Cheryl Sharp is a domestic abuse workplace consultant and chartered accountant. She built Pink Pig Financials, a six-figure accountancy firm, after leaving an abusive marriage and helps organisations recognise moments of financial abuse. In this guest blog as part of our National Payroll Week series, Cheryl shares advice on how payroll professionals can detect signs of abuse and prevent further damage.
Imagine you're a payroll administrator. An email lands in your inbox: change of bank details for an employee, her wages to now go into her husband's account. You update the record, tick the box, move to the next task. Routine.
Except this one wasn't routine. It should have stopped you in your tracks.
That's exactly what happened at a business I heard about recently. Nobody in payroll thought twice. The change went through and life carried on. Thankfully, in this case, it turned out completely innocent, done with full knowledge and agreement. But it should never have taken someone outside the organisation asking questions to realise this needed flagging in the first place.
Think about what could have happened. When someone's money stops being theirs, so does their ability to leave. Controlling access to a partner's wages is one of the clearest, quietest ways an abuser tightens their grip, and payroll is often the first place it shows up on paper.
This is National Payroll Week, so let's talk about something payroll teams rarely get asked to think about: economic abuse. According to Surviving Economic Abuse's 2025 report, one in seven UK women experienced some form of economic abuse from a partner or ex-partner in the last year. That's around 4.1 million women. It's just one form domestic abuse can take, alongside physical, emotional, sexual and coercive control, but it's often the hardest to spot because it hides inside completely ordinary admin.
So what else should payroll be watching for? An employee asking for payslips to go to a different address than their home one. Someone else calling on an employee's behalf about their pay or hours. Sudden requests to cut hours, switch to cash, or share wage details with a third party. An employee who seems anxious, rehearsed, or reluctant to talk when a pay change comes up.
None of these signs prove abuse on their own. But they're worth being professionally curious about. A quiet, private word with the employee, on their own, checking in rather than just processing the change and moving on to the next task. That one conversation might feel small in the moment, but it could be the difference between someone staying trapped and someone finally being seen.
If you'd like to know more about how workplaces can support employees experiencing domestic abuse, visit https://cherylsharp.co.uk
One safe conversation can save a life.