Compliantly managing global payroll can be overwhelming and tedious—but it doesn’t have to be.
If your company has a different payroll provider in each country of operation, or if you're simply looking to expand your business quickly and efficiently while maintaining cross-border compliance, it might be time to consider streamlining your payroll process. Partnering with a single payroll provider will help alleviate the administrative burdens associated with managing global payroll systems. It will also ensure your business remains compliant with local laws and regulations in each country of operation.
In this article, we'll explore the top four benefits of streamlining your global payroll system, including:
- Centralized payroll processing
- Ensuring global compliance
- Consolidating global reporting
- Streamlining HR administration
1. Centralized global payroll processing
According to the 2021 EY Global Payroll Survey Report, 33% of companies don’t have a formalized payroll strategy in place.
When there isn’t a uniform process, payroll can become siloed and disparate, especially when you operate in multiple countries. Consolidating vendors and finding a new payroll solution may seem like a daunting task but streamlining your global payroll systems will help your business save time and money by reducing operational inefficiencies for your entire HR and payroll departments.
One of the first steps to eliminating operational inefficiencies is to choose a payroll vendor that provides access to valuable insights and data for your entire organization, all from a central location. You’ll also want to partner with a vendor that allows you to pay employees in any currency, cadence, and country that you operate in. Not only will implementing a centralized payroll process help your team save time, but it will also reduce manual processes and errors.
But standardization doesn’t come with a flip of the switch, and there are a few things your multinational business will need to do before it can reap the benefits of a streamlined global payroll system. This will involve mapping out your current payroll processes across different countries to see how payroll is being managed. It will be important to consider the challenges of your current payroll processes, the desired future state, payroll vendor options, and project planning.
Once you have a clear idea of how your business' global payroll system is currently operating, you’ll be able to move forward with streamlining it. It’s also important to keep in mind that streamlining your global payroll systems is more effective when you partner with a provider that can process payroll in all the countries you currently do business in, as well as the ones you may be thinking of expanding to.
2. Ensuring global compliance
When you operate across multiple countries, it can be extremely challenging to keep up with the ever-changing laws and regulations in those areas. However, streamlining your global payroll system and adopting a centralized payroll platform will provide the visibility you need to ensure your payroll operations are compliant in each country of operation.
Partnering with a single payroll vendor that has local market experts in each country of operation will ensure that your business’ payroll is compliant, no matter how complex the local laws and regulations may be. With a team of dedicated in-country payroll experts, you can easily manage all local payroll requirements and stay up to date on the latest statutory guidelines, tax requirements, and filing schedules, so you can rest assured that your employees are paid accurately and on time, every time.
3. Consolidating global reporting
By far one of the biggest benefits of streamlining your global payroll system is the ability to have a true global view of workforce data. When you have different payroll processes across an organization, it can be challenging to consolidate your global payroll data and gain a more uniform view of how things are going across the business.
Partnering with a single payroll vendor and streamlining the related processes will allow you to tap into harmonized workforce reporting. This can provide your multinational business with invaluable information like overtime costs and the cost of employee benefits across all jurisdictions of operation. This can help your business highlight potential areas for expansion or where you may want to cut back on costs. With a centralized view of your global payroll data, you’ll be able to make the most informed strategic decisions for your growing business.
4. Streamlining HR administration
A streamlined global payroll system will also allow more time for transforming other HR-related processes and maximizing the employee experience.
Transform HR processes
By removing the need to process payroll manually, your HR team will have more time to focus on helping managers across the business stay on top of requests, benefits administration, time tracking, expenses and more, ensuring these processes are as seamless and straightforward as possible.
Maximize employee experience
With increased visibility into a company’s payroll data and more time to focus on other HR-related processes, your team will have the opportunity to maximize the employee experience across the entire organization. In practice, this could mean conducting interviews or surveys to garner more information about your employees' overall job satisfaction. Then, they can use these learnings to rethink certain business processes and perk offerings as a way to increase employee engagement and satisfaction.
How to improve your global payroll system
Now that we’ve covered the four main benefits of streamlining your global payroll system, here are five actionable ways you can start to transform your current payroll processes:
- Embrace cloud-based solutions: The first step towards streamlining global payroll systems is adopting cloud-based payroll solutions, such as Workday. These platforms offer scalability, flexibility, and real-time access to payroll data across multiple countries, as well as enhanced security features and improved integration capabilities with other HR and financial systems.
- Standardize processes: While local compliance is crucial, standardizing global payroll systems where possible is key to reducing complexity and improving efficiency. This involves creating uniform procedures for payroll processing, tax deductions, and employee benefits across different countries, while still adhering to local regulations.
- Invest in training and development: A well-trained payroll team is crucial for a streamlined global payroll system. Invest in continuous training programs for your payroll staff to keep them abreast of the latest payroll technologies, compliance requirements, and best practices in global payroll management.
- Integrate payroll with HR systems: Seamless HCM and payroll integration is vital and allows for better data accuracy, reduced duplication of work, and a holistic view of employee information. Look for HR systems that offer certified integrations with your payroll software, like Payroll 360 does with Workday
- Focus on employee self-service: Empower your employees with self-service options in your payroll system. This could include access to payslips, tax documents, and the ability to update personal information. Self-service features reduce the administrative burden on your payroll team and improve employee satisfaction.
Streamline your global payroll system with Safeguard Pay
While there’s quite a bit of work that goes into the process of streamlining your global payroll system, the benefits of a transformation will pay off in the long run through lower costs, greater efficiency, and better visibility over your multinational payroll processes.
At Safeguard Pay, we manage, accelerate and scale payroll for organizations around the world. We deliver a unified client experience through a global community of local payroll experts, partners, and an agile platform for accurate and compliant pay – on time, every time. Learn more about how our managed payroll solutions can help streamline your global payroll system, or schedule a consultation below to discuss your specific business needs in more detail.
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