers smart, tailored and integrated HR and Payroll solutions, ...

My first book: The Payroll Pivot book is out now! https://shorturl.at/rXBXP Payroll has long been seen as a “back office” function but what if that’s the biggest myth holding the industry back? In this episode, Anita Lettink steps in as host to interview Nick Day, CEO of JGA Recruitment and author of The Payroll Pivot , to explore why payroll professionals struggle with visibility and influence an...

This episode is sponsored by Deel Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere: https://www.deel.com/nickday/ Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) reform is one of the most significant payroll changes in years. Yet most of the complexity isn’t in the headline changes. It’s in what happens beneath the surface. In this episode of the Payroll Podcast, Nick Day is joined by payroll software expert Jason Sweby to break...

This episode is sponsored by Deel Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere: https://www.deel.com/nickday/ The EU Pay Transparency Directive is one of the biggest regulatory changes facing payroll, HR, and reward leaders across Europe. With the June 2026 deadline approaching, many organizations are still figuring out what the legislation requires and how to prepare their pay structures, reporting pr...

This episode is sponsored by Deel Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere: https://www.deel.com/nickday/ Most payroll errors are not caused by systems or legislation. They are caused by human decisions made under pressure. My guest today, Lars Hyland, is a global learning strategist, former Chief Learning Officer, and Founder of Enlytning, a behavioural learning platform designed to improve judgem...

This episode is sponsored by Deel Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere: https://www.deel.com/nickday/ From accidental payroll clerk to award-winning NHS leader. In this episode of The Payroll Podcast, Nick Day speaks with Karen Beckett, Head of Payroll & Benefits at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust, about her 40-year journey in payroll and how the profession has evolved fro...

This episode is sponsored by Deel Hire, manage and pay – anyone, anywhere: https://www.deel.com/nickday/ Payroll runs every business. Yet most leaders still treat it like admin. After 51 years in the profession, Stephen Abbotts says that mindset is costing companies millions. Stephen is Director of Payroll Services at Azets and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner. He’s seen payroll evolve from pap...

Vistra Website: https://www.vistra.com/ Curtis’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tcurtisholmes/ Payroll isn’t just admin anymore. It’s one of the most strategic functions in your business. In this episode of The Payroll Podcast, Nick Day sits down with Curtis Holmes, Executive Vice President, Global Payroll at Vistra, to unpack how payroll is evolving from back-office processing into a people...