FEATURE TOPIC
Will more remote working help or hinder the customer experience? ND: I don’t think remote working necessarily impacts the customer experience. In fact, I think it probably improves customer service. Most customer service issues are now managed online anyway and for those that require the personal touch, remote working has popularised the use of video conversations, which humanises the customer experience process. Prior to the pandemic, most customer service issues would be handled via the phone, but remote working has encouraged the rapid adoption of remote video-based conversations to become the norm, and these can be managed anywhere in the world. Access to better technology should improve the customer experience journey, providing internet speeds and poor connectivity don’t further exacerbate existing issues. OD: It depends on where your customers are based. Many of our customers aren’t in the same country as us, and those that are, may not always be in the office themselves. Having the flexibility to work remotely means you have the flexibility to be available when most customers need you, if you have the tools required to communicate with your customers, which most organisations do now due to Covid. GK: Where the employee – ‘customer’ – can choose how they receive information, whether digital or printed, and the technology facilitates delivery, that’s a great help to customer experience. Our technology helps clients transform their payroll communications, reduce workloads, make cost savings, streamline processes and enhance employee experience – all of which can be done remotely. MM: Payroll professionals always aim to deliver the highest level of service. Due to the emotive subject that payroll is, it’s imperative that clients / customers continue to receive proactive and responsive service delivery to ensure tight deadlines are achieved, regardless of where payroll professionals are working. At BDO, we’ve invested heavily to ensure our technology allows us to deliver a strong service. All our payroll clients have a dedicated payroll team, to whom they have direct mobile phone access and Microsoft Team calling facilities. This ensures our clients can always contact their team and experience a strong service delivery, wherever their payroll team is based. SM: I don’t believe there’s been an impact
Has hybrid working made payroll more, or less, productive? Nick Day: I’d argue that a more motivated, happier workforce always results in a more productive workforce. Although I don’t have any specific statistics to back this up, my assumption would be that hybrid working has improved productivity within payroll, and that’s because hybrid working has improved the work-life balance for many payroll professionals. The saved commuting times and associated costs have enabled payroll professionals to achieve more in less time and spend less at the same time. Payroll professionals proved in the pandemic that they’re more than capable of processing accurate payrolls from remote locations. Subsequently, if hybrid working can be provided, I can see no reason why productivity would be impacted. On the contrary, I think in most instances, employers would see productivity improve. Olivia Dunham: I think this depends on the individual and their motivational needs. Most teams have become more productive, but possibly to the detriment of ‘down time’. We’ve become productive during times where we may have been doing something else for ourselves, especially if we’re not taking time off in lieu for the extra hours we’re putting in. I’ve certainly found I’m not using as many days’ holiday. Glyn King: Following the introduction of lockdown and enforced homeworking, we were inundated with clients asking us to help them transform their payroll communications. Entire organisations couldn’t access equipment to produce pay information in-house, and it was more important than ever to ensure people were paid accurately and on time. During this Jerome discussed this with: Nick Day ACIPP, managing director, JGA Recruitment Group Olivia Dunham ChFCIPPdip CPP, vice president of international payroll, Columbia Threadneedle Investments Glyn King, group managing director, Datagraphic Maria Mason MCIPPdip, partner, national payroll team / business services and outsourcing, BDO Stuart Matthews, head of payroll, Experian.
period, we guided teams through adopting digital payslips, using portals to share and receive important updates. And we took over printing and distributing paper documents at our secure site for payroll teams who needed employees to receive physical communications. Now that more teams are returning to the office, we’ve noticed a definite shift to a more hybrid working style. Clients can work remotely to automate the production of important pay and benefits information, share them securely and cut down time and costs of repetitive processes. In doing so, employees have 24-hour access to documents, leading to fewer pay-related queries and reprinted copies. Maria Mason: There’s no doubt BDO has seen an improvement in productivity recently in the national payroll team. We can attribute a large part of this to hybrid working and the flexibility it has given our staff. We’re also aware this couldn’t have been achieved without changing the technology platforms used to deliver the service and ensuring we had strong processes and procedures in place, enabling our staff to work from any location and continue to deliver the same high level of service. Stuart Matthews: After being forced to move our operations to remote working during the Covid-19 crisis, Experian then chose to offer a flexible working culture permanently, giving employees the choice to work remotely, in the office or a mix of both if they preferred. From a payroll perspective, we’ve enjoyed the flexibility and that’s helped our productivity. When you’re working in a global business like ours, it’s also great to get more facetime with colleagues around the world – technology can deliver that for us, but it’s taken a pandemic for us to really embrace it. Many of us are also keen to meet up in person regularly and stay in touch with colleagues beyond the virtual. Now that more teams are returning to the office, we’ve noticed a definite shift to
a more hybrid working style
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 84 | October 2022
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