Efficient and reliable payroll is critical for every business. Yet with the increasing complexity of the workforce and the constant updates to payroll legislation and policy, you may be considering switching to a new provider that guarantees more value than your current one.

As we approach the end of lockdown in the UK, it's time to start thinking about how you'll process employees returning from furlough.

Before you start this process, there are several important considerations to make. This includes everything from managing payroll to redundancies. Fortunately, we're providing our expert insight to help you reintegrate your furloughed employees with ease.

The pandemic has forced businesses to adapt their onboarding strategies to overcome new workplace challenges. With social distancing minimising face-to-face contact, and more people changing occupation than in pre-pandemic years, this has presented a number of obstacles for HR professionals.

As your business grows, so does the demand for new talent, and internal recruitment is one method you can use to satisfy this demand. This offers a number of benefits for organisations, and a clear career progression plan is something that many employees look out for. However, it's likely that there won't always be a pre-defined role for your employees to fill as your company grows. So, what next?
 

Attitudes to outsourcing have changed over the past year, in the wake of Covid-19. As remote working became a necessity, the idea that a business function, like payroll, can operate outside the four walls of an organisation has become more readily accepted.

When senior HR or Finance leaders consider outsourcing payroll, one concern often raised is that they will lose knowledge, in the form of internal expertise or skilled personnel.

People choose to work for businesses for a whole host of reasons – it might be the company’s values, career development opportunities, or perhaps personal bonds with colleagues. But whatever it might be, this will quickly be forgotten if people experience problems with their pay.

As companies continue to develop their digital infrastructure, there is a clear imperative for separate systems to be able to talk to each other – including payroll.

The prospect of handing over responsibility for your payroll to an outsourced partner can be daunting enough, without having to worry about something going wrong during the transition. That’s why implementation has to go smoothly.

There’s usually an element of trepidation when we relinquish control of something for the first time, even if we know the benefits outweigh any potential risks. We feel it professionally, as well as in our daily lives.

Celebrating an anniversary is always fun, and your 75th anniversary really shouldn't go unnoticed. "We need to celebrate it with lots of fun initiatives, all year round, both for our employees and for our customers" was the motto at the start of 2020. And so we rolled up our sleeves and went back to the drawing board: the campaign "SD Worx 75 – Let's Make Sparks Fly" was born!