Global Payroll Week | Special Interview with Dave Holloway

In honour of Global Payroll Week, we sat down with one of our payroll specialists to talk about what's really happening in global payroll right now — the trends, the mistakes, and the one thing every team should be doing differently. The conversation cut straight to the heart of something the industry has been slow to accept: payroll has grown up. It's no longer a processing function hidden in the basement of HR operations. It's strategic, it's complex, and when it goes wrong, everyone notices.

What's the most rewarding part of being a global payroll partner?

For me, it must be the people we work with, whether that’s Workday, other service delivery partners, colleagues and clients. While it may sound simple, there’s something genuinely fulfilling about navigating challenges together, keeping each other motivated and building strong, lasting relationships across different regions and cultures. Delivering payroll successfully is always a team effort, and being part of that shared success keeps me going.

What's the top trend shaping global payroll right now?

The top trend shaping global payroll right now is its shift from a back-office function to a strategic, tech-enabled capability. AI and automation are playing a key role, not by replacing payroll professionals, but by augmenting them, handling repetitive tasks, improving accuracy, and enabling more real-time insights.

This allows payroll teams to focus more on oversight, compliance, and strategic support, rather than just processing.

Over time, payroll has evolved from simple data input into a critical business function, often representing one of the largest costs for any organisation, so getting it right has never been more important.

One task every payroll team should be automating right now.

One task every payroll team should be automating right now is compliance monitoring and validation, particularly for areas that seem simple but are deceptively complex, such as National Minimum Wage checks and new expatriate-related reporting on the FPS.

With increasing regulatory requirements being imposed via payroll, relying on manual processes creates unnecessary risk. Automating these checks ensures accuracy, consistency, and real-time compliance, allowing teams to focus on exceptions rather than routine validation.

In the age of AI, the most important skill a payroll professional can have is …

In the age of AI, the most important skill a payroll professional can have is critical thinking, knowing when to trust the system, and how to interpret the outputs in a real-world, regulatory context.

What’s the one thing most organisations get wrong in a global payroll transformation?

I can only give you three.  The biggest thing most organisations get wrong in a global payroll transformation is treating it as a system implementation rather than a true payroll transformation.

Too often, organisations take a “lift and shift” approach, replicating legacy processes in a new system, usually due to time pressure, lack of ownership, or involving payroll SMEs too late in the programme. This misses a key opportunity to simplify, standardise, and remove manual or inefficient processes.Another common mistake is underestimating the importance of data. While transformations often focus heavily on system configuration, payroll success is driven largely by data accuracy. Poor data mapping and weak migration approaches create significant downstream risk.

Finally, it’s essential you back fill your team.  Often Payroll Manager are expected to run an implementation on the side of their desks.

What's on your desk right now?

Right now, I’m deep into a Payroll and Benefits training programme for a large financial services organisation. I’m preparing their teams for User Acceptance Testing and a summer go-live, so it’s all about building confidence, testing real scenarios, and making sure they’re ready to run payroll in the new environment from day one.

What's your one piece of advice for anyone starting a global payroll transformation?

Never underestimate the quality of data, people, and planning required to make it a success.Understanding the real organisational goals of the transformation provides a way of measuring success, and prioritising selection criteria. To make any transformation work, significant investment of time and money are needed to achieve the best result. Automation and outsourcing do not absolve you of responsibility for quality and timing of delivery.