COMPLIANCE
"Now, against an increasingly challenging labour market, payroll can use the data it holds to give organisations an even greater understanding of their employees, and provide the finance function with accurate, real-time reporting about the associated costs"
the payroll function can inform and shape the organisation’s response to internal resourcing changes, local marketplace fluctuations and large-scale industry challenges more agilely than ever before. Payroll data also has a role to play in shaping growth and expansion strategy. As a profession, payroll is already a source of knowledge about local, in-country employment and pay legislation. However, as organisations seek to embed new working practices, or even expand into new regions or countries, they can increasingly rely on payroll teams and data to shape their understanding of the strategic and financial implications of these decisions. Leveraged together, payroll’s blend of specialist legislative knowledge and high- quality, real time people data, considered in conjunction with tax strategies and expertise, can be deployed to provide in-depth sector, market and geographical benchmarking / analysis. These insights can aid the business in understanding the benefits and risks of a wide range of financial and strategic decisions, such as: l setting people strategy for national or international expansion l implementing and provisioning resource for new products or services l reviewing business growth against recruitment and overtime costs. Payroll and HR analytics can also be leveraged to inform succession planning, aiding the organisation in identifying critical business roles or adapting to changing generational working patterns.
Driving progress and informing governance Increasingly, organisations are being called upon to expand their performance and financial reporting, incorporating complex, non-financial forms of value, such as sustainability, environmental impact, social progress and risk and governance. These aren’t new concepts for the payroll function. For a long time, we’ve had a role to play in analysing non- financial and social key performance indicators, such as gender pay gap and equality and diversity reporting. However, as businesses respond to this shift, the opportunity for payroll to contribute and shape understanding is also growing. Pay and people data can be leveraged to aid a business in addressing representation, achieving diversity / equity targets and isolating hidden pay biases. High-quality, real-time people and pay data is also a critical component in identifying and building responses to a wide range of people-related risks, such as phantom employees and separation of duties, and compliance with privacy legislation.
Now we have a seat at the table, it’s important payroll professionals recognise and continue to showcase the value we hold. We’ll achieve this by positioning ourselves strategically and maintaining strong collaboration with finance teams, supporting business objectives and leveraging the high-quality, real time data we hold to shape decision making. We’ve always been an agile and responsive profession, and we should remain open to change. This will be contingent on keeping pace with developments such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence, while building on our standing as a trusted profession and function. If we can succeed in this, the ways businesses rely on payroll data to shape our understanding of organisations will surely grow. n For more information about BDO’s UK payroll services, please contact Maria Mason, here: https://ow.ly/ aF3850PRMcm. You can also download a copy of BDO’s brochure here: https://ow.ly/ Kcvs50PSkLY.
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 95 | November 2023
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