Time is an asset, and companies that manage it well have a competitive advantage in the business world, a Replicon expert said in the Global Payroll Management Institute (GPMI) webinar “Uncovering the Global Time and Gross Pay Automation Challenges,” sponsored by Replicon.
“Time is finite, and as a resource, you can’t create any more of it,” said Replicon Director of Global Solutions Bryan Smits. “So, if you can do better things with your time spent, you’re going to have better outcomes. But to do that, you need to have a new way of thinking about time as an asset, and a new way to manage time.”
Smits said that viewing time as an asset can help companies manage their scarcest resource.
He listed the most common challenges around global time and gross pay as:
- Lack of visibility into global time data
- Inability to scale across locations
- Global compliance problems
- Inability to meet diverse employee needs
- Extended implementation cycles
“To account for all of this complexity, you have a disparate deployment,” he said. “Typically we’re finding that a global company with 10,000 employees can easily have in excess of 36 time systems, and that creates a lot of challenges for payroll and finance as well.”
A lack of visibility into employees’ time and gross pay leads to an inability to handle a diverse, multi-location workforce; multiple systems track time in different ways that are not connected and not shareable; and siloed data hinders real-time visibility.
Changing workforce dynamics, in which some employees are mobile or field-based, require systems that work as well on mobile as they do on a personal computer.
“It has to be easy and non-intrusive,” he said. “The easier you can make it for employees, the higher the adoption rate, the quicker the project will be successful and the more ROI you will achieve.”
Smits said systems must account for time worked but also assist with cost center management.
“There are so many people who are not behind a desk, so many organizations split time into two categories—HR and payroll time, and finance time,” Smits said. “What is happening with that time? What is the cost center and the project?”
Systems have to be able to glean data from other systems in an organization’s ecosystem, he said, not just from direct interaction with an employee.
When looking for a global solution, it must:
- Account for a mobile workforce
- Harvest time data automatically
- Manage compliance
- Be designed for scale
- Be configurable
- Work well with the existing ecosystem
Smits said a reputable solution provider will allow global payroll employees to focus on what’s right for their companies.
“Whatever your organization is the best in the world at, that’s your mission,” he said. “Your job shouldn’t be how to stay compliant in three countries or 30 countries. You need help with that.”
“Uncovering the Global Time and Gross Pay Automation Challenges” is currently available on-demand.
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Kerry Cole is Senior Editor for the Membership Publications at the APA and GPMI.