One of the most important responsibilities of the HR management department of an organization is payroll processing. Due to the shift to remote work enforced by the social distancing norms to curb the spread of COVID19, there has been a major transformation in the payroll strategies.
Although the past few years have seen a lot of changes in the payroll generation process when it comes to the usual approach to the routine tasks, the pandemic has highlighted a lot more inconsistencies in them. Thus, it has become crucial for HR management professionals to rethink the process for the year ahead.
We’ve listed below some of the most prominent trends seen this year when it comes to payroll and respective strategies to adopt that will help businesses stay ahead of competition:
Automation of the tedious tasks:
The purpose of automation is to allocate repetitive tasks that require no human involvement to a software so you can invest your time and energy into something more impactful. The manual calculations required for payroll processing can be prone to mistakes and require a lot of time & effort.
The automation of the payroll process with the help of paycheck software ensures that all payroll details of an employee are accurate, and are calculated without causing any mistakes. The software also helps in maintaining and tracking all details of an employee apart from their salary details, which has become essential since most of them are working remotely.
Use of ESS for transparency in processes:
For employees to have complete information about their salary structure and the received payments along with deductions, HRs need to be able to provide answers in order to keep any confusion at bay. The Employee Self Service portals(ESS) provide employees online access to their salary information.
It also lets them update their personal information online, upload documents, apply for reimbursements and see the amounts they receive when they are paid. This will introduce more transparency in the processes and ease HR functions significantly.
Inclination towards outsourcing:
A lot of small businesses that want to automate the payroll process but don’t want to hire an in-house team have turned towards third-party payroll services. Keeping in mind that many companies have decided to continue working remotely in future and there will be no dedicated office space, outsourcing services seems like a good decision.
Considering payroll tools have eased the process of paying employees on time, it saves companies from the need to hire a HR who will overlook the process. Also, payroll service providers offer additional security features that prevent frauds and data loss which will lead to their services being adopted more openly.
Collaboration of banking & payroll activities:
Another popular trend that will gain momentum in the forthcoming years is the integration of banks with payroll softwares to directly pay employees. The initial payroll software were meant to just generate employee salaries and related taxes. Banks never provided the option to pay employees from the banking platform.
Now banks offer flexible payroll system integration and provide a number of payment modes. This becomes a win-win situation for both the bank as well as the organization as banks get a steady flow of cash and organizations have a salary payment process that is convenient, quick and hassle-free.
Conclusion:
With cloud-based payroll software there is greater reliability and security in the payroll processes. Along with integrating HR and accounting functions, a cloud payroll software reduces business costs and solves critical financial management issues for companies. The coming future will see massive adoption of cloud based technology by organizations to increase the efficiency of their payroll operations.