GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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maintaining those customizations. And that can be very, very complex and difficult,” explains Justine Janssen, Chief Strategy Officer of Dayforce. “In the case of Dayforce, it is a single application where you’re doing configuration. You’re going in and you’re using dropdowns and choices in the solution to build out the rules that ultimately drive the configuration or the management of the CBAs. So we, Dayforce, maintain our solution, and it’s not up to the Government of Canada to maintain their individual customizations.” 6. Remember the people receiving the pay : The Phoenix debacle underscores the importance of trust between organisations and workers. This $3 billion problem only accounts for the cost to the government — tens of thousands of public servants experienced real losses and stress from underpayments and overpayments. “My longest period of no payment was 68 days, and that’s including government pay and disability,” recalls Jennifer Carr. “I was a single mom — I still am — of three children, single income, you know, make over $100,000 as a public servant, and, you know, I am crying in my living room, trying to get anybody just to give me something so that I could pay my bills.” In this time of talent shortages, organisations need to do everything they can to build trust and foster engagement with their associates. Getting pay right is the No. 1 item on that list.
Sadly, the failure of the Phoenix pay system and its ongoing effects are not an isolated event. Governments, businesses and organisations in Australia, San Francisco, the U.K. and Papua New Guinea have all recently experienced pay scandals. Members of the payroll community around the world have countless examples of how payroll transformations went wrong or just barely avoided disaster. In the end, the Phoenix pay story underscores the importance of taking payroll seriously and making sure that payroll leaders are at the table when making big decisions. All episodes of Phoenixed: Inside Canada’s Payroll Disaster are available to download now wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The GPA welcomes your feedback on the series to ensure that the story of this payroll scandal effects change.
Author: Grace Dobush
Grace is the managing editor at Storythings, which co-produced the Phoenixed podcast. Her journalism career has included
work for Fortune, Handelsblatt, Wired, Quartz and the Economist, plus custom content for organizations including Cisco and the Urban Land Institute. She’s a proud Midwesterner based in Berlin, Germany, since 2017. Learn more about Grace here.
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