that allow different software applications to connect) or iPaaS (Integration Platforms as a Service), cloud-based software models that enable organisations to connect different apps, data sources, and systems. It’s true to say that some integrated offerings have a weak module in their set-up (and vendors would privately agree with me!), whereas with the second option the client could select ‘best of breed’. Additionally, even with some unrequired modules ‘switched off’, the client still carries some of the overall cost for them being present in an integrated product. Right now, the client had no immediate requirement for a Recruitment function, although Learning & Development had been discussed for the future. After another cup of Yorkshire tea and a chocolate Danish, I started to list the contenders and outline the pros and cons for each one.
tech providers, so demos could be appreciably longer to fit that in. My visit to the engineering firm in Cambridge a couple of weeks previously had been a very good one. The HR manager I met in June had arranged an excellent series of meets, starting with the Managing Director with his Operations and Finance directors, and then on to the operational line managers to look at the real-life problems they faced, wrapping up the day with the HR and technology people. It was fairly clear that the existing HR tech stack wasn’t going to serve for much longer, as the payroll was not able to be used without a few external spreadsheets, and there was little prospect that the functionality of the HR module could be much improved. The time & attendance module was working after a fashion but had two major drawbacks: the
ability for a shift supervisor to edit an employee’s punch-in was not too easy to do, and there was no way for remote workers to key in on the system, and that had to be achieved by email message confirmation. Those factors alone pointed to a new stack, but I spent some time seeing if anything could have been salvaged from what they already had. I really don’t like clients spending money if other possibilities exist. In this case, I concluded with a No, started to look through the alternatives, and made a few phone calls to vendors to establish some figures to put in a budget for my anonymous client. Offering the best choices came down to one of two routes: an integrated platform which could offer additional modules if required, or to pick separate HR, payroll and time & attendance modules and join them together seamlessly with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), sets of rules and protocols
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ISSUE 27 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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