Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER September 5, 2016 16 FEATURES PAYROLL Self-serve payroll requires training, education Employees want easy options – but post-implementation must be thorough By Liz Bernier E mployees like to have op- tions — and having op- tions at the click of a but- ton is all the better. Which is why self-service payroll can be a popular option. It's not a new development, according to Janice MacLellan, vice-president of operations at the Canadian Payroll Associa- tion in Toronto — self-service functionality has been in place in many organizations for well over 10 years. Employers look to self-serve to help streamline processes, and often it's about human resources using self-service to allow em- ployees to be more engaged, says MacLellan. "It gives them faster service in terms of making small changes… and also it keeps managers more involved and eliminates some not- very-effi cient paper processes." Companies are constantly look- ing for more productive ways to accomplish tasks, and self-serve is a natural fi t, says MacLellan. Range of functions But there's a broad range of func- tions it can be used for. "There are various levels of manager and employee self-serve functionality," she says. Sometimes it's used to give employees access to pay state- ments and tax forms, for exam- ple. At the other end of the spec- trum, it allows managers to sign off on timesheets and vacation approvals. "It runs quite the gamut and it's really dependent on the organiza- tional culture and how much they want to redeploy some of those processes," says MacLellan. e Canadian Payroll Associa- tion's most recent census survey shows that 45 per cent of payroll practitioners are doing both the payroll and the human resources function within their organiza- tion, according to Janet Spence, manger of compliance services and programs at the Canadian Payroll Association in Toronto. "So they're moving away from manual processes and automating things like time and attendance and making sure that all the pay- roll needs are taken care of," she says. "There is increased flexibil- ity for both the employer and the employee to handle these sorts of changes, and also in a timely fash- ion as well." e other trend — and the rea- son there's been such an increase in self-serve in the last fi ve to 10 years — is the younger workforce, says MacLellan. " ey're much more (used) to this type of technology and, in fact, they'd probably cringe if they had to fi ll out a lot of paperwork," she says. "So again, from an HR per- spective and in terms of engag- ing employees, making this type of technology available and en- abling self-service is attractive to that workforce." Numerous benefi ts ere are a number of benefi ts to self-serve above and beyond the speed and ease, says Rachel De Grace, manager of advocacy and legislative content at the Canadian Payroll Association in Toronto. "Defi nitely one of the benefi ts is that there's less risk of error (that could occur) when you have someone re-keying in informa- tion that's been documented on paper," she says. Having employees type infor- mation in themselves minimizes the risk of error — having the employee spell out his own ad- dress or banking information, for example, minimizes the chances any information will be incorrect, says De Grace. ere's also the question of in- formation security, says MacLel- lan. With self-service, there is ac- tually increased security because papers aren't exchanging hands and being passed from person to person. "It reduces the risk of security breaches or privacy breaches," she says. Education, training critical to implementation But when implementing self- service, the most critical aspect is implementing proper training and education, says De Grace. "Training is absolutely key, not only in terms of training employ- ees but also training the payroll staff , the HR staff , the IT staff — those who are responsible for owning the system to ensure that the system is fi rst and foremost compliant with government leg- islation," she says. Also, the training needs to take into account the level of fi nan- cial literacy of employees, says MacLellan. "Employees who are new to the workforce or new to Canada, as an example — we often make the assumption as we roll out imple- mentation of self-serve function- ality that they'll understand the language and the lingo. So again, it's about making sure they're well-trained and they understand when they complete a particular data fi eld what it means and what the impact is," she says. HR and payroll can't assume a base-line level of literacy amongst employees. "Many people don't really un- derstand some of the terms that appear on their pay statement," says MacLellan. For employers that are looking for new systems and moving away from manual systems, there is the implementation phase to look at as well, says Spence. Having a well laid-out plan, testing, proper training and documentation and rules are key for each department. "Also, you have to obviously gain employee and manager buy- in as well," she says. Depending on the size of the or- ganization, employers may want to consider a phased-in approach to rolling out a self-service system — not rolling out the system or the capability for the entire payroll at once, says De Grace. Another critical consideration is managing post-implemen- tation, says Spence. While the people onboard at the time of implementation tend to benefi t from a very thorough training and implementation program, what often gets forgotten is af- ter the fact, on an ongoing basis, new employees don't receive that training, she says. " at training needs to be em- bedded into all new employee training and onboarding, the documentation needs to be available to all new managers," she says. "Otherwise, the success of their original implementation will, in a couple years' time, go off the rails." Mobile workforce Self-serve is becoming more and more of an expectation, says MacLellan. "Certainly self-serve in payroll has evolved to include access through mobile phones. When it was originally launched into the market, it was typically for em- ployees who were in-offi ce. But given the mobility of the work- force… the technology has now enabled the use of smartphones to input some of this data," she says. "Self-serve is a good thing. Its success is simply dependent on being well-prepared and ticking off all the boxes when it comes to training and documentation." Credit: Milles Studio (Shutterstock) Self-service stats Employers have been increasingly adopting self-service solutions for HR and payroll over the past few years. Almost two-thirds (61 per cent) of respondents who had already adopted self-service had done so in the past three years, found a 2013 British survey of 200 HR managers and more than 500 employees by MidlandHR. • The benefi ts of self-service since its introduction included: better core data (65 per cent), freeing up of HR time (55 per cent) and improved employee satisfaction (51 per cent). • 83 per cent of respondents who already used self-service reported their organizations had chosen to deploy both employee and manager self-service. • Top uses of employee self-service included maintaining personal details, reviewing and booking holidays, viewing pay history, and completing expenses claims and overtime claims. • The top use for manager self-service was to authorize and record absences. • 23 per cent of respondents did not intend to introduce self-service, with the main reason being a lack of employee access to required hardware (37 per cent). • 30 per cent said it would require the organization to undertake a signifi cant change management program. • 28 per cent deemed it too expensive to introduce.

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