Top Four Trends in Payroll Management for 2017

Payroll Management in corporate and small businesses over the past few years have rapidly adapted to and kept in pace with the evolving world around technology and its innovations. Long gone are those days when employee wages were calculated manually. Payroll process automation using pre-defined software and templates is increasingly being used by businesses across various domains. HR is now capitalizing its workforce to focus on business critical activities that speeds-up the organization’s corporate value and market position. Technology has a major role in this modernization and the transformation is not seen to cease anytime soon. Below are the top four trends for payroll in 2017.

• Integrated standalone business units

Outsourcing has always had a demanding market value among organizations that set cost-cutting and improved operation functionalities as a priority. The shift towards process outsourcing has had vendors extend their service offering by providing solutions for entire business units, allowing added benefits to gain a competitive advantage. In Human Resources, recruitment, talent management, payroll and other standalone processes have been united into a single entity to enable greater visibility with the top management and allow sole ownership of entire HR database. Integrating Payroll and HR outsourcing can lead to efficient business practices through centralized systems that give easy access to all data and information through one common service provider. Integrated processes expand business opportunities through the efficient use of workforce that has been unchained from tedious tasks. Unified systems increase the chances of error-free operation and more engagement towards strategic tasks.  This practice has been and will still continue to impact business development.

•  Acquainting to cloud-based services

A few years ago, businesses were aiming for the cloud, but in 2017, most of them are already there and have completely shifted their operations and database to the cloud. Payroll is one such business function that is increasingly being accessed through the cloud. Payroll operations survey conducted by Deloitte in 2014 revealed that 14% of respondents were already using cloud-based payroll management systems and about 26% of them considered this a possibility in the near future. This trend is increasingly being considered while strategizing business operations to improve efficiency and accuracy. It needs less maintenance and a smaller investment in infrastructure. Data records can be accessed anywhere at individual convenience. Going on the cloud has many benefits as opposed to conventional on-premise installations and can effortlessly keep pace with the innovations around technology through automated updates and simplified interfaces.

• Mobility through smart applications

Payroll applications on mobile devices are massively being promoted among managers and HR leads and are the most sought after trend. It carries huge potential to increase employee engagement and business capabilities. Who would not want to be able to access data when on the go? Employees or managers who are traveling around the cloud would want to easily have access to their records and be able to modify and save data as well. Technology developers are investing in such applications that provide user interfaces where employers can edit, upload and track payroll and employees can view pays slips, monitor work timings, leave records, raise queries and communicate through emails, all from a single hand-held device. Mobile applications can maintain transparency throughout the organization via a common user portal.

• New compliances for data security

Unlike conventional in-house practices, contemporary process around payroll management involves a lot of file sharing and data transfer. The need to protect and bring into place data security compliances will definitely be one of the top concerns CHROs and managers consider while adapting to new technologies. Payroll management processing handles critical business and employee details that must be dealt with great care. Catering to this, the EU has established the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that empowers all its citizens to prepare for a data-driven world and the regulations needed to safeguard all forms of data. Since its approval earlier in 2016, it has been greatly influencing large and small companies to consider data security with high importance. The regulation imposes severe data subject rights and breach penalties that mandatorily obliges all businesses to adapt to data protection right away, as all the compliances under GDPR will be in effect from May 2018.