Payroll careers are all about the right opportunity. In her 20 years of experience, Becky Dillon has seen all the different sides of payroll: from employee of in-house payroll, to working in a bureau, management roles to bureau owner, and now a customer success Manager for Buddy in the UK.

In the earlier stages of her career, she struggled with her mental health and consequently her confidence in the workplace. In her journey to becoming the ICB Payroller of the Year 2024, Becky needed to be given the right opportunities to grow her confidence.

As she took on more managerial roles, her skills expanded from payroll knowledge to more practical, high-impact decisions. This included overhauling processing workflows and choosing the right software to deliver the right service for her customers.

Success in a payroll career requires the freedom to explore solutions that enhance one workflow. Reflecting on her experience, Becky sees that the ability to transform her customer feedback into actionable changes allowed her to shine.

Becky understands that payroll is much more than providing a service within a firm. Her work in the payroll work transcends what one envisions of a typical payroll job. She has visited schools in promoting payroll understanding, both as career choices and to empower future employees to understand their payslips. She's also published a video on NIC Changes which amassed over 74,000 views on social media and created debate around the UK government.

And now, she took the brave step into the other side of payroll: working as a Customer Success leader for Buddy's UK market.

This new opportunity allows her to align her recent-found passion for wellbeing and life coaching, for which she became qualified during lockdown. In this role, Becky feels a new ability to impact a larger number of people through her work at Buddy.

In her previous role, Becky created a payroll bureau from the ground up, employing six in the team who fully utilised cloud aspects, integrations and API functions to deliver an impeccable workflow with a low budget. She was successful in improving the lives of her clients, and now wants to do so at an even larger scale.

It's with this enthusiasm that she embarked on her Customer Success role at Buddy. With her expertise and ability to put herself in the clients' shoes, Becky is helping Buddy fully understand the experience of bureau payrollers. She's met with numerous customers and prospective customers and is intrigued by the impact that payroll software can deliver.

In her first month at Buddy, she has observed customer feedback being implemented and is excited to be part of a team that will make a huge impact to payrollers in the UK. In comparison, payroll software she is used to often lag behind, masquerading a static product with a pleasant user interface.Buddy differs in that they are evolving in the right direction and prioritising customer feedback in their product design.

One of the features that excites Becky the most is EverRoll™, Buddy’s take on automated payroll. Bureaus can automate tasks such as posting journals to integrated accounting software, freeing up a lot of time from manually syncing or inputting data between software

It’s a surprise that several Payroll Managers are still stuck with processes of manual input and sending documents manually, due to the lack of trust in their existing software. These managers feel like they have to “put up”  with their current process.

More than anyone, Becky understands how daunting it is to switch software. That’s what sets Buddy further apart! The product includes onboarding and migration tools that aim to simplify this process. In addition, the team at Buddy offers to be part of the onboarding journey and provides very prompt support, assuring you that clients are more than just another number.

As she entices more businesses to trust Buddy with their payroll, she is prepared to face the challenge of hesitation. Making the switch to ‘the new kid on the block’ takes courage, but Buddy is creating something truly special.

She hopes that managers see this as an opportunity of freedom, like the ones that gave her the confidence that is foundational to her career. The future of payroll is all about giving payrollers the right opportunities.