Post-pandemic Payroll lessons

During the pandemic, the UK went into lockdown, and many companies were forced to work from home. As a result, processes underwent rapid digitalisation, and businesses had to adapt quickly to changing procedures, such as the furlough scheme, putting redundancies through the system and people working from home.

With people continuing to work from home, it’s important for a company’s HR and payroll teams to understand all the procedures and regulations that may have changed due to continued hybrid working, to ensure they are paid correctly.

As a result of this, outsourcing payroll has become extremely important, as regulations are changing constantly and being compliant is becoming more difficult.

Lesson 1 - Embrace digitalisation and integration 

The digitalisation of payroll has completely changed the way we do payroll, time and attendance and HR tasks. Digitising your payroll system can help reduce errors and make completing tasks much quicker and easier.

The CIPP (Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals) stated that “Payroll is an ideal candidate for robotic process automation (RPA).”

RPA can be integrated with existing systems, and increases accuracy rates, minimises errors and reduces manual entry, all of which have massive cost saving benefits. When you unify your employee data across your new and existing platforms you will increase the quality of your data by reducing admin and associated errors.

At Payescape we’ve partnered with many widely recognised Accounting, HR and Time Management providers to ensure that our solutions integrate seamlessly with our customers’ existing solutions.

Lesson 2 - It’s important to incorporate compassion and empathy into the core of your employee management 

With the effects of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis continuing to impact employees, compassion and empathy is extremely important as a lot of people are worried and struggling to pay their bills. This highlights the importance of updating your payroll system to ensure that employees are paid correctly and on time.

Furthermore, consistently making payroll mistakes will damage employee morale, creating high employee turnover.

Lesson 3 - Businesses have to adapt quickly

A survey with 250 HR and payroll managers say that almost all businesses (94%) have experienced payroll issues during 2021. Following on from this, nearly half of those surveyed (46%) say that HR and payroll teams had to work overtime to stay on top of changes to furloughs or employment wage subsidy schemes.

Not only this but a third of those surveyed reported a 37% increase in payroll errors, causing them to have a lack of time to undertake business critical tasks.

According to HRnews, 65% of employees that experienced payroll issues had to borrow money from friends and family or had to take out high-interest loans to try and cover the money they should have been paid.

However, if businesses outsource their payroll system, it will help alleviate some of the stresses businesses have to deal with when needing to adapt quickly to changing climates. Additionally, those who outsource payroll from a team of CIPP certified professionals, such as Payescape, will have the benefit of them being up to date with all things payroll, helping to minimise mistakes.

Lesson 4 - You should always advocate for paying the real living wage

Many employers still currently pay minimum wage, of which is currently £9.18, however national living wage is £9.50 per hour. Despite this, the real living wage is £10.90 for the UK and £11.50 for London. Understanding the difference between minimum wage and the real living wage, and the negative impacts of the cost of living crisis, if your company can afford to pay the real living wage you should.

This will help to improve employee morale and retention as well as the reputation of your company.

To learn more about how updating your payroll system could work for you, book a demo with Payescape today.