A “utopian vision” of a single global payroll solution is attainable and will pay dividends for executives, payroll managers, and employees, a Neeyamo leader said in the Global Payroll Management Institute (GPMI) webinar “Understanding Payroll Transformation Through the Lens of People and Processes.”
Vivek Khanna, Chief Client Partner at Neeyamo, presented the webinar on behalf of its sponsor Neeyamo, a provider of HR technology, operations, and process consulting services.
“The most important part for a global payroll professional is to look at consolidated reporting, to be able to look at data in a quick and reasonable fashion,” Khanna said. “What’s the need? A single platform, looking at data that has been aggregated.”
He noted that any payroll-related data that must be re-entered is subject to mistakes, and may lead to noncompliance.
“Different solutions, different processes, and no globalization lead to errors because your methods and processes of validating inputs are not standardized and hence may not be followed diligently,” he said.
Khanna explored the global payroll service delivery models of outsourced, in-house, and hybrid. He then spent most of the webinar explaining the most common sources of inefficiency in global payroll. These are listed here in the order the audience identified them as their biggest problems:
- Regional legislation—25%
- Several payroll technologies—16%
- Multiple payroll providers—15%
- Evolving workforce—15%
- Different pay cycles—8%
- Multiple currencies—7%
- Regional benefits—5%
- Multiple languages—5%
- Varying delivery models—4%
“Regional legislation is always the biggest challenge because if you are located in one country and managing 10, 20, 30 countries, it is very difficult and maybe nearly impossible for you to maintain knowledge of multiple legislations,” Khanna said of the attendees’ top choice.
He said a single global payroll solution benefits executives through the standpoint of visibility, payroll managers through accuracy and efficiency, and employees who can access information from a single source.
“From a user experience standpoint, all of our corporations are now looking to focus on our colleagues’ or employees’ experience,” Khanna said. “If you have different technologies, different systems for payroll and time, the employees have a degree of dissatisfaction or do not have an optimal experience.”
He also touched on the benefits of operating in the cloud and the need for multilingual support.
“Any change, even change for the better, will come with challenges,” he cautioned. “We have to get realigned to a new way of doing things. From a payroll transformation standpoint, we have aligned the vision that is single, integrated, and provides all of the functionality in terms of language and compliance to ensure the best experience for the payroll team and the employees.”
The webinar is currently available on demand.
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Kerry Cole is Senior Editor of Membership Publications for the American Payroll Association (APA) and GPMI.