Payroll needs to keep pace with changing times

The world of work is changing. Workforces are becoming more flexible and agile. This has led to the growth of the ‘’gig economy’’ as more people work second jobs, freelance and take short-term contracts. While this flexibility can be great news for workers and companies, it can put a strain on the payroll system and its integrated time-keeping capabilities.

With more people working shifts and the workforce database growing, an efficient time-keeping system is essential to keep pace with this new way of working. As a result, more companies are making sure they have a robust time-keeping software as part of a highly integrated payroll system.

This is just one of the trends noticed by Mike Ellis, President of HCM for Rizing APAC. Rizing is a professional services company focused on SAP software and specializing in human capital management (HCM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Consumer Industries.

Within its HCM arm, Rizing remains ahead of the curve with the many trends and innovations taking place as HR transforms itself.  Ellis will be talking about these in a webinar taking place on March 11, 1.00pm (GMT+8), which will also look at the rise in gamification, automation and what’s on the horizon for 2020. Payroll and timekeeping for the modern workforce will be among the topics we discuss.

Costly mistakes

Not having an accurate and reliable payroll solution can be a costly mistake. Research shows that it takes between three to eight days to fix an error made by payroll. That’s a lot of manpower and wasted time. And the knock-on effects are just as damaging. A study by the Workplace Institute found that 24% of people will start looking for a new job as soon as they experience a mistake by payroll. This figure rises to 49% for the second mistake. And roughly half of all employees have experienced one or more errors. This has huge implications for your retention strategies, with so many disgruntled employees looking to leave.

In Asia, a huge growth market, companies are actively building their staff levels. The tech sector is particularly active in recruiting talent. So, if you have lots of payroll errors then the staff you have worked so hard to attract and recruit will want to leave. “You need to have a solid foundation to build a skyscraper. For a company, that involves having an accurate and secure payroll system as part of its core functions,’’ says Ellis.

Accurate and secure data is a hot topic. As the world becomes more digitized, more companies are required to send employee data to government authorities and agencies on a regular basis. Ellis says, ’There is now a greater requirement to provide strong and accurate data for government databases. In Australia for example, the frequency for doing this has changed from annually to monthly. And when you report to the government with employee data you need a payroll system that is very accurate, secure and efficient.’’

Growing with you

A lot of growing companies start by investing in payroll solutions but simply pick something off the shelf, usually making sure it’s cloud based. That’s as far as it goes when it comes to thinking ahead. But a payroll system that is not well planned can soon become clunky and hard to maintain as the company and its headcount grows.

Add to that the challenge of scaling to deliver increasingly complex payroll capabilities as a firm starts growing its headcount above 500 employees.

Beyond Payroll, HR may need extra functionality to help with recruitment or to install a performance-goal system. As systems and functionality are added on top of the company’s basic payroll system, integration, management and reporting gets increasingly complicated and expensive to manage.

This is where a fully integrated system shows its advantages in terms of cost and ease of use. If you are running a smaller organization or a start-up, don’t discount a best-in-class integrated HRIS platform.

As a company grows, such a system is robust and flexible enough to grow with it. Ellis adds: ‘’I tell my clients it’s a bit like learning to swim in the kiddie’s pool. It will soon be too small and you will have to move to a bigger pool. So why not just learn to swim in the big pool, but ring-fence so it can expand as you get better.’’