PayrollOrg and Immedis, a UKG Company, recently conducted an annual survey to better understand where global organizations are in the maturity cycle regarding digital transformation of payroll processes and the benefits they are experiencing as a result.
Survey respondents hailed from a variety of industries with the vast majority (80%) operating in jurisdictions beyond just the United States. Most organizations (71%) represented in the survey have more than 1,000 employees. Nearly 75% of respondents were payroll professionals and are in roles such as specialists (29%), managers (31%), or directors (21%).
In the work that Immedis does with multinational organizations that are looking to transform their global payroll function, we continue to hear their desire to increase the ability of payroll teams to provide more strategic value to the business. Multinational organizations worldwide are using varying ways of delivering payroll—in house and outsourced—and multiple disparate systems. In the wake of global inflation and increased attention on employee costs, the attention on payroll data has become even more heightened. These themes are reflected throughout the responses of our survey participants.
Digital Transformation
Organizations globally are harnessing digital capabilities to continuously improve customer and employee experiences, lower costs, and sustain a competitive advantage. One of the biggest leaps from the 2022 survey is the number of respondents who are currently undergoing a complete digital transformation. Respondents said the transformation is driven by payroll’s ability to enhance and improve the organization’s employee experience and enable their payroll teams to catch up to the rest of the organization around digital transformation.
Budget and Staffing Shortages
Limited budgets and staffing deficits are on the minds of payroll professionals when considering whether their organizations will be able to make the investment in new technology innovations. Prioritization of the areas that will have the greatest impact on business goals and productivity will be critical for organizations trying to balance the need for digital transformation with precious budget and staffing resources.
Elevating the Payroll Function
In our 2023 survey, the response data shows that payroll feels that it is—or should be—working to strategically elevate its role within the organization, and that digital transformation is the key to help accomplish this goal. The payroll teams that have undergone the transformation and are leveraging technology in their payroll processes realized that they have more time to develop a workforce strategy and are able to generate analytics and insights for the CFO and other lines of business within their organizations.
The overall sentiment is that multinational organizations are experiencing a wave of technology transformation, and they are acting upon it. While many payroll teams are in the early stages of their journey, those that completed theirs are reaping the benefits of automation and driving their payroll teams forward into a more strategic function in the business.