Hello everyone and welcome to the Instant Payments podcast.

I'm your host, Tal Clark.

I'm the CEO of Instant Financial, a fintech company that's modernizing payments and payroll for hourly workers and their employers.

I've worked in the payments industry for 30 years at companies like Fiserv and Money Network, and I'm glad you're tuning in today.

If you like what you hear, please do us a favor and subscribe, leave a review or suggest a future guest.

Our journey continues today with our fourth episode.

This podcast features payments and payroll leaders to discuss some of their challenges and what technologies they've used to improve their workplace and the lives of their workforce.

Today's episode is a special one.

We're joined by a recognized leader in the payroll world, Dr.

Martin Armstrong, Vice President of Payroll Shared Services at a Fortune 100 telecommunications company.

Martin brings decades of experience in payroll, HR and operations.

Having worked for large, respected brands, including Time Warner and Caesar's Entertainment, he is not only responsible for overseeing payroll for one of the nation's largest telecommunication companies, but he is also a retired US Navy Supply Corps Officer, a published author, educator, and frequent speaker in the payroll and HR community.

He's been recognized as a thought leader on payroll strategy, compliance, and the future of work.

Martin, welcome to the show.

Where are we catching you today?

Oh, well thank you for having me, Tal, and you're catching me from the great state of North Carolina in the city of Charlotte where I live and work at.

There you go.

That's great, man.

And you and I have known each other for quite a while.

It's one of the things I love about business is building relationships that have lasted a long time.

So, lemme just start with I think we met when you were in Memphis working for Harrah's at the time.

Is that right?

That's exactly right.

It's been, gosh, I know we've known each other over 20 years now, it seems.

Yeah, it probably was 23, 24 years, something like that, because we were starting Money Network at the time and you were being innovative at the time and one of the first users of a payroll card of any sort back then.

So that was great.

That's right.

Yeah.

Look, tell me.

So, so I gave a little bit of introduction on Martin Armstrong, but kinda gimme your own words, just your background, history, how you got into payroll, and then we can circle back from there.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I get that question often just 'cause of my background and the different areas that I'm in, like, how'd you get into payroll?

And the simple answer is, I got into payroll because I'm colorblind.

So I was I went into the Navy right after high school.

My mom had to sign me in.

I was only 17.

I got a job that I qualified for a second, a telephone repair person.

And so I had to use color-coded wires in the course of my job.

And before they sent me to school for this job, they gave me a color perception test, which I failed miserably.

I didn't even know as colorblind at the time.

I was 17.

And so the Navy told me that I had to either go home or I can select 14 jobs that didn't require color perception that the Navy had.

And one of those jobs was called dispersing clerk.

And dispersing clerks, they paid people, they did accounts payable and they also did financial statements for the Navy and it was an enlisted job.

And so, I took that job and almost 40 years later, I'm still doing the same thing, just at a different level.

Wow.

Well, that's crazy.

And so, remind me, I know you and I were in about the same time.

We've talked about that before.

But remind me your active duty period, how long were you in active duty?

Well, I was only on active duty from 1984 to 1988, so I was doing my dispersing clerk duties then.

But when I got out in 1988, I joined the reserves, and I was a weekend warrior for 20 years.

So altogether I got 24 years.

And I have to tell you, when I was a reservist.

I made it up to E 7, which was a dispersing clerk chief, and then I got my commission and ended up being a supply officer, and I retired as a supply officer in 2008.

After a stint, I may add, in Afghanistan.

I got recalled to active duty while I was minding my own business in Memphis, actually.

And, and DC called me up 'cause I was I was a reservist at the Pentagon and I thought, well, why are they calling me?

Probably some paperwork or something.

It was some paperwork all right.

It was 15 month recall paperwork.

So I found myself in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, but that's that's what happened.

Well, and I think I remember that.

I think that's, at that time we were working together, doing business together.

And I think I remember you having to leave and telling me that.

