How to get good at configuring and supporting SAP HR and Payroll

So you want to learn how to configure SAP HR, Payroll, or Benefits? You want to be able to figure out why the system does certain things, how to troubleshoot it? I get those questions all the time from new consultants and from customers - how can I learn what you know, so I can do what you do?

Well here is the answer! Start with taking the SAP courses for HR, Payroll and Benefits configuration (along with all the prerequisites), and as you are doing that learn the basic HR, Payroll and Benefits business practrices for your country. There are books you can read and professional organzations that provide a lot of good information on how to do HR, Payroll and Benefits - buy them, join them, and learn from them. This will give you a basic foundation to build on. This is important: to be good at working with the system, you must have a good understanding of both the technical and the business processes and practices.

Now that you have a foundation, build on it by practicing: there is no substitute for experience. Keep working on a problem until you get to the real source of the issue, and don't blame the system - it is only doing what it has been setup to do. For example, I often hear people say that they are afraid of payroll retrocalculations because they are 1) 'flakey', 2) 'unstable', 3) 'unpredictable' and so on. There are few legitimate bugs in the standard SAP code that is executed for retrocalculations; most often, the problems you see in retrocalculations are due to configuration that doesn't work properly or incorrect master data maintenance. Keep digging into the issues until you get to the root of the problem - that is how you will get familiar with how the system works.

Finally, you have to keep your knowledge up to date. Go to conferences presented by SAP, ASUG and SAP Insider - learn from the presentations and make professional contacts. These conferences and the relationships you create from them are critical for your skill and knowledge development. There are also good newsletters focused on SAP HR, such as HR Expert - subscribe to them and learn from them (if you are serious about learning, the subscriptions are reasonable).

This is not a short, quick process. There is no one book or course or web site that will give you all you need to know. HR, Payroll and Benefits have complex business processes and practices, and the SAP HR module's functionality has to be complex to meet those needs. Being good at this is a profession that requires commitment, and for those who like this type of work it is also very rewarding.