A powerful and satisfying employee experience can be crucial to recruitment and retention figures at global organizations. There is a war for talent going on out there today and many companies are talking publicly about some of the difficulties and challenges they are encountering when trying to recruit the top talent available in the market.
It is a competitive landscape out there so the actual employee experience really does matter. HR teams have become quite passionate about this subject in recent years. One of the reasons for this is that employees interact, network, and talk to each other a lot and they also have more avenues than ever before in the digital space to make information available about the inner workings of a company and its work environment.
This means that qualified candidates who are interviewing or are even perhaps at the offer stage have access to information about their potential future employer and their company culture. This access can often be in the form of online digital forms or even social media. The validity and reliability of this information may be open to question, but it is still a reality that candidates are researching companies outside of the normal channels for some greater insight into what it is like to work for a specific organization.
In this article we are going to examine one aspect of the employee experience, their payroll. We will ask if there is a connection between payroll and the employee experience and then outline the reasons why we think the answer to this question is a resounding yes.
Establishing trust
Put simply, an effective and professionally run global payroll department that pays employees accurately and on time every month helps to establish trust between the employee and employer, resulting in a better employee experience. Payment is the most basic contract that exists between an employee and their employer, and it is often the case that it really only takes one mistake in payroll to destroy any trust.
It is a mission critical service that simply cannot fail, employees expect to be paid on the allocated day every month or week, many will already have very specific plans for the payday money that arrives in their bank account, and it is often the case that employees set up direct debits for bill payments or other personal obligations to hit specifically on their payday or very soon afterwards. Therefore, any payday failure or payroll process error can have serious consequences for the employee.
If they feel confident in the payroll system of the employer and are always certain that they will be paid accurately and on time every month then this can help to establish a basic level of trust which the employer can then build on through other experiences at the company. The point is, if this most basic contract and level of trust is broken due to payroll failure or payroll error, then it can be really difficult to re-establish this level of trust with the employee.
Failing to reach this level of trust with the employee, could result in retention issues within the organization. Employees now have a lot of options when it comes to job opportunities, due to the work from anywhere concept, and if they are unsatisfied with how payroll is run within their current workplace and can’t establish a level of trust with their employer, then they can easily seek out another job where they feel that they can have a higher level of trust with that organization.
A digital experience
Employees today now start a job with a certain level of digital expectation at the company they are working for. This often stems from their personal lives in which they have access to information, banking, and entertainment at the touch of a button on their preferred mobile device. While they may not expect the exact same level of digitization from their employer, it is very noticeable to them if there is a large deviation from what they have become used to in their personal lives.
An employee self-service portal that gives them access to their payslips, pay-related information and documentation would be an example of a digital experience that employees and new workers would respond positively towards. This would align with the digital experience in their personal life and provide 24/7 access to information that they have become accustomed to, this could lead to higher levels of employee engagement and employee satisfaction.
The alternative to an employee self-service portal would be a scenario where they are forced to email a global payroll department or human resources department, requesting something as simple as a payslip and then find themselves having to wait several days for a response. This would be the opposite of a positive digital experience and a negative view of the digital capabilities and initiatives in place at the organization would be formed pretty quickly. We all know that bad news spreads quickly and that global employees today have numerous digital forums to air their views. So, this is a scenario to be avoided as it can contribute to a negative public perception of an organization as well as a less than positive employee experience inside the organization.
Safeguarding data
As well as expectations for a positive digital experience in the workplace, there are now strong expectations around data security, especially when it comes to an organization's ability to safeguard sensitive and personal employee information. Global payroll data contains huge amounts of sensitive information, and many global employees would be appalled to find out that their organization had a casual attitude towards cyber security protocols and the protection of this information.
Data breaches and data leaks are never far from the headlines today. Employees follow the news and read these stories with interest. Cyber security is a concern for everybody, both in their personal and professional lives, so you can be certain that global employees will be interested in the manner in which the company they work for safeguards their data. Especially data which contains private information about their salary, benefits package, and pension contributions.
Such information must be safeguarded in line with the highest industry standards for information protection, data safeguarding and cyber security measures. A breach of personal information could be far more damaging than a one-off error in a monthly payroll check, an employee may be willing to accept that a mistake can happen in a payroll calculation, but they would likely react in horror if their personal information became publicly available due to a data breach that occurred because of a failure in data protection security measures at their employer.
Digital technology and cyber security tools that help to safeguard and protect the flow of data around payroll information therefore has a strong role to play in the employee experience which is all about feeling comfortable and trusting a global employer.
The few points that have been discussed in this article outline why there most definitely is a connection between payroll and the employee experience. Having accurate payroll that is delivered on time can help establish trust between the employee and the employer, providing workers with an employee self-service portal and ensuring that their payroll data is being held on a secure platform can all contribute to the enhancement of the employee’s experience at a company.
For more information about our Global Payroll Control Platform contact us today.
