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!

Over the past year, HR too has had to deal with our modern version of the Big Bang. We all adopted a ‘new normal’, to use a trendy term. Hopefully 2021 will be better. Thanks to the vaccine - fingers crossed - we shall soon be getting back to our social lives and be able to meet our colleagues and customers in person again more often. The after-effects of the coronavirus will continue affecting HR developments in the year to come, however. We hereby present the most important insights and trends for the new year.

During 2020 we’ve seen trust in employers tumble as organisations have struggled to get to grips with the consequences of the global pandemic.  

Keeping payroll in-house can mean your processes end up out of control. Whilst informed HR and finance leaders know the benefits of outsourcing payroll, others remain cautious. This is understandable; looking after your people is crucial now more than ever as we move towards the flexi work revolution and remote ways of working.

What will 2021 bring? After such a turbulent year, it would be audacious to start making big statements. But one thing seems to be a given: ‘the old normal’ is not coming back. Even more, companies will quickly have to find a way to deal with the likelihood of ongoing changes. A good first step is building an agile workforce and valuing both internal and external mobility. To do so, you’ll need to embrace total talent management.

COVID-19 has a great impact on employees, with mass homeworking as one of the most remarkable outcomes. Many companies are pulling out all the stops to establish viable homeworking policies, implement digital tools and create a renewed organisational culture. What’s often overlooked is the physical workspace. Although traditional offices are on their way out, they can re-emerge as employee experience centres.

In this interview we spoke to Samantha Mann, Payroll Training Consultant for Armstrong Watson and former Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) Senior Policy & Research Technical Lead. Samantha is a regular panelist of our Payroll Question Time webinar sessions– where a panel of experts gather together every month to discuss the latest legislation and policy news in payroll and HR, as well as answering the audience's burning questions.