So, again, that's a great service career.

And well walk us then through your business career.

So I, I met you when you were at Harrah's at the time.

I would say, but I'm not sure where it started before that, but certainly bring everybody up to date if you don't mind.

Sure.

You bet.

So when I got outta active duty in 1988, I was in Los Angeles.

I was stationed at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, so I decided to stay there and I got a job downtown Los Angeles at a company called Dial Communications, and that was my first job.

I got that job three days after I got out of active duty, three days.

And so I was a bookkeeper there and I also did payroll, I did accounts payable, what I was doing in the Navy.

And after two years at Dial Communications, then I got my first big job, I'd say at at Caesar's Entertainment.

That was my first gaming job and I stayed in that industry for 12 some odd years.

And I worked at the corporate office in, Century City, California.

And, I moved from the corporate office to Las Vegas.

I wanna say that was in, I don't know, 92 or something.

I can't remember now.

But anyway, I moved to Las Vegas and I stayed there for 12 years and that's when I got into the gaming industry and I worked for Caesars, of course.

I work for Harrah's.

I work for the MGM.

I work for another company called oh, I've forgot now.

But anyway, I work for like four or five different casinos and and that is what brought me out to Memphis from Las Vegas 'cause I was there to stand up a a payroll share services center there in Memphis.

And that's where I met you.

And then I left Memphis to take my current job, my telecommunications job which I've been now there for 16 years.

Wow.

I will say I, I had, I owe a debt of gratitude to the gaming industry because quite honestly, that's where I grew up.

I got my skill sets, I did every job possible in that span of time.

And it made me, coupled with the Navy, of course, made me to who I am today.

So, that's a little bit of my journey and how I got from really the Navy all the way to, where I work at now in Charlotte.

Yeah.

Well, that's great man.

And you're probably one of the few people that might recognize over my right shoulder there is the Memphis Grizzlies and, the Pyramid and that was that was the first game at the Pyramid, the first game for the Memphis Grizzlies.

Martin, you might have been around for that same game.

And so I saved some of that up there.

So, that's really good.

And I just know that you have such a deep background in payroll and the things that you've done.

So it's a great opportunity to talk.

I know we used to run into each other a lot too.

It was APA Congress, but now Payroll Congress.

And are you still active with the Payroll Congress and on the board there, as well?

Yeah.

Yep.

I was, I've been probably in every different role with PAYO now, formerly American Payroll Association, as you mentioned I've not been a director or nor president, but I've been doing everything else.

I'm currently on the National Speakers Bureau and a number of different task forces that I serve on.

So I'm totally in PAYO.

PAYO is the industry leader in payroll education.

So, I'm not going anywhere there as long as I'm in payroll.

I mean, that's a great source along with other affiliations that I have with other companies.

So, yeah, I'm still doing my thing there.

I teach mergers and acquisitions.

I teach leadership classes.

And whatever else they ask me to do, I'm happy to do it because, it gives me an opportunity to sharpen my skill sets.

And if I'm gonna train someone and teach someone, you gotta know what you're doing.

And so, we bring that back to where I work at now and and we share with payroll practitioners so they could be as efficient as they possibly can for their employers.

Well, that's great.

I think you're one of the leaders.

You've done a great job of making yourself impactful in the organizations that you've been a part of.

How have you taken the payroll leadership role and turned that into more than maybe it is in some organizations?

Well, I found out that most people just don't know what payroll practitioners do, and I made it my business to tell them.

Payroll is, in my opinion, because I'm an accountant by trade, so I fell into being a payroll person by way of the Navy.

But I do have formal training, I have degrees in and in business administration and most of it in accounting.

So the bottom line is it's one of the most important functions in my opinion, that accounting has, even though when you go to school, whether it's business administration or accounting or finance or econ, there's very little on the payroll journal entry.

That might be your exposure to payroll.

And that's it.

But the bottom line is the average payroll practitioner needs to know accounting.

