5 Ingredients to Help You With Payroll Success

Growing up on a farm perfectly prepared me for working with Panera Bread because our focus is on ingredients to prepare the best food. As a child, I remember baking bread and preparing sandwiches to bring to my dad while he was working in the field during harvest. Little did I know at the time how much his focus on growing the best food ingredients would influence my career later in life.

In my career, this same philosophy applies—staying focused on the “payroll ingredients” has helped me with my payroll success. I would like to share five essential ingredients from my payroll career recipe box—lessons that have helped me grow, adapt, and thrive as a payroll professional.

1. Understand the Partnership Between Accounting, HR

It was a major life change when I took a leap of faith and left my family’s farm to study accounting, but it also opened the door to an accounting internship that shaped my future.

My first role was at a small manufacturing company, where I handled everything from accounts payable (AP) and inventory counts to payroll, HR questions, insurance enrollment, and financial statements. Small companies require you to wear many hats, and that experience taught me how closely accounting and HR are connected.

That synergy became my first key ingredient. Payroll sits at the intersection of both functions, and success requires balancing compliance, cost, and people. Building relationships with leaders on both sides helps you understand their goals and find solutions that work for everyone.

2. Support Organizational Growth

Two years later, I joined a mid-sized manufacturing and printing company with 12,000 employees across several countries. Although I applied for an accounting role, the chief financial officer (CFO) decided my broad accounting experience better suited payroll, since they were having a difficult time finding applicants with payroll experience.

That decision changed my career direction and my life. I took a chance to learn new areas within the business, and it opened many doors.

I quickly moved into leadership roles with payroll, payroll tax, benefits administration, and system implementations. As the company expanded and acquired new businesses, I found myself on planes heading to new locations to help with due diligence, onboarding, HR transitions, and ensuring seamless first payrolls with multiple acquisitions.

This became my second key ingredient—always be willing to support organizational growth as it will help you to grow your own career. Understanding due diligence, tax setup, onboarding, and multiple integration processes is invaluable for any payroll professional.

3. Build Relationships, Trust

Next, my spouse had the opportunity to change jobs and move to a new city. This brought new challenges for our family and my career, such as a new home, new schools, and a new job search.

My willingness to try new things took me to a large company with multiple brands, thousands of locations around the United States, and the opportunity to lead its shared services team through a system conversion, call center implementation, benefit enrollment, and even another acquisition.

During this time, I learned the importance of leaning on others. Whether it was colleagues approving payroll while I traveled or family members helping with my children’s activities while I was away, I realized that success requires a strong support network. This allows you to grow and provides resources to support your professional journey.

This formed my third key ingredient—build strong relationships and trust your network. Asking for help, collaborating with peers, and relying on trusted partners allows you to rise to any challenge.

4. Use Technology, Create Opportunity

Just as I settled into my role, I received a call from a large global company, a hair salon company with 60,000 employees. They needed someone to lead payroll, tax, and a struggling system implementation. My experience with system implementations, acquisitions, and international payroll made it a natural fit.

Working with teams in Canada, France, the UK, and the United States expanded my world. I learned about international taxation, stylist compensation models, tipping structures, and more about the complexity of global payroll operations.

This experience reinforced my fourth key ingredient—embrace change and use technology to create opportunity. Payroll has evolved from paper files and manual entry to advanced systems, automation, and analytics.

Technology allows payroll teams to shift from data entry to strategic partnership. As systems and technologies change, so must your role within payroll. We must embrace technology; it is our friend and will help us to grow our profession.

5. Find Purpose Through Service

After a decade at this global company, economic changes in the industry led me to explore a new opportunity. This change brought me to Panera Bread, supporting 100,000 Forms W-2 and associates across many areas of the business. This career move felt like coming full circle and being back home. Serving others, sharing good food on the table, and making our world a better place aligned with my values and my upbringing on my family’s farm.

This role also reminds me every day what is at the heart of payroll: service. Whether supporting associates, franchisees, or internal teams, payroll is about helping people and taking care of people.

This became my fifth key ingredient—find purpose through service. Payroll professionals succeed when they care deeply about accuracy, fairness, and the people behind every paycheck. This is what I love the most about payroll and gives payroll professionals our passion every day.

Also, Give Back to the Payroll Community

Success also means contributing to the broader payroll profession. Through PayrollOrg, I have had the opportunity to be involved in local chapters, certification development, committees, education and training, speaking, writing, and leadership. I’ve been able to share knowledge, support others, and help grow the next generation of payroll leaders.

Opportunities to volunteer and connect with peers strengthen both your skills and your community. Through this process you will develop new peers, mentors, and friends that will be the most valuable gift you will ever receive.

Bring It All Together

These five ingredients have shaped my career and can help you build your own payroll recipe for success. Above all, though, when opportunity knocks, say, “Yes!”

Barb Muellerleile, CPP, is Senior Director Finance, Payroll for Panera Bread. She is a Vice President on PayrollOrg’s Board of Directors, Co-Chair of PayrollOrg’s Retail Best Practices Subcommittee of the Strategic Payroll Leadership Task Force (SPLTF), and a volunteer on the Board of Contributing Writers, Certification Item Development Task Force, Certification Review Panel, CHAMPS Committee, Education Advisory Committee, Electronic Payments Subcommittee of the Government Relations Task Force (GRTF), National Speakers Bureau, and SPLTF Hospitality Industry Subcommittee.

For more articles like this, read PAYTECH magazine (available in both printed and digital formats), free for PayrollOrg members!

PayrollOrg (PAYO), is the leader in payroll education, publications, and training. This nonprofit association conducts more than 300 payroll training conferences and seminars across the country each year and publishes a complete library of resource texts and newsletters. Representing more than 20,000 members, PAYO is the industry’s highly respected and collective voice in Washington, D.C. Get more information at www.payroll.org.

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