The future of global payroll is in technology, which means an exciting outlook for global payroll professionals whose talents will be well utilized in more strategic and data-driven ways. The sentiment came from two Immedis executives during the GPMI webinar “A Focus on the Future: Innovation in Global Payroll.”
“Payroll talent is wildly underutilized,” Immedis CEO Ruairi Kelleher told webinar participants. “Utilizing technology will allow you to utilize the talent that is there much more effectively. The right payroll talent has to fit the right payroll strategy.”
Kelleher said the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear that technology today is all-important.
“My parents had never heard of Zoom, and now they’re teaching me how to use it,” he said. “This technology that has been brought to the market, how will that change the landscape of global payroll?”
Immedis Chief Commercial Officer Mark Graham said that as he talks to customers and organizations around the world, global payroll professionals are passionate because they know they can shape the future of their profession.
“Innovation means change, and hopefully change for the better,” he said.
Citing studies that show 49% of workers will start a new job search after only two problems with their paychecks, he said technology will allow for accuracy and compliance.
“At the end of the day, you can have free coffees and free lunches and whatnot, but you are going into the office to get paid,” Graham said. “If you have problems with your paycheck, you’re really challenged. That screams off the page to me.”
Both speakers said the advent of on-demand pay, while in its infancy, is already driving new automation and efficiencies in payroll.
Manual effort means that you’re open to errors, and errors mean inaccurate payroll processing, which in turn means inaccurate reporting.
They touted innovation through integration, saying that it will take organizations from:
- Information storage across disparate systems to a single source of truth
- Extensive administration to value-add tasks
- Manual data uploads to the automated flow of information
- Reporting and data inconsistency to reliable, accurate oversight
- Risk of noncompliance to compliance-led processes
In response to a webinar participant’s question on how to build a business case for improved technology, Graham said it is the most important goal for a payroll department.
“It’s getting people [in the company] to go on the journey with them, making them think it’s their idea,” he said. “The best way of doing that is to show them how they will benefit at the end of this journey. So many can benefit from a payroll transformation.”
The free webinar is available on demand until 31 August 2021.
Do you like our content? Join the GPMI community to get free education and articles straight to your inbox!
.png?sfvrsn=517d60e7_0 "Kerry_Cole (3)")
Kerry Cole is Senior Editor of Membership Publications for the American Payroll Association (APA) and the Global Payroll Management Institute (GPMI).