How can employee communications technology overhaul your workload?
Glyn King, group managing director of Datagraphic explains how communications technology can help to remove some of the manual tasks performed by the payroll team
A s the turbulent economic get it wrong. But, beyond routine payroll functions, emerging challenges place extra pressure on resources. So, how does this affect the day-to-day job of communicating pay and benefits accurately? Beyond managing the complexities of pay, deductions, submissions to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and employee communications, payroll professionals repeatedly face obstacles on the road. Significant updates such as automatic landscape continues to impact everyone’s wallets, payroll professionals can’t afford to enrolment (AE), real time information, the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) and the new health and social care levy are just a few topics organisations have had to navigate and absorb. Payroll and human resource (HR) functions must understand and implement changes, and present them in meaningful ways, often with the associated workload. Increased manual workload The most recent Payroll Statistics Survey Report by the CIPP showed that due to the CJRS, 40% of respondents have had to calculate redundancy or maternity pay manually. Only 8% of organisations used a system which did this automatically. The report can be located here: http://ow.ly/ NViZ30sooe5. Responding to these manual calculations and communicating changes to pay and benefits are additional tasks on top of the already demanding workload. Consequently, producing and distributing the additional correspondence distracts payroll teams from making the necessary ad hoc calculations. Providing digital options Communication is critical in payroll. From sending digital documents such as payslips or issuing hard copies to pay-related queries, payroll teams are often overloaded with manual tasks and employee
requests. Teams must engage the core communication skills needed to develop a positive employee experience. Creating more digitally accessible payroll documents in one secure location is a great way to build a strong employee relationship effectively. Employees feel empowered to review, reprint and query their information without disturbing their payroll or HR colleagues. Self-service digital portals like Datagraphic’s Epay equip HR and payroll teams with the tools to share payslips, P60s and P45s easily, along with other mandatory or adhoc company updates. This makes the communications process with staff much smoother. Lindsay Kirk, an implementation consultant at Datagraphic, says, “Lots of clients use our Epay company docs feature to share general updates like employee policies and company announcements. In recent years, some clients have developed their portal to include added functionality to publish personalised letters about furlough and holidays specifically to employees, that otherwise would have been handled manually.” Routine duties to communicate Updates to policy or legislation don’t stop when they’re introduced. The ongoing duty to communicate complex information with eligible employees, whether new starters, current staff members or past colleagues, places more demands on already busy payroll teams. Although AE came into play in 2012, payroll and pension teams must adhere to cyclical correspondence to remain compliant. For example, preparing communications to explain the importance of saving for the future and writing to employees to opt in, or when they reach AE eligibility. Without technology, this production process is manual and time- consuming, which is where automation is beneficial, even if only for several people. For example, engaging and educating employees about AE was a daunting
prospect that needed unfeasible resources, for Scotmid Co-operative. To improve the accuracy and integrity of producing the correct mailing at the right time, they switched to using Datagraphic’s Aceni platform. Using Aceni, they could outsource the printing, collating and despatching of mailings to clear their workload and save on the cost of additional recruitment. Read about Scotmid Co-operative here: http:// ow.ly/SPjY30sooee, and the Aceni platform here: http://ow.ly/fGhz30sooej. From the recipient’s perspective While the focus on automating payroll tends to fall on the teams that carry out the tasks, we mustn’t forget the employee experience. Payroll-related changes can be just as complex for the recipient to understand. For employees, not only can shifting to digital processes provide convenient access, but it can also reduce manual requests for duplicate documents. Transport for London chose Datagraphic’s secure online payslips portal to automate the production and distribution of payroll information. By integrating Epay into a single sign-on from their rewards platform, employees now have 24-hour access to their pay documents, allowing them to view their information anytime. Read the associated case study here: http://ow.ly/ nV1X30sooer. Legislation and policy will always create a flux for payroll and HR departments. However, embedding the right tools to automate and streamline the response is the key to cultivating a productive, effective and, most importantly, helpful function. As a supplier of one of the UK’s market- leading employee communications and online payslips portals, at Datagraphic we see first-hand how technology plays a crucial role in helping payroll teams automate manual tasks and present information in meaningful ways. Read about the online payslips portals here: http://ow.ly/lt0830sooey. n
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 83 | September 2022
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