Judicial Council In-plant Takes Over Payroll Distribution

The more services an in-plant can offer, the more essential it becomes to its parent organization — and few things are more essential to an organization than payroll. So when the in-plant for the Judicial Council of California in San Francisco recently took on payroll distribution for the policymaking body of the California courts, it brought positive attention to the operation.

The in-plant is typically responsible for producing business meeting materials for various council committees, educational materials for court staff, and business cards for the supreme court and the court of appeals, says Michael Jaffe, supervisor of Print and Mailing Services. But in November 2021, it was given the opportunity to handle payroll distribution and add efficiency to the process.

Previously, says Jaffe, the state controller’s office would send the paychecks to the Judicial Council’s Accounting department, and its staff would sort them and send them off to couriers like FedEx or Golden State Overnight. Meanwhile, HR would create labels for the courier and the labels would get sent to accounting.

Under that system, Jaffe says, the sorting of paychecks fell on one person, but now his staff of five can sort them quickly and more efficiently, and the in-plant doesn’t need HR to make the labels.

“So now, we just do all that. We get all that information, and we just create a batch shipment, create the labels, and then send them out. So, it sort of more centralizes and puts the function really where it should be, which is in the mailroom as opposed to HR doing a little bit, and the Accounting department doing a little bit and us not knowing what’s going on,” Jaffe says.

He explains that the opportunity to take over payroll distribution came about from a variety of different factors.

“I guess due to the pandemic, due to the great retirement, due to a whole variety of different factors — another of which is, I think, unhappiness with the courier service — the Accounting department decided to have us separate and store and make arrangements for the distribution of the paychecks,” Jaffe says.

As to why he thinks taking on a service like this is important for an in-plant, Jaffe says that it further reminds people why its services are integral.

“So often people take what we do, or what an in-plant does, for granted. And if they don’t know, or understand, or realize the variety of things that we are involved in, it makes it easier for them to say, ‘well, we don’t really need them,’” Jaffe says. “It’s important for us to … continuously justify our presence; the more things that we do, and the more that we are involved in the operations, or the administration, then the more reliable we look and the more trust ... we have as an entity. It justifies our ability to be here.”