A lot of people involved in global payroll today are looking to transform the way they deliver and manage their multi-country payroll. Many multinational organizations are considering the range of payroll transformation project options available to them but are also having conversations around what success could look like.
This measured approach to change management is to be recommended, as it is crucial to have a vision of how you want your payroll operations to work for at least the next decade. Thinking clearly, creating a vision for success, and defining what a payroll digital transformation should look like at your organization will be crucial to leading you down the road of the right solution that fits your specific multi-country payroll function needs.
In this article we are going to look at a few key things that can be a strong indicator of global payroll transformation success, the kind of end results and metrics stakeholders are seeking and the way to evaluate the success of the new solution that you bring into your payroll department.
Time saving in global payroll
Simply put, are you saving a significant amount of time delivering payroll services across all of your countries? If you are not, then this is a major cause for concern, as one of the biggest reasons you would undertake a project to transform your multi-country payroll would be to strip out the manual work and outdated processes that have made your payroll long, complex, and often tedious to deliver.
You should start by getting a handle on just how long it is taking right now. Get all of the global payroll professionals in your team around a table and start asking questions. Which of your countries is the most complex for payroll delivery, how long on average does it take to deliver it each month or pay run period? Are there specific times of the year it takes longer to run, and what are the unique nuances associated with this country that can throw up difficulties and delay payroll?
If you attempt to quantify it in a number of hours or days per month then you will have some benchmark kpis with which to measure the success of the new implementation against. The overall goal will be to see a significant reduction in the amount of time spent processing data. If you are currently relying on manual inputs or excel spreadsheets, will the new solution you are looking at automate the data feeds at the pre-payroll stage and make a major difference when it comes to the length of time you spend working with data every month?
Get the before and after data from your international payroll team across all of your countries for average length of time spent on payroll delivery. The results should make compelling reading and be a strong indicator of the relative success of any new model of delivery that you choose to implement.
Accuracy in global payroll
Payroll is business critical and simply cannot fail-because it impacts employee engagement and the employee experience. Thanks to the often heroic efforts of global payroll professionals around the world, it rarely does, but there are still a lot of cautionary tales out there around payroll errors and data security. These can be very costly and particularly damaging from a reputational point of view. When a process is heavily relied on manual inputs or transferring sensitive and personal employee pay related data into a number of different systems, then there is always a risk of a mistype or a mis-key somewhere. The last thing that any organization wants is to have an employee’s personal data leaked which would damage the company’s image, potentially lead to financial penalties, and even impact the organizations employee recruitment and retention.
Nobody ever intends to make a mistake but of course it happens, and it will continue to happen if happen if hr leaders and the hr team refuse to move with the times and automate your data processes within the monthly pay run cycle. Automation introduces machine learning or robotic process automation to deliver recurring data related tasks rapidly and accurately within payroll. Machines do not get tired or make mistakes, instead they have the capacity to bulk upload thousands of lines of employee data and then check and validate them in seconds. The global payroll professional is then simply focusing on any error or anomaly report that is automatically produced by the robotic process automation. This is where you want to be with hr transformation --much faster processing of data, much more accurate and reliable data and crucial time created within every payroll cycle for analysis and reporting work.
If your key performance indicators show that accuracy is significantly boosted by your decision to implement a payroll transformation project or technology solution in place of a previously manual heavy payroll process, then this is another key indicator that you have made the right decision when it comes to implementing transformation initiatives with any payroll solutions.
Stronger global payroll compliance protocols
Global payroll and data-related compliance is only going to increase in complexity. It already has- many global payroll professionals are already reporting that they are finding it difficult to keep a handle on all of their compliance reporting obligations.
Every country is different and will have their own unique compliance and regulatory deliverables. These will always be mandatory and non-negotiable. To get a firm handle on it all, you will more than likely need a digitized payroll process and digital compliance calendars so that you have upfront and transparent knowledge of which compliance deadlines are approaching and in which countries. This process will give you the best possible opportunity to prepare for significant compliance calendar deadlines.
It will also help you become clear on the kind of internal and external security protocols needed from a data perspective to adhere to specific compliance related rules in specific countries. Manual processes and legacy technology will not be able to assist you with this. The quality controls or security and information protection measures are simply not in place with these outdated processes. Innovative and modern new technologies are required if an organization wants to improve and optimize the timeliness of their security and compliance responsibilities.
If the new global payroll model or technology stack that you adopt improves control and transparency around compliance obligations, then this will be a clear improvement on the previous process and a strong indicator that you made a good investment decision for the future of your payroll delivery and management.
For more information about our Global Payroll Control Platform contact us today.
