True Love Lies in Payroll and HR

In today’s world, “human capital management“ seems to be the hot topic of choice. A complete HCM solution covers all the people related processes and data in an organisation, and by its very nature can get pretty full on and complicated to implement, with greater upheaval and cost involved. For that reason, it is not always appropriate for an organisation to consider changing all aspects of their HCMin one fell swoop.

So for organisations trying to balance budget with impact, where should they begin?

An ideal starting point is to look at integrating the payroll and HR systems. The relationship of these two functions is a tale that has long been told; done well, payroll and HR work in perfect harmony to deliver significant benefits to an organisation. Let’s explore the key benefits of integrating your payroll and HR systems; why do payroll and HR go together?

Both payroll and HR deal with employees.

A successful setup for payroll and HR needs to recognise both the similarities and differences between the two functions. Whilst they have distinct roles, they also share one commonality that is crucial for the organisation’s success; its people. Payroll deals with the financial compensation of employees and ensuring they get paid accurately and on time. HR deals with employee relations during their tenure with the organisation.

Payroll and HR processes are intrinsically linked.

Both functions are involved with employee transactions from hire to retire, including start date, salary changes, bonus payments, benefit deductions, leave requests and employee exits, not to mention the countless working legislations and statutory pay schemes that organisations have to manage and adhere to.

Each function must be sensitive to the timing and complexity of each other’s roles; for example, new pay changes cannot be processed and distributed by payroll unless HR have engaged with all the relevant people beforehand. Likewise, HR must support the timing and complexity of payroll processing, other they will face will face engagement issues from employees when their pay is late on inaccurate.

Payroll and HR both use and protect employee data.

Payroll and HR are both privy to confidential employee data, including financial information, NI numbers and home addresses. The two functions must work together to ensure that this information doesn’t fall prey to unauthorised individuals or companies. One setup for security and privacy of the data is more cost effective and powerful.

Furthermore, by strengthening the link between payroll and HR and storing employee data in one place, the accuracy and integrity of data significantly improves. There is only one place to go for information and everyone gets a single version of the truth. Administrators are more efficient because they only have to make changes once, and it also makes tasks such as report writing much quicker and accurate

Why do everything twice when you can do it once?

The process of setting up a new system can be incredible costly, lengthy and complex. Therefore, organisations should look to set up systems at the same time where possible. This is where the integration of payroll and HR makes so much sense, as there are many savings and efficiencies to be had.

Instead of doing everything twice, an integrated payroll and HR solution requires only one business case to the board, one procurement process, one set of costs, and one implementation. This also means minimal disruption to your employees, which is a significant benefit considering the sensitivity around employee relations and pay.

A longer term consideration and benefit comes in the form of easier upgrades. The average tenure of a payroll system is longer that that of an HR system, which results in higher cost and complexity when upgrading these systems separately. With an integrated payroll and HR setup like ours, the solution will evolve and grow with you, giving you technology that stays current and compliant without the need to restart the whole procurement process again

In the face of growing complexity and challenges in the workplace, integrating your payroll and HR is a no brainer. Help your employees save time and be much more efficient, whilst delivering greater compliance and cost savings to your organisation.

Payroll and HR go hand in hand; they’re the greatest love story ever told.

SD Worx Human Capital Management