FEATURE INSIGHT
Payroll – complexion, complication
DanWilson, UKCountry Lead, NGAHuman Resources, outlines aspects of what is involved in keeping the UK paid
B eyond the payroll department, very little is known about the efforts that go into delivering accurate, compliant and secure payroll. It’s just expected that the correct salary will be credited in the right bank account each payroll run. For most, there is no need to know more than this, but for the rest of us it’s interesting to sometimes reflect on how we keep the UK paid. Ensuring data security Data security is of paramount importance. How we treat employee’s data and how we control it must be our number one priority. GDPR has impacted payroll delivery and placed further emphasis on how employees’ data are handled. While it hasn’t dramatically changed procedures, these were already aimed towards data privacy. It has put greater scrutiny on handling and storage to ensure compliance. Sharing payroll data is incredibly high risk. And so it’s vital to use secure data transfer measures or password protected emails. Within our own BPO (business process outsourcing) payroll processes, all communications are through our HRX Assist ticketing tool. This has the highest levels of security. Payroll communication should follow at least these rules: ● No pre-populating of employee emails (common in Outlook where a message has previously gone to a recipient). ● Whitelist so only pre-approved email addresses are valid as recipients.
● Specific naming format for attachments to avoid attachments in error. ● Final ‘tick box’ requiring any recipient to be selected again prior to sending.
and fair practice in line with the rest of the world. This has been hugely challenging for our payroll colleagues, and why there has been a rise in payroll complexity in many of these countries. The UK is not without change, but the requirements of payroll are slight. Changes to pension rules and auto-enrolment simply require adjustments to already imbedded procedures. The only benefit set by law in the UK is facilitating a company pension. Companies must now automatically enrol employees into a scheme, although the employee an opt out. This creates its own challenges, as outlined further on. Where we have seen change is in how taxes on benefits are paid. Traditionally, all were documented in a P11D return and the employee’s tax code adjusted; more often they are now run through payroll. This is particularly common where a company car has been replaced by can allowance to be used for a private vehicle. While elsewhere in the world there has been a notable change in the types of benefits, in the UK we tend still to opt for life and health related services and security. In Australasia, the Nordics and Northern Europe, there has been a rise in environmentally linked benefits, including cycle to work schemes. Employee benefits and compensation
...impacted payroll delivery
Entering payroll data Most payroll data is entered directly into a human resources (HR) system and interfaced to the payroll system. In most instances, payroll entry requires little change month-on-month, but there will always be the need to manually update fields (for example, absence, maternity, paternity, and ad hoc requests). Workforce legislation Other than gender pay reporting, there have been few significant changes to UK legislation recently and few are planned for the immediate future. This is one reason that saw the UK slide down the Global Payroll Complexity Index (http:// bit.ly/33JeOsZ) on this occasion. In many countries, particularly growing economies in Eastern Europe, South America and Africa, there has been an urgent need to bring employee protection and placed further emphasis on how employees’ data are handled
Employee leave ● Maternity/paternity – There has
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2019 | Issue 53 46
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