There is one thing we can be sure of in the world of HR and Payroll, and that’s change.
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As the Chief People Officer of Sage, I want Sage to be the best place to work, a place where colleagues can further their careers and deliver the best experience for our customers, supported by high calibre systems and processes. That means we need to get the basics right – including payroll. We know that this can be a challenge, so as the New Year begins, I'm happy to share the perspective of my colleague Caroline Scott, EVP of Organisational Design & HR Services, Sage, with her advice on getting Payroll right, and why it's so important for all of us who look after our organisations' most valuable contributors, its own people.
For us at Sage, our employees' experience is at the heart of organisational success, and one important aspect of our employees' experience falls in the hands of our reward and payroll professionals.
While reward structures can often be considered complex, the payroll process might be viewed by some as the simple exercise of ensuring pay and rewards reach employees as promised. However a significant amount of dedication goes into getting the process to work seamlessly and predictably for all involved – and, importantly, to manage the changes that impact payroll on almost a daily basis.
Payroll can be impacted by many factors; staying abreast of changes, both internal and external, is a daily challenge. It means staying on top of salaries, taxes, benefits, working hours, contracts, personal data, holidays, sickness and more. Additionally, a myriad of tax and legislative changes in any given year each initiate a new requirement on payroll professionals and their teams. Critically, each change that might pass unaccounted for presents an opportunity for error.
As business leaders we can be sure that change will come – it's how we handle the change that makes the difference between a disengaged workforce and a happy, confident, productive one. The points below are designed to equip you with the support, ideas and strategy to minimise risk, empower your HR and payroll colleagues, and foster an increased focus on delivering the best employee experience you can.
Employees quite rightly, and perfectly reasonably, expect to be paid accurately, on time, every time. And they should never need to concern themselves with the process that makes that happen. But you're aware of the complexities involved in payroll and understand it's the lynchpin of employee and, consequently, business confidence.
According to Sage research conducted in the UK, 35% of workers would look for a new job if their employer paid them incorrectly just once. Just once. A further 51% would lose trust in their employer an half would positively resent them.
This puts a tremendous weight of responsibility on the shoulders of everyone who works in payroll because not only are you delivering pay and rewards to your employees, but you're ensuring confidence in the business which employs them. It's worth discussing a plan with your team to spot errors – or the opportunity for them – in your process and action a plan to address them.
As an HR and Payroll leader, you're in a specialism where the sands are often shifting. People change the way that they work (hours, location, digitisation), they change the work that they do (role, function, level) and they change with other people (promotion, transfer, leaving the company). In HR and Payroll, you're their back-up every step of the way – from entry to exit.
Every change from payment to promotion, from superannuation payments plans to parental leave has to be processed accurately and run like clockwork. And then there are the external factors – tax changes, a company acquisition, restructure or relocation, with all the implications these may have on existing and new colleagues.
What processes do you have in place to help predict these changes or at the very least, to manage each as they occur?
To those outside your department, this is business-as-usual stuff. Inside your department, it's business-critical.
Legislative changes in employment and taxation are manifold and continuous.
In Australia alone, it's not unusual to see significant changes in employment law in the space of six months. And at any one time, different countries across the globe are often tackling a major legislative issue.
Take the Fair Work Act in Australia, minimum wage in Germany and Automatic Enrolment for company pensions in the UK.
Because of the legal and business consequences, your teams will be helped by clear communication of the changes and a payroll process that is nimble enough in its operation to be able to address them as they happen, without having to expend significant resources in adjustments to your systems. It's a good idea to examine your process and payroll system on a regular basis to understand if it is sufficiently nimble – before you face the next legislative headline.
Wherever you are in the world, legislation has a huge impact on the HR and Payroll function.
To help you rise to the continual challenge, here are five steps towards an empowered and recognised HR team, an engaged and happy workforce, and a productive, compliant business.
Time and again, the energies and concerns of the HR and Payroll function centre around these four key areas: accuracy, on-time payment of colleagues, compliance and reporting. Talk to your teams to discover which areas you need to focus on to give them the support they need.
Your teams want to do a good job, but they may be prevented from doing it by the challenges in the processes and systems within which they work. As it's difficult to make improvements on all processes at once, it might help you to remember the three T's: Technology, Training, Trust. The right technological support could help eliminate manual, error-prone processes; the right training could give them the skills and confidence they need to meet day-to-day challenges; and your trust is priceless. Be critical on the three T's – ask "are they good enough?" – and improve them if they aren't. Even if you have a goal to improve processes and systems for the long term but still aren't there yet, you can immediately make improvements in the area of the three T's with what you already have.
All businesses have some basic "hygiene" factors – processes that need to run smoothly, error-free and remain compliant. Payroll is certainly one of these. Keeping these processes hygienic, requires an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes action. If you can empower the heroes of your payroll teams with technology that helps them get the basics right – accurate data, speedy, automated processes, essential, timely compliance updates, easy-to-use analysis and reporting tools --then you keep your payroll team happy and your business within the law.
Never underestimate the power of keeping people informed, especially when a change is coming. If you've spoken to your team and come up with a plan, share it with them. Let them know about progress and plans, how it affects them, how it helps them, how it ties in with business objectives, how they can contribute, how they'll be supported. When your team is on board, it's much easier to navigate unknown territory. Allow yourself and your teams the flexibility of time and space to adjust and amend. Some changes are entirely unpredictable, but new legislation is always flagged in advance. Act sooner rather than later to ensure you're compliant from day one.
Chances are, although pay day gives us all a boost, the only feedback that payroll teams get is when something has gone wrong. Sage research has found that the majority of HR and Payroll staff estimate that 85% of their time is spent on processes and only 15% on people. It's a safe bet that no one entered a payroll career because they love processes, spreadsheets and IT. So with the right technology, tools and strategy in place, they can get back to doing what they do best, for them and the entire organisation. You know what it takes for your teams to get it right every single time, so acknowledge it – and celebrate it!
Getting it Right Every timeWhen change is constant, it's important not to let pressure get the better of your teams as they try to keep up. True, that's easier said than done, but use the above as a starting point and your strategy to meet the change challenge will come.
And when the time is right to find a technology solution to help the process, then talk to us at Sage. Whatever your HR and Payroll challenge, Sage can give you the support that helps your team be the heroes they deserve to be and your business go from success to success.
Discover how Sage HR & Payroll solutions can help you get it right.
"It's very user friendly software, laid out in basic terms with easy to follow procedures. You can generate reports on any of the data that is entered into the system, from personnel to wages. We regularly review costing reports, leave liability reports, increment reports and pay rate changes, among other things."
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