Pandemic proof payroll

The global Covid-19 pandemic has challenged even the most robust organisations and smart leaders. It is doubtful that any business anticipated months of lockdown without months to prepare – ‘unprecedented’ is an understatement.

For Payroll and HR teams, management of people has been completely upended, including getting to grips with furlough arrangements, reduced hours, remote working and balancing of jobs with other duties. Just when we’re getting to grips with the government’s complex legislation, new regulations come in (think flexible furlough). Without in-depth legislative knowledge, many organisations struggled to process employees’ pay correctly and put themselves at risk of breaching employment laws.

Organisations with cloud-based HR and payroll systems had an advantage when the ‘lockdown’ measures were announced, and employees were told to work from home. But it was a different story for organisations who were still using on-premise systems. Employees that needed to work from fixed locations to access payroll systems through their desktops struggled and their payroll operations were significantly disrupted.

Those less prepared have experienced serious and stressful issues during the recent pandemic. Legacy systems haven’t cut it, there have been single points of failure due to staff absences and reliance on on-premise systems has caused havoc with social distancing regulations. Overstretched payroll and HR teams have struggled to record absences accurately, and as a result of all this chaos, delays and errors in payroll have occurred.

Did your organisation have a robust business continuity strategy or were you just winging it? If you had one in place, how often did you test it out and improve on the processes? With the right Payroll and HR strategy in place, there’s no need to panic. It’s never too late to get a business continuity plan in place or review your current one.

Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Our pandemic proof payroll guide outlines the common crisis-fuelled Payroll and HR issues organisations have experienced, and how you can avoid them. Plus, we’ve included a handy checklist to help you assess how resilient your payroll and HR operations are.