In the melting pot of employee, company and expectation, there is one key ingredient that holds everything together – the human touch. People are craving humanity from the business. They want to step beyond the boundaries of the transactional relationship that has traditionally defined work and towards connections that allow for shared growth and shared responsibility.
“What’s interesting about this new dynamic is that payroll is an essential part of building this relationship and these connections even though this is traditionally considered part of the foundational element of the working environment,” says Riona Maharaj National HR & Payroll Manager at Times 3 Technologies “However, payroll technology and functionality have become a focal point for employees, transforming the way they connect and transact with ease.”
Payroll, benefits and package processes are often left to stagnate. They’re the processes that have been taken for granted, that have played their part efficiently enough over the years that they’re overlooked as critical components of an employee retention strategy. However, payroll systems and the ways in which employees are compensated are evolving. New trends and strategies are sweeping the dusty legacy systems out the door and replacing them with innovative approaches that allow for employee engagement, improved productivity and, most importantly, data-rich insights that connect with people on the right levels.
According to the Deloitte Global Payroll Benchmarking Survey, one of the key changes is the relocation of payroll from reporting to finance to reporting to either HR or a shared service across all business operations. The goal is to prioritize an end-to-end employee experience that leverages digital capability to create employee experiences and improved interactions and to bypass issues around holidays, reporting inconsistencies and HR reporting.
“Another challenge that often impacts employee retention and engagement is slow onboarding and access to company systems,” says Riona Maharaj National HR & Payroll Manager at Times 3 Technologies. “Often, legacy systems take months to fully onboard a new employee and this not only impacts their perceptions of the company, but on the time that payroll teams are spending on unnecessary manual operations.”
The Deloitte survey found that it can take up to six months for a company to onboard talent and that more than 25% of payroll staff spent time on running payroll services that are largely manual. In the era of digital, cloud-driven technologies, this is an unnecessary waste of time, resources and costs. Which is why next-generation payroll is becoming increasingly popular for organizations looking to refine their expenditure and their employee experiences. With the correct tools in hand, organizations can automate time-consuming payroll services by introducing smart technologies that can automate through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). In addition to providing the business with smoother payroll handling and processing, this next-generation technology can be used to detect fraud and ghost employees; to dig into the data for granular insights that allow for improved leadership and decision making; and to transform payroll into an invaluable resource that supports the business and its people.
“The employee experience is important, so using technology that streamlines their payroll and gives them both control and visibility is always going to play in the organizations favor,” says Riona Maharaj National HR & Payroll Manager at Times 3 Technologies . “It can be used to ensure that global teams are paid fairly, that benefits are structured properly, that people are paid on time, and that payroll teams now have the time they need to better engage with workers around payroll queries and changes. The right technology will transform onboarding, data, insights, and payments.”
Sage 300 People is a cloud-based, digital-first platform that Times 3 Technologies, a Sage Platinum Partner, provides organizations with for a fully connected, highly agile and transparent payroll solution. Focused on efficiency, processes and productivity, Sage 300 People can be customised to suit any industry and sector and adapt global workforce management and operations optimization. Designed to track performance, measure productivity and improve payroll efficiencies, this is a solutionthat understands the needs of the business today, and what it will very likely need tomorrow.