Whether you have 5 employees or 500, Payroll is an essential part of your business and ensuring that the people are paid on time and in full isn’t optional.
The risk of getting it wrong is worse, as making a mistake could make your valuable employees look somewhere else for work, getting it right is harder than you might think. It is true that each passing year sees an increase in what you can realistically achieve through, your payroll process and what your employees can actually expect.
To keep up with your competitors you need to pay close attention to how the process of payroll management is changing – so let’s arm you with the necessary information by looking at 7 payroll management trends your business needs to know…
- Provision of Financial Advice:
In recent years, companies are seen providing additional support to their employees, outside of work. The reason is simple: The healthier and happier your employees are, the more productive and efficient they will be. Simultaneously, many businesses have started providing their employees with financial advice like the investment tips, banking suggestions etc.
- Widespread near-total automation:
Automation is getting into almost every part of the business world, and payroll, is no exception. Driven by free payroll tools from some of the companies and aided where necessary by general automation tools like IFTTT, even the smallest businesses can now configure their employee payments to go out automatically – no manual work required. If you are not already automating your payroll, it’s time to make the shift.
- Implementation of service chatbots/ chatrooms:
What happens when there is a payment problem or someone wants more information about when and how much they will be paid? You could ask one of your colleagues, but they might also not know and hence it could be tricky. It’s easier then to set up an automated service system and have questions answered automatically or through internal chatrooms like Slack.
- Increased Salary Visibility:
It used to be completely offensive for individuals to talk about their salaries and co-workers, but that’s changing somewhat in a time when people are more concerned about parity and visibility. It’s important to show that managerial staff aren’t getting paid irrational amounts, and that low-level employees aren’t being exploited. If you are not doing so already, you might want to consider having more open conversations about relative compensation.
- Support for project-based workers:
You will no doubt be familiar with the gig economy that’s so dominant today. Thousands of individuals don’t hold down full-time jobs, or even keep part-time jobs: instead they take on isolated projects, skipping between the distinct employers in the process. A modern payroll system will be able to handle these isolated payments without much hassle. Even if you haven’t yet outsourced anything to someone who works in this way, it’s a good idea to get prepared.
- Flexible payment scheduling:
Everyone, whether they run a business or hold a low-level position with one, has personal cash flow to manage – money coming into their account and money leaving their account for everything from rent to food. And with the number of different subscriptions that people can rack up, they can end up needing money at different times of the month. This fuels a demand for flexible scheduling: splitting monthly salaries into weekly payments, or paying someone in the middle of the month instead of at the end.
- Payment in cryptocurrency:
It’s taken a while for cryptocurrency to pick up steam outside of the speculative investment world, but it’s certainly becoming more interesting for mainstream use as time goes by. Because of this, it’s entirely plausible that some employees might want to be paid in cryptocurrency, and you might want to allow it.
Pendragon can help you run your business more efficiently, saving you time and money.
For further information please don’t hesitate to contact us, book an appointment or reach us at [email protected] or 02 9407 8700 where one of our Australian team members will gladly help you.