How payroll can prevent a breakdown in employee trust

With workers concerned about their health and job security, it is vital payroll teams look at what they can do to improve confidence, so workers don’t lose faith in the company they work for. When the bedrock of trust between an employer and employees is the payment they receive for their day’s work, this is an area that simply can’t go awry.

Yet, with so much upheaval during 2020 – impacting construction sites, the roll out of furlough schemes, fluctuating staff numbers, etc. – keeping a clear track of who is working where and when will not have been easy without a workforce management system in place.

These systems are not there simply to handle the scheduling of employee timetables, they also keep track of the actual hours worked – monitoring overtime, lateness and sick days for thousands of workers, whether they are full time, part time, contractors or sub-contractors, across multiple sites.

Workforce management eradicates manual systems and eliminates the potential for human error – as nothing is misplaced or miscalculated. Furthermore, it provides a clear audit trail – helping businesses comply with regulations covered under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS).

When a workforce management system is integrated with payroll, it will not just ensure accuracy, however. It also allows companies to automate processes and replace paper-based systems, such as payslips, with a digital version.

When people are rightfully concerned about infections spreading across the workplace, you don’t want to have project managers travelling from location to location to hand out payslips. Instead you can deploy a self-serve system with workers accessing payslips on their mobile phones or home computers.

This helps to reduce human contact, but it also prevents situations occurring where site managers are having to handle disputes over pay – as workers can log in and see what’s happening for themselves.

There are numerous additional benefits, not least the fact that it removes the need for payroll teams to provide copies of past payslips, P45s or P60s.

Payroll departments are also no longer required to update employee details. Workers can access their own personal data and change the information – e.g. addresses, bank details, etc – helping payroll teams become compliant with data regulations.

Significantly, self-serve reduces the time taken up answering queries. And, when payroll doesn’t need to touch the data, as it’s now being inputted by the employees, it also reduces the potential for keying errors.

While workforce management and self-serve portals make the lives of the payroll team easier, the main gain has to be the reassurance this will provide employees. It increases accuracy, reduces human contact and helps them answer any questions they have much faster.

With greater levels of automation and streamlined processes, these solutions will also help construction companies emerge from this most challenging of years in the best shape possible.