Yapi Yves Alain, PCP
Payroll Analyst, Federal Public Service, Quebec City, QC
The first time Yapi ever saw snow was when his plane was preparing to land in Montreal in December 2013. Originally from Côte d’Ivoire, this lover of tennis and fine dining had come to study accounting at Collège de Rosemont.
Soon after completing his studies, Yapi started his career at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Ste-Justine, where he noticed that staff were having trouble understanding the deductions on their paycheques. Yapi took the time to explain things to them and decided to sign up for payroll training at the National Payroll Institute.
In 2018, Yapi continued his career in the Quebec public service as a Paymaster in the Payroll and Compensation department at Revenu Québec. He had to leave the cosmopolitan city of Montreal and move to Quebec City, which he saw at the time as a “big village”.
It was a big change for him. The transition wasn’t easy, but Yapi adapted and made a place for himself quickly.
He recalls that at the start of his career in payroll, there were enormous amounts of paper documents and huge filing cabinets full of employee files, and staff were constantly printing vast amounts of documents.
“There was a lot of pressure during payroll closing periods because all of us were trying to close our payroll on time.”
Through his work with Revenu Quebec, he was proud to work on the Zero Paper project with a mission to reduce the impact of paper documents, and the establishment of a digital file system for over 14,000 civil servants.
“Payroll has evolved significantly as a result of the pandemic, because it accelerated the deployment of these projects. With electronic files, employees were able to work without printing out paper documents. The team in charge of workloads could process a more diverse range of cases,” he explains. He thinks that this change reduced the tendency for him and his colleagues to work in isolated silos.
During this same period, Yapi completed his Payroll Compliance Professional certification at the Institute.
In September 2022, his payroll designation and work experience helped him move up to the next step in his career with a job in the federal public service, where he continues to develop his knowledge in the analysis of payroll registers and records of employment.
Yapi believes that it’s essential for payroll professionals to acquire new computer and database skills. “Doing basic calculations alone isn’t enough anymore. We need to know how to analyze, process and interpret our data,” he emphasizes.
“Staying up to date with new trends will be essential for our future in this field,” he adds. One of those emerging trends, especially in the United States and Europe, is pay on demand, which allows employees to be paid for the days they’ve worked without having to wait for the next payday. In Yapi’s view, it’s important for organizations to adapt to changes in the labour market.
