Last week, we ran our third webinar of 2023-the subject was on the consequences of doing nothing with a payroll process that is no longer working for you. A lot of payroll professionals understand that if nothing changes, the same old problems will remain and likely just worsen. But it can often be difficult to find the time to articulate and present a business case or get key stakeholders to listen and truly understand the problems payroll is facing. You can view a recording here.
Mary Holland, our global payroll evangelist ran the webinar, and she was joined by our client SumUp in the form of Lisenko Nikolla who is head of payroll there.
No action. No results.
Most of the attendees of the webinar agreed fully with the overall principle that there are major consequences to doing nothing. Inaction allows the challenges to fester and grow, while the burden on global payroll professionals just increases over time. This is especially the case with manual processes where far too often today, global payroll professionals have way too much of their time consumed by manual data entry into excel spreadsheets and transferring employee data information via e-mail.
We ran a poll during the webinar and 38% of respondents listed manual data entry as the biggest payroll frustration that will remain if they don't change anything this year.
They all recognize that there has to be a better way of doing things and by now they are familiar with the concept of automation and hyper automation. This is game changing technology that can free hours and even days in each and every pay run. Automation takes over from humans and can manually bulk upload literally thousands of rows of payroll data, then check and validate it all in a matter of seconds. This leads to massive time savings and productivity gains and creates much needed breeding space inside pay runs.
The action needed here is to document and articulate a business case to leadership teams for investment support for new technology in global payroll delivery and management. This new technology must leverage hyper automation functionality and be specifically designed to speed up global payroll processing across multiple countries. It is achievable and the technology is out there-the business case is also clear, major time savings and accuracy boosts. The webinar really posed the question of if not now, then when-can you afford another year of manual data entry? Accuracy issues and payroll errors could become a significant problem-now is the time to be having the conversation.
“Take action, don’t wait. You need the technology, resources and processes to support the organization. Gather the data, do the research. Identify the risks and build out that business case”
Mary Holland (CPP). Payslip
Another year of no standardization
Non-standardized data and processes across countries is another major challenge at multinational companies around the world. Multiple different data flows arriving in different formats from disparate systems creates a layer of time-consuming and really unnecessary complication in multicountry payroll.
Data needs to be standardized so it appears in the same format and structure regardless of what source it comes from: the HCM system in place, the local country payroll providers, benefits systems and finance applications. The ideal scenario is to have all of this data flow into a single platform where it can be standardized and categorized at a global level. This way you can actually see what is happening across all of your payroll countries.
With non-standard data, you are really flying blind and lacking visibility and control. The data and processes are different across all of the countries, so nothing is comparable and standard. It is not possible for all members of a global payroll team to understand what is happening in each country, you are left with the country specific person being the only person available to truly know what is happening with that payroll country. What happens if this person goes on sick leaves or suddenly leaves the company? This is a risk that you really want to avoid as the consequences could be payroll errors or even payroll failure.
Standardizing all of the data and processes across countries and then integrating your systems so that payroll is connected to HR, finance and benefits is the route you need to go down to avoid this level of complexity in 2023. Lisenko mentioned this as consistent workflow management and standardized processes across countries was essential for him to be able to manage his globally dispersed team in an efficient and organized way.
“Payslip make my life easier for reporting, workflow management and the way I manage my multi-jurisdictional team as well as communicating with local country providers”
Lisenko Nikolla, SumUp
Is your reporting where it needs to be?
Lisenko also spoke about the increasing demands his team face for consolidated multicountry reporting, especially in the new post-covid working environment where leadership teams are keen to get greater insight and understanding of their organizations largest expense which is global payroll.
“The C-suite wanted global reporting in a timely manner because we had grown organically as well as by acquisition and we needed to source local ICPs and onboard them quickly so the business understood the need for the Payslip platform”
Lisenko Nikolla, SumUp
Demands for reporting are on the rise-what happens if you work in a global payroll department at a company that has grown either organically or by acquisition? What happens if the executive team decide that substantial new hiring needs to happen this year? The HR team will be working hard to fill the vacancies with qualified candidates but the key question is, can the global payroll process keep pace?
Global payroll reporting, both on an individual country basis and consolidated to a global level, is needed to report on the entire globally dispersed workforce-in terms of labor cost figures as well as specific pay elements such as bonuses, tax and commission. Only innovative digital reporting tools are capable of capturing the data needed for this reporting and then transferring the data into comprehensive and easily understood payroll reports.
Stating your case
A key challenge a global payroll departments is gathering and documenting the information needed to make a business case to senior leadership figures for investment in new technology to improve payroll processes across all countries.
A second poll we ran during the webinar revealed an interesting statistic - 58% stated that the CFO was the key person they needed to convince with a business case for global payroll investment, while 28% stated that their struggle to create and build a business case was the biggest factor in preventing payroll change at their organization
Mary pointed out that budget restrictions often mean there is no money available for investment this year, but that should not stop you documenting and creating a business case for a future date. You know what is not working and what needs to change, so why not start documenting it right now?
There is a better way to deliver and manage payroll at your organization-it involves a global payroll control platform that can standardize the data across all of your countries, replace manual processes with hyper automation and deliver consolidated reporting. All of this happens inside a secure cloud platform that integrates seamlessly with your HCM and finance applications. Compliance and data security protocols are much easier to manage inside such an environment and global employees benefit from self-service access to their pay slips and global payroll data.
“Payslip gave us proper workflow management and helped us centralize the work for our new global payroll team. The integrations between Payslip, our ICPs and Workday saves us so much time and we can now flow employee payslips back into Workday from multiple countries which is a huge help”
Lisenko Nikolla, SumUp
Payslip has put together this helpful business case document to help you get started. It outlines some of the questions you need to consider and gives you helpful tips on key data metrics and things to include in your business case document, so that leadership teams can really understand the challenges that you are facing and why there is an urgent and pressing need to move global payroll into a digital environment for better accuracy, operational efficiency, visibility and control. If you choose instead to do nothing, the consequences will simply remain and likely worsen.
For more information about our Global Payroll Control Platform contact us today.