It's the largest expense, or at least the top three largest expenses in most companies.

So you have to know where, what you're doing that's gonna impact the balance sheet and the income statement.

So that's a necessary evil to know accounting, then you have to know benefits and taxables --what's taxable and what's, not as far as tax compensation.

And then garnishments and technology, workforce management systems.

And the most important thing, in my opinion, that a payroll practitioner does is employment taxation: federal, state, and local taxation.

It is why that payroll, the payroll industry is 70%, makes up 70% of the U.S.

Teasury's annual budget.

Because all the aggregate employers, when they withhold federal, state, local income tax and they pay those employer taxes for like FICA and unemployment, and they send that over to these tax agencies for the U.S.

Treasury on the Fed side, it makes up 70% of their entire budget.

So it is an important, it's an important role.

And most people, if they don't know about payroll, it's only because hopefully, because maybe things were working correctly, right?

Right.

Yeah, in a perfect world, no one would know who I am at, where I work at.

Well, that's good.

You've done a, you've done a great job of raising visibility of the role itself.

Let's talk about a little bit about what you and I have both seen and you, especially as far as the history of payroll and where we've been.

I don't think either of us have been in organizations where we were still paying cash to a large number of people.

You may have been but certainly checks.

Right.

And then start there, talk about how you've seen the the payments to of employees evolve over the last really 20 something years, 30 years.

Yeah, I will say the payment industry even starting back from direct deposit.

I remember in the early eighties, direct deposit was being introduced and people would say no way would I put my routing number and my account number on the internet per se, for someone to then steal it.

And then for me, not even receive my payment.

After all, they just thought it was so many security risk and everything.

And over time I will say that we have evolved from a pay distribution standpoint to now very few people actually have a paper paycheck.

Where I work at now, we have less than 400 people there that have direct or that have a paper paycheck out of a 100,000 employees.

And I'm not, that's not an anomaly.

I think if you go to most employers, I mean, our participation rate for direct deposit, 99.6 right now percent.

Yeah.

And we don't even make it, mandatory, we don't.

Some states that you can't make it mandatory.

But all that to say, now in the 21st century, you ask somebody if you don't have direct deposit, some electronic means, and we're like, are you crazy?

Why would you even go in a bank?

I know some Gen Z people who have never set foot in a bank or even used any type of deposit, type of ATM So I, I say the industry has changed and the paycards, got introduced.

That's how you and I met when you were at your other company.

And paycards here.

And now we have earned wage access.

Right?

So just things are evolving over time.

It's been a while.

When technology catches up to the workplace, then you know, things change in the workplace.

Like employee subservice, that's all changed now: AI machine learning, robotic process automation, it's technology driven.

Now I will say that is what leads the charge 99% of the time is things have evolved from a technology standpoint and it forces us to change our behaviors on how we pay people in the payroll space or how we manage employees or whatever the case is.

All driven by technology, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's a great point.

That's a great point.

Yeah, I can I can remember all of those times, and it seems like each time, you mentioned the friction a little bit, when you first went to direct deposit, why would I put my routing and account number somewhere?

I can remember when we were first launching paycards is like, why would I want to give a, there was friction there with some people, not you were one of the first, first to use it, but a lot of people were like, why would I want to give them, my employees, a card?

Right?

And then and then, most people don't realize that earned wage access was, the earliest I can remember talking to somebody about earn wage access, and I knew most of the ones that started these businesses early on, was probably 2014 and 15.

Right.

And I was still involved with with First Data, Money Network at the time.

And then the founders of some of these businesses would come see us because of course they wanted to go talk to our book of business.

Right.

And we would go talk to clients and introduce it.

And at that time it was like, no, why would I wanna pay my employees early?

Right.

It was like so I would say that was the reaction you got in 2015 and 16.

Probably really up until, I don't know, maybe traction started to begin happening in 2018.

It took some of these businesses four or five years to start getting traction.

