Evolution of HR & Payroll Tech for Remote Work

Ever since Covid-19 hit, organizations are forced to rethink and embrace the new ways of working i.e. remote work, flexible staffing and hybrid workforce. These workforce changes have impacted talent management strategies ranging from virtual onboarding, retention issues, finding the right talent, and also effectively managing the productivity of the remote/hybrid workforce while ensuring their physical and mental well-being.

Source: Global SSO Strategies: Impact of the Pandemic One Year On

The spotlight is now on HR and Payroll: are organizations able to look after their workforce and keep them engaged and motivated? Great opportunity lies in upgrading their HR and Payroll technology to better support the employees in the current environment which will in turn help to improve efficiency and overall productivity gains.

Source: North America Shared Services 2021: Driving Value through Future of Work, GBS and Workforce Transformation

A recent SSON HR & Payroll survey highlighted five key areas Shared Services & GBS professionals would like to see greater improvement and evolution in their organization’s current payroll and HR technology:

1. Improved integration abilities

Improving integration ability is seen as one of the top priorities based on the survey results. The move to cloud and modern infrastructure models have shown the weaknesses of having legacy and siloed systems in your technology stack.

HR and payroll software should integrate seamlessly within your IT ecosystem to ensure both HR teams and employees can access the right information when they need it, as they need it, without inaccuracies, extra costs or downtime.

2. Provide higher quality data

Higher quality data is the foundation for enhanced HR analytics and reporting. This means access to actionable insights, streamline strategic planning, improve decision-making, and enable employees to benefit from a smarter, more engaging, and efficient lifecycle in the company.

3. Allow greater access to remote workers

In a remote work environment, employers should focus on applications that bring distributed teams together, drive communications, collaboration, wellness initiatives, and enhance employee engagement. For example, through self-service portals, employees can get more HR support despite not being in the physical office. Based on the recent Top 20 Most Admired SSOs & GBS 2021 benchmarking study, there is still lots of room for improvement in this area (only 42% have a self-service portal adoption of >=90%).

It is also important to invest in technology that facilitates employees’ feedback on performance rather than in monitoring technology that scrutinizes what employees are doing during the day.

4. Make more mobile-friendly

In today’s world, accessing payroll and HR are not restricted to the physical office, and most users prefer a mobile experience rather than desktops. Mobile applications provide employees with the flexibility and convenience of accessing their most important payroll and HR information at the touch of the screen. They can review payslips, request time off, see benefits and HR policies all via their smartphone.

Hence, it is important to ensure that the HR website or application is extremely responsive and mobile-friendly. If this is done right, you will notice an increase in user engagement and happier users.

5. Improve employee user experience

As with any technology, user experience (UX) is one of the key factors that contributes to the overall satisfaction of using a particular product or service. HR technology is no longer just consumed by HR professionals but everyone in the organization. Complicated workflows and difficult to navigate processes may leave users (i.e. employees) frustrated, hence it is super important to make it as easy and accessible as possible. HR technology with good user experience equates to ease of usability, increased user engagement, more time saved and ultimately increased employee productivity.

To summarize, it is important for organizations to stay up to date with the latest trends in the HR and Payroll industry to not only keep your workforce engaged and needs taken care of but to remain one step ahead. The evolution of HR and Payroll technology is an important success factor for a people-driven organization and can be a big plus to attract talent while gearing up to play a potentially leading role in redefining the nature of the workplace.

To access HR & Payroll metrics and KPIs, visit the Metric Benchmarker.

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