In his seminal book on business strategy, “Good to Great,” Jim Collins wrote that the most important step for all great companies is to get the right people in the right seats on an “organizational bus.”
Aside from being a vivid and memorable metaphor, understanding this concept has done much in the last 20 years to promote the idea of talent management as central to everything organizations must master to be successful.
The idea of talent mobility takes this half a step further. Defined in its most essential terms, talent mobility is getting the right people in the right seats at the right time, wherever those seats may be. Note that the only significant narrowing of the “Good to Great” strategy is the element of time and location.
Global Marketplace Opens Demands
Mobility, and a mobile, or more broadly a more agile workforce, is about being able to quickly anticipate and respond to business needs by getting skills where they are needed rapidly and efficiently. This idea has gained much prominence in senior leadership and strategic planning circles over the last five years.
The advent of COVID-19, lockdowns, and the dominance of remote work have greatly accelerated a long-term trend to shift the focus of conversation around talent mobility from a geographic, financial, and logistical one to more strategic questions related to identification, deployment, and engagement of talent in a global marketplace.
Thus, the concept of talent mobility has expanded to include a broad spectrum of organizational needs around employee mobility, tapping into both internal and external markets for talent and assuring that the deployment of such talent is rapid, efficient, and positive. These topics barely hint at the incredible depth of organizational demands and resulting market resources in a very exciting and innovative talent mobility marketplace. For example, service providers to the talent mobility market encompass everything from the traditional mobility companies—offering relocation and assignment management services as diverse as moving, temporary living, and intercultural training—to disruptor companies offering unimagined new ways to identify, screen, place, engage, and develop talent.
And yet, amidst all of this disruption and thriving innovation, is it ironic that in many ways the foundation for all this comes back to the most basic and prosaic question in all of employment history: “How do we pay employees?” Somehow, the idea of the boss handing over a shekel or a couple of denarius for work completed seems far removed from the innovations powering global talent mobility initiatives.
Yet, the questions surrounding how to pay, how to measure and account for that pay, report that pay, pay tax on the payment, stay in compliance with all of the myriad jurisdictions and laws, and somehow consolidate all of that data into usable decision-making tools are absolutely central to the entire talent mobility strategy. Do these things well, and all else rests on that solid foundation. Fail, and the foundation unfortunately crumbles.
Global Payroll Ripe in Talent Goals
According to a 2019 article in Human Resources Today titled “Employee Engagement,” studies show that a sure way to destroy employee engagement is with even one or two payroll errors. Chronic pay issues destroy employee morale and trust in the company and its ability to fulfill promises. Non-compliance issues and tax errors can be costly for companies and only distract from core revenue enhancing activities for leadership.
The inexorable process of globalization has further complicated organizational requirements. Subscribers of GPMI know that paying employees across multiple jurisdictions and under different tax regimes, with multiple filing requirements, across our planet is complicated enough. Exchange rates, tax rules, and banking requirements all contribute to muddying an already very complex process. Now, we add to the mobility landscape the complexity of a full spectrum of different employment types—from traditional expatriates, to temporary and contract employees, permanent moves, commuters, extended business travelers, and other third-country nationals (TCNs)—and it all adds up to the payroll function of today being a challenging place to be.
Innovator Thomas Edison has been quoted as saying, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” On a positive note, there is tremendous opportunity in global payroll, albeit with some work, to help organizations achieve the most strategic and important talent goals. Global payroll by necessity touches multiple human resource information systems (HRIS), multiple vendors (including immigration, tax, and mobility), and accompanying vendor systems.
A payroll system that integrates all of the data from these systems and provides accessible analytical tools can be an invaluable tool in decision-making. For such tools to be useful to organizations, they need to be meaningful, real-time, and accessible. For data to be meaningful, it needs to be pulled from all relevant systems (often very disparate), put together to establish consistency, and extracted to a manageable view. Because payroll represents the one part of the organization with an absolute imperative for this integration, it can sometimes be the organization’s best opportunity for providing these analytical tools.
Data analytics reflecting costs, compensation, expenses, and timing allow organizations to make strategic decisions about structuring talent initiatives and growth plans.
“We’ve purpose-built our systems to be able to successfully integrate data across multiple platforms, as this is an essential part of our customers’ talent journey,” said Brian Medd-Sygrove, Chief Commercial Officer of Global EMS.
At the intersection of payroll and talent mobility, sometimes it’s not the macro data that is most imperative. It’s a timely and practical solution that is necessary. Katie Stanowski, a senior Global Payroll Account Manager with Global EMS recently shared two separate customer needs that surfaced just weeks apart. In the first, a customer had hired an employee for its entity in Singapore and needed that employee up and running, and being paid immediately, despite this being a dormant entity.
In the second, a customer was considering expansion into Mongolia. Singapore is obviously a very transparent business location, with clearly defined rules and processes, but in this case time was extremely tight—in fact, immediate—and the person very senior. Whereas, Stanowski said, “With the Mongolia case we were required to run numerous scenarios and simulations to get the business all the information leaders needed to make their decisions.”
Yet, understanding the rules and implications of those rules, and being able to adapt these quickly to the organization’s requirements, is critical to building a mobile talent capability.
So, an effective global payroll program must overcome and manage tremendous complexity, provide the organization it serves with the analytical tools to navigate the future, and provide flexible on-time solutions to urgent business needs. If this isn’t enough for payroll leaders and their organizations to deal with, providing an excellent employee experience has become an even more critical part of payroll’s mandate.
Payroll Is Enabler of Strategy
Today, there is an expectation that payroll will provide such things as pay on demand, online and real-time visibility, and access to pay, statements, and bank accounts. And while employees want the flexibility and self-service of online and app-driven services, they also want push button access to live support. Organizations today are increasingly aware that what sounded like unreasonable demands even one or two years ago are actually key elements of a positive, convenient, pain-free employee experience.
Peter Holland, CEO and Founder of Global EMS, said, “By removing the stress and complexity from payroll for customers and employees, the goal must be to improve the employee experience and therefore employee engagement. Employee engagement has become a critical metric for companies looking to increase revenues and reduce costs.”
These gains are also often very tangible and quantifiable. For example, in one case study conducted by a customer of Global EMS, employee feedback on their expense management app indicated that each employee had saved an average of 1½ hours per month in processes and follow-up on expense reports. This customer found that it had saved more than $800,000 while also eliminating a significant inconvenience for employees.
“It’s the right technology, not just more technology,” Holland said.
Payroll can be integral to, and a critical enabler of, its organization’s talent management and mobility strategies. To go back to our bus metaphor, payroll departments may not decide who boards the bus, but they are absolutely essential to assure they board on time, with the right fare, and that they are happy with the ride.
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Michael Ray, CRP, SPHR, is Senior Vice President Americas for Global EMS, a service-led, tech-enabled payroll solutions firm. He has more than 25 years in talent management, which has encompassed senior leadership roles in customer success, business development, consulting, and supply chain management for companies in global mobility, global talent, and software as a service.