And then we saw what happened in 2020 and in 2021 and now it's really taken off.

Let me give you a conversation, a piece of a conversation I had yesterday.

Not yesterday, it was recently though, with a I'm gonna try to be as vague as I can, but I also wanna make the point.

It's, say it's a Fortune 500 CEO of a very reputable brand.

And I had the opportunity to visit with him about earned wage access.

And the response was that, I don't believe, why would I wanna, if they're already having trouble living paycheck to paycheck, right?

If, because 66% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, if they're already having trouble living paycheck to paycheck, why would I want to give them their wages on a daily basis.

Right.

And to me, and then I'll give you my perspective, and I want your perspective, but the way I look at this, Martin, is these are truly wages that they have earned.

Like me as an employer shouldn't should give the employee who has earned that wage the opportunity to decide when they want to access it.

They don't have to, but the opportunity, and I also should put the trust in my employees to manage their financial affairs, even though I know that many of them don't in the way that we would all recommend that they do, it's still not up to me to try to set that discipline for them.

How do you see sort of the comment that I received from a CEO, that's well removed from most of the people we're talking about, and then my perspective on that, how do you see it yourself?

Well, I would say, I, maybe I can get from one point of view, his point of view.

Why would we do that?

They can't manage their exp- their budgets, why would I make it worse?

Because they're gonna have to pay that back at some point in time.

And I think the simple answer is that based on employee demand and competitive markets for employee talent, the more and more employers that are gonna offer this the more and more they're gonna separate working there, where they offer EWA and some other kind of financial wellness type of opportunities for employees.

Then working somewhere that doesn't have it.

Right now it's all about, environments and choices and opportunities and I will say, life happens.

I don't know anybody that hasn't worked, a day in their life and hasn't been like a paycheck to paycheck person at some point in their career.

And so they understand that things happen.

You may have a budget, but that budget is blown as soon as you have an unpredictable expense that comes out, whether it's your car or something in your house or whatever it is.

And the bottom line is that will need to be taken care of, especially if it's your car or some other mandatory type of thing.

So I'm just gonna say, as a, as if I was a CEO and I was looking at the marketplace, I wanna retain talent.

Especially talent that is, is having a hard time staying.

I don't know what their, turnover rate might be, but I would look at that and say, how do I retain talent?

And if EWA is a small fraction of doing so and it doesn't even cost the employer any money, I think they really should look twice at that because, look at what we're talking about just over time.

And your organization right now, Instant Financial, your marketing materials is just so spot on.

When you, I looked at some marketing materials you had, and you guys have this slide that simply says: we don't wait for anything like, for Prime, like we don't wait 'til the weekend to shop.

We can use Amazon Prime and get it the same day in some cases, or we don't plan rides in advance.

We just call Uber or Lyft.

We don't schedule time in to grocery shop.

We just call Instacart and certainly we don't carry cash anymore.

Who does that?

We just Cash App or Venmo someone.

The bottom line is people don't wait to do various things.

And one of 'em is to this day and time, some people just don't wait anymore to get paid.

And so if they're gonna go to another employer that has that option, why wouldn't they go?

Just from a leadership standpoint, I would just think, listen, I know our employees, the backbone of our company.

Nobody does this alone.

And if that is one small piece to retain them because replacing an employee is expensive and it usually generally takes three to four months to do so.

Why wouldn't I do this?

And, just reduce the turnover rate and increase employee experience with their satisfaction of working there.

That would be my argument.

I mean, there's so many different ways you can take this, but at the end of the day.

We're talking about retaining employees and this is an employee benefit.

So I'm gonna say, yeah that's the reality today.

I think that's a, I think that's a great summary of it, Martin.

And it is, 'cause again, the way I just go back to it is their money, right?

They have earned that money.

We should give them the option of managing that money as they need to manage it, right?

Because now, five years ago we didn't have this option.

Now we have this option.

So let's allow them to have the option to manage their money as they see fit.

So, great.

