There are usually three to four key initiatives that, when completed, can make a significant difference in a company's payroll performance. Consider these elements as a start:

Set up end-to-end governance: It all starts with end-to-end governance. If all aspects of your workforce and elements that affect pay — from HR, IT, operations and finance — live under the same umbrella, it provides your organization with a true holistic view of your current end-to-end systems and processes affecting your employees. Ensure that you're identifying all source-to-gross input control groups, outputs and policy decision-maker teams that affect payroll and set up a communication and decision infrastructure to proactively look end to end at the impacts, benefits and implications. This will later become imperative to build the gross for payroll.
Focus on source-to-gross: Interestingly, almost 70% of mistakes in payroll are found at the source-to-gross stage, which is where the different salary gross component and tax treatments come together. Once your company sets up end-to-end governance, the next focus should center around automation. By automating inputs, as well as control totals, your organization will be able to capture changes and showcase (or alert you to) any patterns or red flags. Additionally, scrubbing data beforehand prevents any formatting data errors, which in turn prevents issues with the gross-to-net calculation.
Partner with a software/service provider: Partnering with your software and service providers is key. Most companies have a hybrid service delivery model that includes in-house and outsourced payrolls. It is key to partner with your providers to be able to leverage the new technology advancements and features, while also provide feedback regarding pain points. Additionally, providers help point out the gaps technology can solve and regulatory change features that enable the systems to stay ahead of the compliance and regulatory changes.
Deploy leading practices: Finally, it is critical to identify key leading practices that will have a big impact in improving the quality of the payroll and your employee experience. Put together a road map with specific checkpoints and communicate the impact to your teams. With the use of these leading practices and the evolution of the payroll service delivery model, payroll teams are changing and focusing on automation, problem-solving skills, metrics, change management and communications.

The pandemic has pushed companies to re-evaluate and re-imagine their payroll function. These companies are successfully elevating and transforming their payroll delivery by proactively diagnosing issues, prioritizing its people experiences and leveraging the payroll data to better facilitate future business decisions. If you're considering enacting or actively engaging in any of these steps, you're not only "ready for the future of work" but you're a step ahead.

Instant Insights /

4 ways to re-evaluate your payroll one year into the pandemic

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