Member Article

HR & Payroll Software - one size fit all?

Over the past five years the HR & Payroll industry has seen some major changes to legislation and its day to day running. Shared parental leave, flexible working and auto-enrolment legislation have increased demand, and the function of each of the departments has caused much confusion for employees. In fact, 41% of employees have little or no understanding as to the role of the HR Department according to research undertaken by Bond HR & Payroll Software.

Alongside this, employee/HR contact is still dominated by payroll queries. With 43% of employees going to the HR Department with these basic queries, it is therefore clear that organisations are struggling to evolve from routine to strategic HR activity.

In order for organisations to make this essential move, software vendors need to be far more responsive to business needs. Organisations should not just look for technologies to automate existing, outdated processes but challenge vendors to deliver solutions that enable engaging and innovative ways of working, explains Roger Moore, Managing Director, Bond HR & Payroll Software.

Knowledge is power

The fact that HR queries are dominated by payroll queries is not only a massive waste of HR time and expertise but also raises real issues when it comes to the daily HR and Payroll processes in place within an organisation. Just consider, when self-service access to information is now readily available on a daily basis in everyday life, why then do just 5% of employees have anytime access to HR & Payroll information? Surely, with the rise of flexible and remote working this should be available to all as standard?

Error, delay and lack of available information is resulting in more employees than ever relying on HR departments to rectify simple problems. This process adds unnecessary cost, reduces employee engagement and undermines the core, strategic role of HR. Organisations must therefore ask themselves what has to change? It is essential that organisations recognise the value of enabling employees to both access and submit important personal data to support both HR and Payroll activity. But that is just the start: should the company leverage self-service to empower line managers to take on more HR responsibility, or does centralised HR control work better? There are many opportunities to improve processes and transform the employee experience – but there is no one size fits all for HR & payroll processes. Are software vendors stepping up to support a more innovative and engaging model or do they need to do more to understand the customer’s requirements? Either way, moving forwards software will become increasingly customer driven and those vendors that act now, will be the ones that win business and are trusted by organisations to provide not only the best systems but have the most innovative approach.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by itpr .