Marta Pericàs
“Drawing on our experience, we can pinpoint our client’s needs and anticipate any possible incidents that may arise”
Marta Pericàs arrived from London and joined Rosclar on a temporary basis to cover a surge in the volume of work. Nearly 10 years have now gone by and today she heads up the Production 1 team together with Norman Gil.
Her colleagues define her as sincere, proactive, decisive and persevering. She adds that she is “a perfectionist, ordered and practical, and someone who places enormous value on a good working atmosphere.” Perhaps this is why Marta is very proud to say that she works in a company where “we all help each other out, you’re not afraid to ask about something you’re not familiar with, and you can learn from your mistakes to avoid making them in the future.”
We spoke to Marta to find out what it means to be the Production 1 team leader at Rosclar and what her work involves.
How long have you been in charge of Production 1?
Well, if my memory serves me correctly, Eduard asked me if I wanted to join the team as team leader about 5 years ago. When I started out, I was grateful to receive the unconditional support of my colleague and close friend Cristina Cervera. Before working together side by side, she was my team leader. She taught me many of the things I know today, and now I try to pass on to my colleagues all the knowledge I picked up from her.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for all the time she devoted to me and for her patience with me, but above all, I am grateful to her for helping me to believe in myself.
You are the Production 1 team leader together with Norman Gil. What does your leadership entail?
Our day-to-day tasks are mainly involved with distributing the workloads. We assign the tasks according to the availability of each colleague. We work to a very tight schedule whereby the payroll files must be delivered on a particular day.
As head of production, I support the team when queries related with calculations or incidents emerge, and I resolve any doubts or concerns that clients may have.
Then there are the informative meetings with the team to receive their feedback, and the inter-team meetings to check criteria and ensure that incidents have been resolved.
How do you organise yourselves?
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague and friend Norman Gil. It’s a pleasure to work side by side with him, because he is someone who oozes self-confidence, he works very well under pressure and, most importantly, he always has a smile on his face.
Norman and I organise ourselves very well and we complement each other perfectly. Every day, he sends me an email with the tasks that have to be done, and I will then attend to the internal communications within the team.
When we returned to the office after lockdown, we divided the team into two groups. In this way, he is responsible for supporting one group, and I am responsible for the other.
At all events, I must say that Norman and I have a truly magnificent team and they make our day-to-day work very easy. It is a privilege to be the Production 1 team leader alongside Norman.
What does the day-to-day work of your team involve?
It depends a lot on the week we find ourselves in. Normally, we spend the first and the last week of the month conducting internal audits and managing the taxes. The two weeks in the middle of the month are the most intense, because this is when we focus on payroll management.
Over and above the tasks involved, what does it mean to be the team leader?
From my point of view, it means not forgetting that the people you are in charge of are first and foremost your colleagues, and you have to try and instil confidence in them. We’re not machines, we’re people, and I think it’s really important for there to be a good working atmosphere in which everyone feels comfortable. Our colleagues must feel confident that if there is a problem, Norman and I will be there to listen to them and, above all, find a solution to that problem.
On a practical level, you have to anticipate the workload. You must be aware of the needs of each colleague, so you can monitor them and offer them support wherever they may
need it. We must also transmit any directives that come from management in a way that the whole team understands what they are and what their purpose is.
How do you help your clients?
Our key principle is to provide our clients with the very best service. To achieve this, all the departments (Implementation, Social Security, Administration and reception, Legal, IT and the two production teams) work as a team, so that from day one clients feel they are supported.
We are able to draw on the experience we have gained over all these years to pinpoint our client’s needs and identify any possible incidents that may arise. In this way, we can provide the best possible solution and anticipate any queries that the client may have.
In Production 1, what challenges do you face?
Most of the companies we assist are foreign companies. This means that the big challenge we face on a daily basis is familiarising the client with Spanish legislation.
Is there one particular achievement you would highlight?
Without a shadow of doubt, our biggest achievement as a company has been our response to the pandemic that unfortunately appeared one year ago and continues to affect us today. From one day to the next, we were told we had to continue our work from home, but instead of weakening us, it made us even stronger. We put all our efforts into providing our clients with the very best service. There were no fixed working hours. If we had to work 10 hours, we worked those hours. If we had to work at weekends, we did, and if a colleague was unsure about anything, whatever the time of day might be, they were offered help. We never work alone!
I have to say it sends shivers down my spine just thinking about how difficult everything was for us and how we managed to overcome the setbacks. They say that you can always draw something positive from a bad situation, and this is true insofar as we have remained unbeaten even in the face of a global pandemic.
I feel very fortunate to form part of this family and to have reached the stage where I am now one of the longest-serving members of the organisation, because this has given me the opportunity to observe how Rosclar has gone from being one of many consultancies to becoming a leading consultancy.
What other departments do you work with?
One of Rosclar’s strong points is that all the departments that form part of this organisation are perfectly connected and coordinated with each other. We are like a well-oiled engine. All the departments are equally important within the organisation.
It is equally important that the payroll is delivered on time, that the invoice is sent to the client on time so we can pay the employees their salary, that the client can be provided with a customised file, and that workers receive their monthly payslip on the same day they are paid their salary.
Nor would I want to overlook the magnificent work performed by our colleagues in the Legal department, who help us with all the legal queries that are beyond us; or our colleagues in Social Security, whose administrative work is superb; or last but not least, our colleagues in Implementation. They do all the “dirty work” of implementation from scratch, i.e. gathering all the necessary information from the new clients starting out with Rosclar, so that production can manage the payroll correctly. The efforts they make with each new implementation process are of enormous value.
What do your clients value most about your work and what would you say to future clients to encourage them to take advantage of Rosclar’s services?
I think what they value most about us is that we are approachable, committed, responsible, we are very well coordinated and we are a multi-disciplinary team.
One of the things we are most proud of is that it is the clients themselves who recommend us to other clients. It is their way of rewarding our work and efforts.
It is also really pleasing that former colleagues of ours currently working in Human Resources departments look to us to manage their company’s payroll.
