Canadian HR Reporter Weekly

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2018 CANADIAN HR REPORTER WEEKLY As of Dec. 27, more than half of Canada's public servants were experiencing some form of pay issue, with about 616,000 transactions awaiting processing — all because of the disastrous implementation of a new payroll system called Phoenix. And in the new year, federal government workers were given more bad news when Public Services and Procurement Canada gave them a deadline of Jan. 19 to declare overpayments from the troubled pay system. Under the plan, employees who met the deadline would only have to pay the net amount they received, according to the Canadian Press. But those that failed would have to repay the gross overpayment, including tax and other deducted amounts they never actually received. As of June 30, 2017, the amount of overpayments totalled $295 million, according to a November report from the auditor general. e implementation of the Phoenix payroll system has been problematic from the very start. And now, two years later, the problems are far from over. But on a more positive note, there are takeaways for employers here. Because payroll is a core component of an employee's life, it must be treated with high importance, according to Janice MacLellan, vice-president of operations at the Canadian Payroll Association in Toronto. "Given the critical impact that payroll has on people's lives — it's not the same as other technology projects, it's not the same as other business projects — there's real significant impact," she said. "When it comes to implementing a payroll system, it really is the ultimate test of good project management." First steps For one, proper planning is essential before an imple- mentation, according to Paul Elliott, president and CEO of Ceridian in Toronto. "When you have a complex project, be it a payroll project or an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system or whatever, it starts with basic project principles," he said. "You have to have proper ownership and proper governance in place, and you have to establish clear objectives and measurements of what success is." A look at the business objectives should also become part of the process. "Probably the key of those elements is making sure you've got the business objectives down properly to understand what are you trying to achieve with this system," said Elliott. e new system should facilitate "not just the status quo — you are looking to improve your business with better technology and better processes," he said. And before the project plan is put into place, employers should take a look at what they are currently working with, said Gurteg Grewal, vice-president of product innovation at ADP Canada in Toronto. "(Make an) audit of your existing system to understand the redundancies, pain points, legacy issues," he said. "Understand your technology requirements, mobile, data analytics, and reporting." Parallel runs, data conversion A duplicate run is important "to confirm that everything is working properly," according to Lyle Scammell, president of Canpay Software in Winnipeg. "We always run a paral- lel run, but usually never two parallel runs because it is too hard on the payroll person." "e parallel just confirms that we are on the right track and everything is working at it should be; any differences are because they weren't being done right on the other system." For bigger jobs, the parallel run may last longer, according to MacLellan. "You still have to run the existing payroll, so you are often managing parallel payroll processes and systems for a number of months." Typically, a small payroll implementation (about 25 employees) can takes two days to complete, while a large, multinational, complex process can take nine months, and depending on the risk profile of the clients, it may take 12 months, said Elliott. Payroll implementation a challenge Clear objectives, parallel runs, adequate resources needed: Experts Credit: ppart (Shutterstock) BY JOHN DUJAY

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