The future trends of global payroll services: local, data-centric and automated

Global payroll services have become incredibly complex for businesses.

This is especially true for businesses on the smaller end of the enterprise-size scale, which have much larger global footprints than companies of that size had a generation ago.

Solving that complexity is a technology question. Below, we will outline our vision for what tech-driven global payroll services will look like in the coming years.

Global payroll service provision will remain local

Paying employees will always be governed by local processes and local regulations. Each country has its own labor laws, and having in-country payroll providers with local expertise remains the most efficient option for getting people paid on time.

Each country has its own currency, as well, which makes global payments a challenge. “The main things that a company needs to think about as it grows internationally are the laws and regulations that apply to onboarding and paying people in each and every country that they plan to hire,” says Robin Gandhi , chief product officer at global payment provider Nium.

“... Payroll platforms need to think about providing a choice to how they send money for payroll. This means having flexibility to send money to these workers in the form factor they prefer, whether it is their bank account, their preferred mobile wallet or even to an existing Visa or Mastercard so that they can access funds quickly and spend to meet the needs of their lives.”

Just as importantly, payroll accounts for some of the most impactful touchpoints in an employee experience. Localizing payroll contributes to that experience for employees wherever they are.

The payroll dimension of an employee experience should do three things well:

• Ensure people are paid on time and in the correct amount.

• Ensure workers, wherever they are, have the same basic experience when interacting with payroll data, even when the details of payroll provision are localized.

• Ensure easy, round-the-clock remote access to payslips and pay-related information.

Global payroll data will become accessible across the business

Historically, payroll data has been siloed away and underutilized in executive decision-making. But when companies have the tools to un-silo payroll data, it opens up numerous strategic opportunities for managers — all the way up to the C-suite .

Peter Crush at TLNT gives an example of how this dovetails with talent strategies, especially in a competitive hiring environment: “[I]n order to pay competitively in today’s market, the company needs data. And lots of it – new data from a variety of credible sources, which can be a challenge of its own.”

That challenge comes from the fact that “HR leaders need the resources and runway” to create a payroll strategy, invest in payroll tools that support that strategy, then integrate the data from those tools into larger processes.

When that happens, though, payroll data can scale decision-making beyond individual hires. It can help companies plan their workforces for different phases of growth.

“For instance, early-stage companies with VC money need to hire aggressively to meet their goals,” the team at Analytics Insight writes. “But what roles should they hire and in what quantities? How long will ramp-up times take, and when will those resources begin generating revenue?

“By analyzing payroll data and combining it with other sources, such as revenue and pipeline data, you can create accurate projections.”

Global payroll services will see further automation

AI-powered automation has always been at the core of the Payslip platform, and that’s something we are proud of because we believe automation has the power to revolutionize payroll.

It does so in the following ways:

• Automating manual tasks such as data entry, which is often vulnerable to human data-input error.

• Automating reconciliation with smart, rule-based algorithms that identify inconsistencies and flag potential problems in real time.

• Integrating with other systems — your HRIS, your ERP, your financial tools — to scale the power of automation and connect the wider ecosystem.

This all buttresses the decision-making capabilities that payroll data can help unlock. “AI can also be used to predict trends and provide valuable insights,” the team at Fagen Wasanni Technologies writes. “For instance, it can analyze patterns in employee absenteeism, overtime, and turnover, helping HR managers make informed decisions. This predictive capability can be instrumental in strategic planning and workforce management.”

And this brings the conversation full-circle because so many of those benefits trickle down to the employee experience. Deborah Bach at Microsoft Source gives some examples of what this looks like in practice, via the new AI-powered chatbot EY launched as part of its payroll system this past summer:

“An employee in Hungary asked if having twins would impact his parental leave. A worker in Spain wondered whether the bonus of $20,000 euros she received would be taxed. Another employee asked what requirements he would have to abide by if he went to work in a United Arab Emirates country as a foreign national.”

Just a few years ago, getting answers to those questions would have required the inputs of numerous people, several phone calls or emails, and probably the running of at least one report. That’s days of work.

Now, EY employees can get payroll-specific questions answered instantly in the company’s employee portal.

Expect to see more companies embrace such capabilities, Wojciech Kupny and Lisa Orton at Vialto Partners write. “Increasingly, payroll providers are looking at AI and machine learning (ML) as ways to ease the burden on globally mobile employees. ... The crucial result of this is that payroll and HR teams will save huge amounts of administration time, releasing them to focus on more engaging areas of their roles.”

Learn more

Payslip’s platform gives companies the tools to manage, automate and extract insights from their global payroll process. To learn more, book a platform tour today .

This article originally appeared on payslip.com