Can self-service payroll features make employees happier during the holidays?
When holidays approach, it’s often a stressful time for staff. That is because most employees look forward to time off, but they may feel anxious about leave approvals and bonuses. This has put added pressure on human resource and payroll staff to make those calculations and meet deadlines.
Outdated payroll systems add to this pressure. Complicated compliance, manual calculations, vague leave management, and poor communication with staff increase HR and payroll workloads, straining workforce morale and relations. To address these issues, more businesses are turning to cloud-native payroll solutions, and in the process, are discovering another major perk: employee self-service (ESS) for payrolls.
An inefficient payroll system delays getting holiday or salary information. That information is prone to have errors. Your company’s administrative staff are under pressure to deliver, and the rest of your employees complain about the delays. All these issues point to system bottlenecks in payroll and HR. This is why self-service portals for information and services such as leave applications are very effective in addressing these issues.
The Era of Employee Self-Service
Employees familiar with ESS no longer regard it as a perk. 73% of full-time workers in the U.S. said they expect a high level of self-service to independently complete HR and payroll-related tasks, with over 80% of employees preferring an online HR portal over contacting HR staff. The great part is that the business benefits too: 92% of companies with ESS for payroll and HR report a positive impact on their operations.
Robust ESS systems provide access to important information such as payslips, accrued leave, tax information, and HR policies. These systems make it easier to request leave, submit expense claims, and update personal information.
This has given employees the convenience of using web portals and mobile applications to access the services at any time and place. ESS can harness popular third-party apps: payroll platforms such as PaySpace by Deel offer ESS through WhatsApp, and major enterprises provide self-service through corporate user super apps.
Modern payroll platforms that provide ESS features also make life easier for HR and payroll teams. They can automate tax calculations, leave management, bonus information, and streamline approval workflows, saving all parties considerable time and focus. Even better, is that larger businesses gain key strategic insight around payroll costs and workforce organisation through consolidated data and flexible reporting.
How To Gain ESS Advantages
Companies are set to benefit tremendously when they provide employee self-service. But traditional payroll systems aren’t always capable of offering these advantages.
The downfall with traditional payroll systems is that they often don’t have the technology to offer self-service portals to employees. They can’t integrate effectively with other business systems and their data sources, for example, leave-management systems. This creates silos that counteract self-service systems. Furthermore, they often don’t have modern features such as web portals that are easier for employees to access on different devices.
Drawbacks like these are why more companies are switching to cloud-native payroll platforms and services. Cloud-based platforms are more versatile, inherently leveraging integration, common data standards, and easy web and app-based access. What makes them more appealing is that they are also more affordable, predominantly charging subscription or other manageable OPEX fees instead of expensive software license bundles. Other added benefits include new features and frequent updates at no additional cost.
It is important that you do your research before switching as cloud-native payroll platforms are so effective at delivering modern features such as ESS that some traditional payroll and HR providers try to ‘cloud wash’ their software as cloud-native. But such systems are considerably more expensive and complex than cloud-based payroll platforms, and still fall short of delivering the expected results and value.
You can make a big difference to your employees’ happiness and the best place to start is by looking at your payroll system. Employees are happier when they have direct access to payroll and HR services. The next time your business prepares for the holidays, get ahead with self-services from cloud-native payroll platforms.