I gave you an example of of a CEO that I had the opportunity to visit with.

But I've seen this oftentimes where when we start talking about executive suites, we at Instant and I think in general the our businesses or our competitors, we probably all are missing the mark a little bit in regards to communicating at the executive level, both the benefit that we provide and the need of the benefit by their employees.

Do you see that?

And how do you, how can we as Instant improve and maybe enhancing those communications?

Well, I will say as far as the supply and demand of the need, I mean, you hit the nail on the head.

I would say, listen, if you work at a workplace and you're one of the leaders there, ask people what they think.

And they'll tell you, I guarantee you, if an employee survey was sent out and it asked about employee or earned wage access, it gave 'em a little high high level summary of what it is and the benefits of it.

I doubt very seriously that most employees to say, nah, this is a crazy idea.

humor me with something else.

So I would say go to the source.

These are for employees.

This benefit is for employee.

Ask 'em what they think and you know what, if it comes back to said, nah, just a waste of time, then fine, you have your answer.

But my sense would say that most employees would say.

Why didn't we have this, some time ago?

And here's another rationale for it too.

We talked about the advent of direct deposit.

Now how popular it is.

Like it'd be crazy not to have direct deposit.

I have to tell you, I predict that the employee demand for competitive markets, for, and talent and all this things, we talked about this, that EWA is really just gonna catch up.

Just like, the supply chain did when we talked about e-commerce, right?

And how to enhance the service and distribution of products and service offerings that might someone may purchase and say, hey, I want it now.

I mean, just think about that infrastructure.

That's a whole supply chain system.

It's crazy that you can order something online and get it the same day or even the next day without having to go anywhere.

It's put a lot of companies out of business right now because they have brick and mortars where you can get the same thing for a lesser, cheaper price and more convenient.

I do believe that EWA is gonna have its place.

When you think about it, as you mentioned earlier, EWA hasn't been around that long.

I mean, we populated the idea of EWA back in 2016 or so, and everyone else has caught up.

But when you think about it today in this, September 2025, earned wage access has its presence in transportation, retail, hospitality, restaurant, and now almost every industry.

Didn't started out that way, but now it's reached every industry and it's not because, they were just slow to market.

It's because of demand of what employees say they want and how to retain people.

That at the end of the day, that is the only thing that matters at this point is what people want.

And the price point to get EWA is zero.

So that's the main thing that people all, who are in leadership positions, think about that it costs nothing.

That's great.

That's great.

Well, let's talk a little bit about, Martin, what else is on your agenda as a payroll leader of a large organization, what else are you looking at in considering for your employees in your organization over the next, let's just say year to two years?

Yeah, I'll have to say just looking over the landscape and for any payroll practitioner, not just me, it is really how do we implement certain technologies that's gonna help us.

Be more efficient in the workplace from an employee standpoint.

Technologies I'm most excited about right now with within the next one or two years is our implementation and more efficient use of RPA processes.

Payroll practitioners, a lot of the transactions and we're a transactional industry, so make no mistake about that.

We do a lot of transactions and with those transactions, you have to have processes.

And that's what RPA is all about.

Robotic process automation.

You think about certain things like paying a deceased employee, when you pay, when someone passes away in your workplace, you gotta go back and say, okay, which state was it in?

And then find out what state they're in and figure out from that state, who's the next of kin legally to figure out who's gonna get that person's wages.

Oftentimes you'll have to get a W 9, which is a request for taxpayer identification number because that other person obviously is not your employee.

It could be their spouse or whomever it is.

And we have to set that up on accounts payable.

So, that W 9 is required.

Somebody has to go out and reach out to the the next and kin to get that.

And bottom line is, and most payroll practitioners know this, when you pay someone who's deceased after their death that same wage payment is gonna find its way on a W2 and a 1099.

Oh wow.

It's a lot of parts to do that, and a lot of communication so we can automate that process, even if it's just sending out notifications on an automated basis, that would be great.

