The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown is the ultimate business stress test for payroll, payroll-in-the-cloud specialists said in the GPMI webinar “Ensure Your Payroll and HR Systems Are Ready for the Future of Work.”
“Now more than ever, our resilience, our ability to adapt and to bounce back, is going to be the most important aspect in our recovery,” said Todd Asevedo, CPP, SPHR, Global Vice President and Chief Expert, Pay and Reward Solutions CoE for SAP SuccessFactors. “Payroll needs to be flexible. Payroll needs continuity, and it needs to be able to do it with speed and agility.”
Gareth Roberts, Alight/NGA HR Cloud Deployment Director for the U.K., Ireland, and North America, told webinar participants that the future is calling.
“The processes that were designed years ago as an on-premise solution are, for most, not relevant today,” he said. “They are heavily reliant on hardware, people, and processes. They are simply not where they need them to be. The time to consider your transformation is now, not in 20 years’ time.”
Presenters asked webinar participants about their top concerns or barriers to moving their payroll to the cloud, and 51% said it was security.
“Cloud companies have more resources to keep systems secure and running,” Asevedo said. “They can’t operate in this space if they haven’t solved these concerns. By bringing it to a cloud provider, you’re ensuring that you’re a lot safer around these concerns than you would be by keeping it in house. It will be better than anything you can do with your own resources.”
They said payroll in the cloud is particularly important during the pandemic lockdown for these following reasons:
- Flexibility to quickly reclassify workers for the job retention scheme
- Flexibility to run payroll while working from home
- Flexibility to automate more of payroll while operating with fewer people
- Flexibility to react to rapidly changing legislation
Marcos Sueros, Field Solution Manager with Alight/NGA HR, walked participants through the steps to a successful cloud implementation, which included the following:
- Discovery
- Strategy and value
- Processes and functions
- Technology and architecture
- Implementation and roadmap
- Final decision
The free webinar, sponsored by Alight/NGA HR, is available on demand until 30 June 2021.
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Kerry Cole is Senior Editor of Membership Publications for the American Payroll Association (APA) and the Global Payroll Management Institute (GPMI).