Payroll Portraits

In honour of National Payroll Week, we decided to shine the spotlight on our incredible payroll team. The payroll services team is an indispensable part of Collage HR and is responsible for managing and navigating payroll services for countless clients across Canada. Each person on the payroll team has had a unique career path that led them to their current role. Here is a selection of their stories.

Heather Simmonds, VP of Client Services:

Although Heather did not initially plan on breaking into payroll, she has become an invaluable part of Collage HR’s continued success and development.

Before joining Collage HR in 2018, Heather worked as the VP of Client Success at Humi. At Humi, Heather became an expert in all things HR and honed her skills by building strong relationships with clients.

With nearly 5 years of experience at Collage HR, Heather has played a key part in shaping the direction of the company and scaling the payroll team. As the VP of Client Services, she views the payroll department as an embodiment of an employee’s “trust in their employer.”

Heather explains that the payroll department must exemplify a standard of security, and meet the expectation of perfection. Heather feels that her job working in the payroll department allowed her to develop a “swiss-army knife” of tools to meet these ideals. Even the most organized and effective payroll team knows that payroll is always a constant flow of challenges, which requires Heather and the payroll team to come up with creative and innovative solutions to meet our clients’ needs.

As Heather continues to lead Collage HR’s Payroll department, she still finds joy in helping clients realize their full potential through Collage HR’s integrated payroll services, and hopes to continue developing her skills as a leader, and payroll expert.

When Heather isn’t leading the Payroll team at Collage HR, she can be found relaxing with her two kitties or kicking ass at Rock Band.

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Simrit Dhiman, Payroll Analyst:

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For Simrit, no challenge is too small. After completing an education in Mechanical Engineering, Simrit found a strong desire to change career fields to something she would find more professionally fulfilling. As Simrit began her career, she found that business was an exciting and stark contrast from her previous work in engineering. Simrit decided to change fields and further pursue an MBA in HR and International Business.

Shortly after completing her second degree, Simrit moved to Canada to continue her career. In Canada, Simrit found that her HR experience was completely different from her previous work. As a member of the HR team of a social services unit, she began to understand the day-to-day function that payroll and benefits play in Canadian lives. Throughout her time working in HR, her interest and specialization in payroll began to grow.

As she continued her career, Simrit found herself drawn further into the payroll side of HR, later landing a role exclusively focused on the payroll needs of a company.

Simrit joined the Collage HR payroll team earlier this year. In the spirit of learning more about payroll, Simrit started the PCP course with National Payroll Institute this year, aiming to complete her PCP certification to develop her skills as a Payroll Analyst.

When she’s not spending time working with clients, Simrit is usually reading a good book or playing with her child outside in beautiful Victoria, BC.

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Kiran Dhillon, Payroll Analyst:

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Despite being fully remote, Kiran’s favourite part of working in payroll is how close and tight-knit her department is. When they’re not working together, they’re usually chatting in Slack about anything and everything.

With over 8 years of experience in Payroll, Kiran experienced her start in Payroll through managing commissions and staff payroll for a Real Estate Brokerage. After spending time becoming accustomed to the workflow of her team, Kiran was initially hesitant to switch to a larger company. Kiran desired an organization that could help continue her career goals in payroll and present her with a unique, and diverse set of challenges every day.

When Kiran first started working for Collage HR, her hesitancy immediately turned to excitement. Within her payroll team, Kiran has found a group of colleagues that she is proud to consider her friends. With Collage HR’s national presence, Kiran has been able to tackle the intricacies of payroll in almost every province and is constantly learning new things about her field.

When she isn’t processing payroll, Kiran enjoys spending her free time jet setting to new vacation destinations with her husband and crossing them off their travel bucket list.

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Laine Greenidge, Payroll Team Manager:

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When Laine isn’t driving her daughter to dance practice, or chasing her son on the basketball court, she’s spending time managing the payroll team at Collage HR.
With over 10 years of experience in payroll, Laine is one of the newest additions to the Collage HR payroll department. Laine completed her Bachelor of Commerce in HR Management at the University of Guelph in 2009. Since then, she has had a variety of positions in payroll teams, from processing payroll for more than 1500 employees, to managing several payrolls at once, across all provinces.

Laine joined the Collage HR team in September of 2022 and is looking forward to facilitating the continued success of the Payroll department. For Laine, the biggest misconception about payroll is that it is a highly automated service that “can just be completed with the press of a button.” To Laine, a successful payroll department must have creative people who can brainstorm to solve unexpected problems. Laine explains that ensuring each client has a seamless experience with payroll requires precision and dedication.

As a long-time member of the National Payroll Institute, Laine is currently finalizing her PCP certification and plans on working towards her CPM designation to continue to lead and innovate in the payroll department.

Laine looks forward to continuing her career at Collage HR and is excited to help provide excellent service to all of Collage HR’s clients

Vishal Singh, Payroll Analyst:

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When Vishal isn’t cheering on the Jay’s at the Roger’s Centre or hopping on a plane for an adventure, he can be found working diligently in Collage HR’s payroll department.
When Vishal first started his career in payroll, he was still attending university for a degree in Commerce. Vishal’s first exposure to payroll was as an in-house data analyst and entry specialist for a small hospitality and restaurant company. As Vishal became more experienced with payroll and began to develop his skill set, he eventually moved on to the Operations department at TD Canada Trust.

While working at TD, Vishal mainly focused on client-side services to ensure the clients were properly utilizing the online business banking services. Due to the size of the company, and the department, Vishal felt his professional development was stunted. Vishal desired to move on to a company that would allow him to tackle a diverse set of challenges with a smaller team.

In March of 2021, Vishal joined the Payroll department at Collage HR. Vishal feels that the unique combination of flexibility and responsibility at the company allows him to excel in his work, and expand his abilities as a Payroll expert.

Vishal says “We have responsibilities, but we also have so much freedom. We can design our own timetable, and we can work as per our schedule.”

As Vishal continues his career at Collage HR, he hopes to take on a more senior role in the company and continue to develop his skills through the diverse clients who use Collage HR.