Even something like missing punches right now, for an employer that has a lot of non-exempt employees, the reason why missing punches is an, is important, is because obviously if they're using a workforce management system and if they've missed a punch, they're not gonna have a perfect paycheck.

And wouldn't it be nice though, if there was a robotic process automation or some type of automation that says, oh, Martin missed a punch yesterday, and it automatically sends an email to my people leader, my manager, so they can go and correct the punch or even allow me to correct the punch.

So at the end of the day, at the end of the pay period, I'm not only having 64 hours when I should have had 80 hours 'cause I've missed two days of punching in and out, which sacrificed, two days or 16 hours of my pay.

Overpayments, it's another one.

Monthly payroll.

All this stuff that we can automate getting somewhere that we physically have to do can be automated.

So, to answer your question for the next one or two years.

We have we actually identified 24 different case studies where I work at right now where robotic process automation could help us.

So, I am very excited about that because someone has to do it.

Why not automation?

Why not technology?

Because they don't call in sick, they don't complain about work hours.

They're so more efficient and so much quicker and more accurate.

It's just a matter of time.

No, that's great and I'd love, I look forward to talking to you more about that.

Maybe we get together over dinner or something that's interesting.

I haven't heard those comments about automation before, so it sounds like you're ahead of the curve there.

One thing I will say, as far as you mentioned punch clock we do know now that earned wage programs enforce punch clock discipline because if you don't punch in and punch out on schedule, you don't get your offer.

Right.

So.

We've got a number of clients that have elected it for that reason.

It was one of the driving reasons, so,

I think I read a statistic where I said it increased by 15 to even 20% in some cases, which is huge because we're just talking about reinforcing behavior that should already have been there in the first place, so

Yeah.

We can use that.

That's even better.

Absolutely.

Well, look, we're about ready to wrap up.

Martin, any, anything that we have not touched on that you'd like to touch on before we do?

Well, I will say just from a payroll practitioner standpoint, you know the face of today's practitioner is much different from 20 years ago, even 15 years ago.

So I would say that today if you wanna be really successful, whether you're an individual contributor or a people leader, I did some research some time ago about how do you just advance your job into a career?

And I came up with five different things.

And I remember them by two C's, two E's, and one F.

And the two C's is communication and competency.

You just have to be competent in what you do if you wanna get your marketplace salary.

And communication is the key, especially in payroll, where we have all these moving parts and we have a lot of cross-functional partners.

You gotta be really good, and not only just communicating cross-functional partners, but also to employees if you're gonna be a people leader.

So those two things, two Cs are competency and communication.

The two E's are embracing technology.

We've talked about technology today.

Nothing moves without technology, so you just gotta be comfortable with that.

Then emotional intelligence is the other one.

If you're a people leader in any, I don't care what job you're in or what role or industry.

Having emotional intelligence is where you're gonna get the most out of people that you depend on for your success or failure.

Listening about selfishly in that regard.

And then the one E is having financial acumen, again, if you're a people leader individual contributor, you gotta know what you do and how that contributes to your company's bottom line.

And I would say for today's practitioner, if you had those five skill sets, communication, competency, emotional intelligence, embracing technology, and having some financial acumen, you are gonna last in today's environment and and set the future for the next generation above and beyond you.

So you wanna transition your job into a career, get those five skill sets under your belt.

So that's my parting step.

That's great, Martin.

Those are great words and I appreciate that.

And so let's, we'll wrap up.

Martin, thank you so much for joining us today.

Your leadership and payroll and commitment to advance the profession are truly inspiring.

I've enjoyed knowing you and getting to know you better over the years.

It's been an honor having you on the podcast.

For our audience, you can find Martin on LinkedIn by searching for Dr.

Martin Armstrong.

To our listeners, you can follow along with new episodes at instant.co /podcast and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

And as always, share the episode, leave a review and suggest a future guest.

Thanks for tuning in to the Instant Payments podcast.