My accounting back ground has helped me a lot in understanding accounting and finance side of payroll. Have been in the field for more than 6 years.
The importance of technology in payroll has been significantly increasing.
I would like to know if anyone has experience working as HRIS or Business Analyst with this back ground. Is it possible to sustain in that field without IT background?
Hi Vish, yes it is possible to build a career around HR and Payroll technology without any technical IT background. In my career the Business Analyst and HRIS roles I’ve held benefited from my strong functional expertise… I like to think that I can bridge the gaps and facilitate understanding between the business folks and the very technical folks. I have no formal IT education but through training on various HR and Pay applications, and by working on system implementations, I have picked up enough technical knowledge to be able to ask the right questions and share insights as to how technology related decisions will impact the business operations and users. Working on smaller technology projects where you get exposed to all different aspects of a system implementation (design, configuration, data migration, testing, etc.) Is a great way to learn the skills and knowledge to be successful as a business analyst. The key word here is ‘business’ – technology supports businesses and people… the more you understand the business, the better you can leverage the technology to drive improvement. Hope this helps!!
Thanks a lot Heidi!
This is very helpful. Yes, I completely in the same boat. I have very good understanding of what it should look like from business, accounting and payroll perspective. I did help to some extent in implementation – configuration, mapping, testing and I came to know that that is the field I would like to explore further.
I like how you mentioned the key word ‘business’. I am looking for more experience to develop in that field.
You have given me hope and direction. I will surely look further in the same direction.
Thank you very much!
I can relate to Heidi’s response and couldn’t agree more, especially if your organization is running end to end payroll and has IT. You become very familiar with the program, what it can and can’t do, what effects what, known issues and work arounds. Payroll folks can just do it all 😁
