The global pandemic has changed how we work, communicate, and collaborate with each other- it has served to accelerate and create urgency around digital transformation projects that were merely considered “nice to have” before the pandemic.
Companies now need to keep pace with competition, but they also need to have digital systems interacting with each other in a more efficient way to drive efficiencies across the business.
As a result, many global companies are returning to these digital transformation projects, treating them with greater urgency and accelerating their development.
Several business-critical departments need digital transformation projects- one of these departments is payroll, which for far too long has been over reliant on manual processing. Companies are beginning to realise this and are now looking at payroll solutions to make their payroll process more automated, integrated, and efficient.
In this article, we’re going to look at some of the key drivers as to why companies have started to digitally transform their payroll software.
Need for innovation
Payroll has been a neglected department in the past but there is now a realization that digital transformation is vital to its future- today, payroll is filled with too many complexities and challenges to manage it without technology. The landscape features multiple systems, different local country providers, disparate data flows and a lack of connections, which leads to frustrated global payroll professionals. These issues can be resolved by transforming your payroll process with a more technically advanced and intuitive system.
Innovation needs to happen; new technology needs to be introduced to deliver and manage global payroll services across multiple countries in a far more streamlined and effective way. Payroll may not be someone’s first thought when thinking about digital transformation, but it is a key part of any business, and it affects the entire workforce.
Implementing automation technology could be key for enhancing your payroll software. Automation can help ensure that fewer errors are made to employees’ payroll, and it can make things more efficient for the employer. By eliminating the need for manual entries and being able to access the entire workforce’s payroll information on a digital platform that has a more enhanced user experience, then this could transform the way a company delivers and manages payroll in the future and enhance their workflows.
Another innovative piece of digital transformation could be to introduce a payroll system that has an employee self-service portal, the employee experience could be greatly enhanced- payroll is something that every employee has to deal with, having a platform that offers the worker easy access to their payroll data and payslips could help with employee engagement and satisfaction levels at a company- after all, who does not want to feel like they are working for a digitally advanced organisation?
Regulatory risk
Global compliance responsibility always lies with the global employer or multinational company- even if many companies choose to outsource various business functions to third party tech suppliers.
These suppliers may provide a level of protection and compliance, but if something goes wrong then the overall company is responsible for compliance, and they will be subject to any resulting financial penalties and reputational damage. This could have a negative impact on any current clients that a company has or might deter future clients and businesses from working with them.
For this reason, companies are looking at innovative technology stacks which can help them better manage this regulatory risk- technology that can give them greater visibility and control over their compliance and regulatory obligations. Functionality like restricted access controls as well as transparent digital audit trails can really make a difference when it comes to meeting local and international compliance obligations.
Implementing innovative technology into your payroll software could be invaluable when it comes to this issue. By having a technology system in place that is more advanced and on a SaaS platform, makes upholding your compliance responsibilities a lot easier. Securing any sensitive employee data and personal information on a secure platform will help a company have more control over their payroll management and subsequently, more control over their compliance and regulatory duties.
This is why digital transformation is important for every aspect of a company, including payroll. By using new and more up to date technology, and moving on from legacy systems, regulatory, compliance and data security risks can be avoided.
Strategy
Payroll is a business-critical service delivery and is crucial to the bond of trust between employee and employer- it is simply not allowed to fail.
Companies that previously outsourced payroll or defaulted to the aggregator services model are now looking for something a bit different when it comes to their payroll provider- something that gives them back the control over their payroll process and data.
They are looking for a new strategy- a payroll that allows them a single way of working across countries, a payroll in a cloud environment for data security, that leverages digitized technologies and smart working processes for better collaboration and interactions between global payroll professionals and their local country provider counterparts.
Scalability is a huge factor in strategy too, companies want a payroll software that can support their growth efficiency objectives. They need to move at pace and speed into new countries and require a payroll software that can facilitate and match their ambitions. Companies don’t want to be stuck with something that is a blocker or choke point to their progress- they want the ability to process payroll efficiently.
This creates urgency for digital transformation of global payroll- this is needed to pay new employees in new countries and hit the ground running when it comes to creating market share and revenue opportunities. Only innovative technology and digital transformation can create the level of scalability required by ambitious and growing organisations today.
Payroll talent shortages
It is always hard to find good people for your business-payroll can be a challenging and often stressful environment- it is usually populated by extremely hardworking and diligent professionals who take pride and passion in their work. These people are becoming harder to find and due to the pandemic, the new work from anywhere concept means that people now have a lot more opportunities when it comes to their selection of employer.
The result of this is a requirement for technology to do the heavy lifting for people. Companies now want to leverage cloud platform scalability functionality- they want to be able to scale their payroll software and process, not the man hours. If they are unable to find suitably qualified global payroll professionals, then they will simply have to do more with less- this might be an unsatisfactory situation, but only technology can solve it.
They also don’t want to have lots of new hires in their payroll team as they move into new countries, they want a process where the technology can do this work for them and handle any increase in volume in the international workforce that requires payment- digitized technology platforms with built in scalability are the answer here.
Digital transformation can be essential when it comes to the efficiency and expansion of your company. An aspect of any business that can greatly benefit from a digital transformation, is their multi-country global payroll process. By implementing innovative technology in your company and in your payroll process, then you can have more visibility and control over your regulatory risks, enhance your strategic goals, and operate with technology stacks that are specifically designed for growth and scalability.
For information on the Payslip Platform contact us today.