Valérie Mercier, PPQ

Financial Controller, Groupe Urgence Sinistre, Lévis, QC

Valérie is a country girl who has navigated her career path one step at a time. She grew up in a small village in the Centre-du-Québec region. While she lived in Victoriaville for a brief period, she’s now found her home in a quiet region close to nature in Plessisville.  

Her payroll career started after the birth of her daughter. She was working in a factory at the time. When her daughter was four, Valérie decided to go back to school. She worked hard to manage her responsibilities as a mother, while also holding down a job and pursuing her studies. Nonetheless, she completed a DEP (diplôme d’études professionnelles) in accounting in 2005, earned a certificate in accounting at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières in 2014 and completed her bachelor’s degree three years later.  

For six years, Valérie worked at Amex Bois France, a group of four different companies and managed payroll for nearly 125 employees. While looking for answers to certain questions about her work, she discovered the website for the National Payroll Institute and began thinking about pursuing her designation.  

“Thanks to the Institute, there are always qualified people who can answer our questions,” she says. Valérie successfully earned her PPQ designation in 2019.  

Since October 2022, Valérie has been working at Groupe Urgence Sinistre, where she manages payroll for about 20 employees in Quebec and Ontario, as well as helping franchisees starting out with the company to find answers to their questions about contributions and insurance. 

Valérie also offers her expertise to small and medium businesses in the region to help them complete their payroll processes. She notes that as technology evolves in the payroll industry, these businesses are looking for more and more people who can answer their many questions. 

 “It’s reassuring for small businesses to have someone who knows how to process payroll,” she adds.  

The most striking discovery for Valérie has been the idea of working remotely, which developed during the pandemic.  

“Before, I wouldn’t have thought you could run payroll so easily from outside the office,but now with technology, it’s possible,” she says. 

Thanks to new technologies that are continuing to make work easier, Valérie believes that the future looks exciting for payroll professionals. She notes that new technological solutions have completely replaced the days of working with paper and pencil. As a result, payroll professionals can focus on developing their expertise while freeing themselves of certain redundant tasks. 

With all the responsibilities she has to manage, Valérie takes advantage of the changing seasons to balance her time. She works a lot in winter so that she has more time in summer to take walks with her dogs, go kayaking, and spend time camping out in the trailer that she and her husband recently purchased.