Another global payroll delivery and management year is underway at multinational companies around the world. Payroll operations are always a challenging process, and the global payroll landscape has become even more complex in the last two years as a result of the fallout from the global pandemic.
This means that there is an even larger requirement for standardization when it comes to multi-country global payroll data and process. When standardization is in place everything about global payroll management becomes easier-when it is not in place, the entire country payroll process suffers from a lack of cohesion, visibility and control.
A global payroll control platform is required to introduce standardization across all of your payroll countries-it can happen much quicker than you might expect and has simply become essential for global payroll delivery in 2023. In this article, we will look at the reasons why 2023 should be your year of global payroll standardization, and some steps you can take to make it happen in a relatively pain-free way.
If not now, when?
This is a hugely relevant question- with international company expansion widespread, there is only going to be an increase in the amount of payroll data flowing around various disparate systems. Global workforce hiring practices have changed due to the pandemic and remote/hybrid working opportunities. This means more staff are being hired and on-boarded, many of them in various different locations around the world, and some with unique or tailored compensation and benefits packages.
So, what are global payroll professionals facing as a result of all of this? The answer is huge amounts of non-standardized data across all of their payroll countries, different payroll systems and processes across these countries and a lack of digital tools to help them manage it all. Delivering payroll in a non-standardized way is not feasible and definitely not sustainable. Now is the time to change to standardized payroll delivery if you have not already done so.
Better, faster, more efficient global payroll
Standardization gives everybody involved in global payroll operations the opportunity to deliver payroll services in a better faster and more efficient manner. If each international payroll country data inputs arrive in the same format, every single payroll, think of what difference this could make when running payroll.
If the process of payroll was the same in each of your payroll countries, covering global payroll professionals who are out on sick leave from the payroll department becomes much easier- a new person taking over the delivery does not have to spend days and weeks familiarizing themselves with how things are done in the new country or local payroll- because the process is the same for all countries & jurisdictions and the data inputs are processed in the same way. This can be a huge timesaver and a major asset at times of business disruption due to economic events or unforeseen sick leave in the payroll function.
Visibility and control are also enhanced when payroll is standardized across countries-a common complaint of global payroll managers at multinational organizations is their inability to see exactly what is happening across all of their payroll countries due to non-standardized data feeds arriving from multiple disparate systems in place across their countries. The data isn't standardized, and the process is different in each country-it makes it very difficult to track, monitor and control what is happening. If you cannot see clearly what is happening, then you cannot control it.
Standardization means that the data inputs for payroll processing are in the same format for each country and easily identifiable because they have been converted into a standardized format upon receipt from the local country payroll provider system and the internal human capital management hcm . When each country data flows look the same, you can see exactly what is happening.
Standardizing a process means each global payroll delivery is the same for each country- you standardize on a global level while making room for local country nuance that will be a part of each individual country payroll.
From processing to global payroll analysis
The standardization of global payroll data and processes comes with a range of different advantages outside the essential day to day delivery of global payroll. It also lays the foundations for detailed, comprehensive and consolidated multi-country reporting.
This is essential country by country reporting that provides a clear view of exactly what is happening with global payroll across countries as well as the ability to provide country cost comparisons. Only when the data is standardized across countries, are you in a position to compare costs across countries and then identify trends and anomalies.
Since the pandemic began, the demand for this level of detailed and nuanced reporting has skyrocketed as leadership teams and C-Suite executives look to get a handle on costs, employee records and performance management within the organization.
Standardization also enables the global payroll team to evolve into a strategically who provides essential data analysis and conclusions. Global payroll data, available by country, entity and employee level while also available as consolidated metrics on a global level, is data that can be of great value to the leadership teams. It can influence decision making at the highest level as well as the strategic development of the entire organization. In the past, it has been a huge challenge for multinational companies to extract this kind of reporting-because the data has been hidden or trapped in multiple disparate systems or non-standardized processes.
Standardization helps to release this trapped data and make it more accessible to a wide range of interested stakeholders. It also enables global payroll professionals to move away from manual data inputs and over to reporting and analysis work.
Standardize your global payroll data on Payslip
Data and process standardization is core to the design of our global payroll control platform. We operate with a global first data model which standardizes the data on a global level in order to facilitate consolidated reporting and the release of bigger picture insights.
When on-boarding a new client, we look to analyze their data and then proceed to standardize and harmonize the pay elements for earnings, deductions, and employer costs by setting up and mapping the elements across a range of relevant categories: country, entity, employee etc. Payroll data inputs from integrated data feeds are reviewed and approved in system, then ingested.
We integrate with HCMs and local country providers to arrange the standardized mapping and classification of pay elements, then we automate the flow of this data from the various systems into the global payroll control platform. The result is a global payroll solution where the client works with standardized data and processes across their countries and can subsequently extract and deliver multicountry comparative reports.
This unified, global-first data unlocks and standardizes global payroll data to empower payroll analysis and workforce planning, now global payroll professionals and managers can clearly see exactly what is happening with each payroll in each country. They benefit from complete data-driven visibility into all standardized payroll elements including salary, expenses and taxes. This helps them view, understand and compare payroll costs, trends and variances by region, by country, by employee.
If 2023 is to be the year you move away from disconnected dataflows and manual spreadsheets over to a fully automated and globally standardized global payroll process, then our team is ready and waiting to show you a platform demo and explain how quickly we can get you up and running with smart technology to manage your multi-country payroll on a global payroll control platform.
For information on the Payslip Platform contact us today.