Mastering payroll services have become highly challenging in the post-pandemic world. There were already enough complexities to deal with, and now you have to grapple with managing everything remotely. There is an obvious need for agility. In such a scenario, what you don’t need is an outdated payroll system in the times of remote working culture.
Payroll weaknesses exposed by the pandemic
Here are six of the major shortcomings of a legacy payroll system that you must get rid of to make your organisation compliant with the current requirements:
Need for global payroll – Many payroll managers admit to having a lack of globally standardised processes. This adds up on the complexity of coordination between payroll teams across locations, especially duringa crisis.
Poor data quality – Another major challenge of such variations is the generation of poor quality of data, reporting delays and the eventual delays in the decision-making process which could be disruptive in a situation like apandemic.
Slow regulation changes – If your company doesn’t have a uniform and globally compliant process of receiving and implementing regulation changes, then it can lead to violations and penalties.
Lack of automation – Greater reliance on manual processes often makes it too complicated for payroll teams to efficiently switch to remote working.
No digitisation – Payroll teams have to deal with a very high volume of paperwork in conventional offices, and that makes it almost impossible for them to work remotely.
Single person dependencies – In companies where the payroll management revolved around a specific person, it became very difficult to manage the workload increase caused by the new normal.
Optimising payroll for the next step
In a recent paper titled ‘Cost resilience amid and after COVID-19,’ Deloitte has mentioned that, “to be prepared to face a new crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have to swiftly adjust their cost models relying upon a truly agile and scalable business.” Payroll can be the avenue through which this can be achieved.
There are three steps that you can undertake to transform your organisational payroll services and make them future-ready:
Introduce automation – All over the world, nearly one-third of employees are usually or always paid late. By introducing automation in payroll, you can reduce the time and effort spent on repetitive yet laborious tasks. Automation helps the professionals work faster and with greater accuracy achieved by eliminating the repeat processes and allowing them additional time to handle complicated and important tasks.
Boost digitisation – There is a great need for smart digital processes which eliminate the need for paper forms withintegrated electronic workflows and smart automation. There are various internationally standardised tools which can be used to replace the conventional timesheets and manual input needs.
Simplify the user interface – As a part of the transformation, opt for a highly efficient system which is mobile friendly and can allow employees to easily access their payroll details. In a survey, about 26% of employees said that they won’t even spot discrepancies in their pay because they either don’t check the payslips or the bank statements as they are often quite confusing.
The need to create remote working processes in times of global economic crisis has necessitated payroll transformation to take care of concerns such as remote working, flexible working, multiple modes of digital payment and data security needs.
Uchenna Ani-Okoye is a former IT Manager who now runs his own computer support website https://www.compuchenna.co.uk.