FEATURE
payroll systems available today which allow employees to create a personal budget within a money planning tool and to access helpful financial guidance. After all, understanding income and spending is key to good financial well-being. Employees no longer want an advice slip – paper or electronic; they want helpful personalised guidance from payroll. JL: Most pay on demand solutions also offer financial advice to help employees manage themselves out of debt. They offer help and support with savings plans and guidance on how to navigate government saving schemes incentives. It’s all about judgment and balance, but it’s a fine line between efficiency and alienation What do payroll professionals need to understand in relation to cyber security and should it be part of mandatory training for all payroll professionals? CD: The weakest link in terms of cyber security for payroll systems are individuals sharing passwords or using the same passwords on multiple sites. As a bare minimum, payroll professionals should be using two-factor authentication when accessing payroll software. Payroll professionals should also have a base level of mandatory training to raise awareness of simple things that can be done to maintain cyber security. However, there’s also an onus on payroll software to: ● have annual independent audited penetration testing ● become ISO27001 certified ● make security as tight as possible for end users. The final onus should be on clients to use softwares that have those protocols in place. There’s no point spending lots of time on mandatory training of payroll teams if payroll software doesn’t have ISO 27001, doesn’t do penetration testing or it has lax controls. SH: Criminals and fraudsters are always looking for their next victim and payroll professionals should do all they can to keep up to date with technology and to
combat cyber crime. Yes, I think all payroll professionals should undertake regular training to ensure they keep one step ahead of criminals. JL: Payroll professionals manage personally identifiable data, and special category data, such as medical information and financial data. Therefore, data security is essential to protect employees. General data protection regulation training ought to be completed annually, especially with the new mix of hybrid, remote and office working. Data protection officers must ensure that payroll professionals’ homeworking environment enables them to keep data secure. Training for remote working data security should be mandatory in these circumstances. Will payroll systems evolve to provide full WFM functionality, to include scheduling as well as recording worked time, or will there always be a place for specialist WFM systems? If so, what’s being done to ensure WFM data integrates seamlessly into payroll? CD: With my KeyPay hat on, we already have scheduling, T&A and timesheet functionality in the payroll software (and we’re not alone). This is definitely something that will continue to be more widespread in payroll solutions. However, does this sound the death knell of specialist softwares? Absolutely not. In broad terms, all-in-one WFM solutions work well for smaller businesses, but once you get into large numbers or complex scenarios, I’d argue that businesses are better off with specialist T&A rota solutions, which have comprehensive application programming interface (API) links with a decent cloud payroll software. Specialist softwares with their full focus on rota scheduling and / or T&A will always be able to adapt quickly to market changes. Conversely, I suspect it’ll be harder to justify those specialist softwares continuing to use comma-separated values exports and expecting their clients to manually upload them into payroll software and adjust. Businesses of all sizes are demanding integrated cloud solutions as a minimum, on the grounds of efficiency, security and business continuity. That isn’t going to change any time soon. SH: I used to think the best option was to use a company that had modules for all your needs. But in reality, they may have
a great payroll system, but the HR isn’t great, or a great HR but a basic payroll. The biggest headache was using different suppliers and finding systems like HR and payroll didn’t ’talk’ to each other. But today we have API, which allows different software to ’talk’ to each other. The good news is that there are some new payroll solutions in the market today that, not only allow seamless integration with third-party systems’ API, but their system can be branded to your company. JL: The automation of data capture and calculation will eventually become the normal practice as it’s the most cost- effective way of producing accurate gross pay. There are already a few payroll and T&A providers who don’t rely on partnerships; these products are truly integrated. Those payroll providers who choose to partner with a T&A provider come with challenges, the biggest one being integration. Every customer has unique requirements and every implementation is different, so it’s impossible for the two providers to think of everything that will need integrating. General data protection regulation training ought to be completed annually, especially with the new mix of hybrid, remote and office working Unfortunately, it’s the customer who’s left dissatisfied with a partially integrated solution for T&A and payroll. Customers don’t want two separate contracts to negotiate and manage. Users don’t want two different support portals to operate when raising queries, nor do they want two different support teams to deal with. Information technology departments don’t want to manage two separate sets of upgrades. Payroll providers will never have a right to an opinion on the future roadmap developments of the T&A solution or on any end-of-life strategies. My advice, go to one provider – every time. n
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2022 | Issue 81 22
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker