#1 HR Strategy: Align HR & Payroll

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Liz Strikwerda

Content strategist and corporate blogger (2000+ posts). Her work has been featured on G2's Learning Hub, Human Resources Today, Better Buys and over 500 business websites. She plays bluegrass mandolin and enjoys sailing her catamaran and hiking in the red rock wilderness of southern Utah. Connect with me on LinkedIn

A silo is any entity or process that captures and uses data without sharing it with other departments or systems. An HR silo is a subset of Human Resources data that exists within one HR team or software application. HR silos are absurdly inefficient and opaque, and thereby stifle growth, innovation and workforce morale.

Processing payroll is an HR process that takes more than an entire day at 72% of the organizations surveyed.

Companies across the globe are facing a new reality filled with economic volatility and business uncertainty. While certain industries are impacted more than others, the next several business cycles will favor those organizations that have built up a measure of resilience and agility across their core areas. (Aberdeen Group)

WorkforceHub eliminates the need to collect and record timecards, calculate hours or transfer data to payroll. You won't dread the end of the pay period anymore. In addition, you will reduce payroll errors.

In today’s business climate, inefficiencies pose an existential threat. Tearing down business silos is the low-hanging fruit for improving efficiency.

Let’s discuss HR and payroll, two common silos. For a small business to thrive, they need to unify systems, particularly payroll and employee time and labor. As you do, you will improve efficiency and boost the ROI of your labor spend.

In addition, integrating core HR functions will allow you to focus on other business goals like DEI, employee wellness, or managing a hybrid workforce.

Before we continue, let’s look at the issues HR professionals dealing with:

hr strategy

How do you unify systems and eliminate waste?

If you’ve never had an HR strategy, consider the following benefits of integration:

  • Reduce waste
  • Save time for managers, employees and admin
  • Capture all billable time
  • Provide employee self-service HR

What is a business silo?

A silo is any entity or process that captures and uses data without sharing it with other departments or systems. An HR silo is a subset of Human Resources data that lives within one HR team or application. Silos are absurdly inefficient and opaque, and thereby stifle growth, innovation and workforce morale.

What HR silos are bringing your business down?hr strategy

Human Resource management and core functions have evolved separately in corporate America. This is due to many factors. These include traditional organizational structures and a ‘that’s not my job’ mindset. The hyper-specialization of business software has played a role, as well. Unifying disparate systems isn’t easy and that has no doubt played a role.

Silos in any department hamper success. But they are especially harmful in HR. Because HR processes affect all employees, they impact every department. (Unless, of course, the department is run solely by robots.) This is true for businesses of all sizes.

Payroll is a common HR silo. It often lives in accounting, outside of core Human Resources. Similarly, hiring and onboarding have been separate. Some companies even track employee time and PTO in different systems. As a result, inefficiencies have become entrenched. If you are recovering from a pandemic-induced slowdown, HR strategy is critically important, and tearing down silos should be top of the list.

6 Key Findings About HR Inefficiency

As we consider HR silos, let’s look at some numbers.

  1. “The average cost of labor every time an employee fills out a timecard is $9.37. For a company with 100 employees, that’s $937 in employee time every pay period.” (Ernst & Young)
  2. “Administrative burden (58%) continues to pose a much bigger burden than the actual financial cost of federal taxes (38%) for small business.” (National Small Business Administration)
  3. “Processing payroll is an HR process that takes more than an entire day at 72% of the organizations surveyed.” (Accounting Today)
  4. “Leakage of time is a big problem in professional businesses–with over 38% of potential billable revenue lost to untracked time spent in emails, meetings and by delays in filling in timesheets. Businesses that can address this issue and solve it stand to gain handsomely with a revenue boost of up to 61%. (Accelo)
  5. “It costs $15.14 each time a manager verifies the accuracy of an employee timecard.” (Ernst & Young)
  6. “1 in 4 small business owners report spending more than six hours each month handling payroll taxes internally.” (National Small Business Administration)

Talent management without a successful HR strategy won’t meet the moment. Companies that create an HR strategy will be more likely to reach their goals.

How do you eliminate HR silos?

The solution is a Human Resources Management System (HRMS) with payroll integration. It has everything you need to transform workforce management. An HRMS includes:

  1. Payroll data import
  2. Hiring and applicant tracking
  3. Onboarding/offboarding
  4. HR management
  5. Time and attendance
  6. Employee scheduling
  7. Mobile Location Management: remote clock in, geo-tracking, geofencing
  8. Employee engagement: manager check-ins, recognition wall, anonymous suggestion box

WorkforceHub: A Unified Solution

Introducing WorkforceHub. Say goodbye to frustrating disparate systems that don’t talk to each other. No more manual data entry and duplicated work. Eliminate the hassle and errors of paper timesheets.

Let’s discuss Human Resource strategy with WorkforceHub.

PAYROLL INTEGRATION

Swipeclock has been a time and labor pioneer since 2001, Our HRMS solution, WorkforceHub, handles the mission critical processes for small businesses.

WorkforceHub Time and Labor eliminates the need to collect and record timecards, calculate hours or transfer data to payroll. With our solution, you won’t dread the end of the pay period anymore. In addition, you will reduce payroll errors. Did you know that after only two problems with a paycheck, an employee is at a higher risk for quitting?

How does payroll data import save employee time and effort?

With WorkforceHub, employees clock in and out with web-based and/or physical time clocks, WorkforceHub tracks their hours and tallies them as they accumulate. As mentioned in the Key Findings, the average cost of labor every time an employee fills out a timecard is $9.37. For a company with 100 employees, that’s $937 in employee time every pay period.

How does payroll data import save manager time and effort?

Employee time makes up part of the savings. Now, let’s talk about your managers. As mentioned, with WorkforceHub, they don’t need to correct paper timesheets. Remember, it costs roughly 15 bucks every time a manager needs to investigate and correct a problem. This includes missing punches and addition errors.

Granted, your managers will need to approve the digital timecards, but far fewer will need corrections. This is because the data is calculated from actual employee punches. Because of this, the timecards won’t have errors due to faulty memory when employees enter hours after the fact. Moreover, you also won’t have errors due to employees intentionally fudging their hours on paper timesheets. As a result, you will save money the very first pay period and every pay period after that.

Small businesses have “accidental payroll managers”

In many small orgs, there is no dedicated payroll manager. The person who prepares time data could be the owner, an administrator, or rank and file employee. This means they need to fit payroll prep into their full-time role.

From 14 hours per pay period to 30 minutes!

One of our Swipeclock time and labor users is a nonprofit based in Tustin, California. Before integrated timekeeping, the person who did payroll (at one point, the president) spent an hour a day gathering and reconciling timecards. When they switched to Swipeclock timekeeping integrated with payroll, it freed up over 26 hours every month in payroll prep. Plus, they reduced paycheck errors.

Payroll accuracy has improved a lot and we aren’t as wasteful in hours approving payroll. I don’t have to go in and manually enter hours. I might spend, altogether, a half hour for the entire pay period versus an hour each day.” Neda Arab, Senior Program Director, Vital Link

How does WorkforceHub recoup billable time?

Perhaps you are a professional services company that bills employee or contractor time to clients. As mentioned, research shows that over 38% of potential billable revenue is lost to untracked time spent answering emails, in meetings and by delays in filling in timesheets. We already outlined the savings created by eliminating paper timecards. Let’s talk about a strategy for capturing time spent in emails and meetings.

WorkforceHub has job codes that help tie time to the right client. This allows you to collect payment for all billable time. The nonprofit mentioned previously, Vital Link, has 20+ job codes for work time. With Swipeclock timekeeping, each team member can easily enter a job code when they clock in. With a couple clicks, they can switch their time to another code.

With the WorkforceHub mobile timekeeping app, it’s easy for your employees to clock in when they are answering emails from home outside of business hours. The same goes for tracking time in meetings at a client’s office. The employee or contractor can clock in as they walk into the building. Or when they take a client call while sitting in an auditorium waiting for their daughter’s dance recital to begin. With today’s blurring of work and life, a mobile timeclock app is invaluable.

APPLICANT TRACKING

63% of small business HR personnel use applicant tracking to gain a hiring advantage. If you are recruiting the old-fashioned way, you are going to struggle. WorkforceHub will help you find your next star employee faster and less expensively. The mobile-friendly platform allows candidates to apply on their phone. Customizable questionnaires pre-screen candidates. In-app texting lets you engage with candidates using their favorite method. With integrated, video interviewing, you can create a 100% remote hiring process.

ONBOARDING

In addition to the hiring workflow, onboarding is a critical HR practice. With a digital new hire portal, an HR leader doesn’t need to manually enter new employee information. Interactive forms and e-sign allow new hires to do paperwork online. Digital employee handbooks and other HR docs support remote employees. In addition, for documents that require a signature, administrators can track progress easily and send a reminder if necessary.

EMPLOYEE SELF-SERVICE

Empowerment improves morale in any scenario and the workplace is no different. Let your employees manage their own HR data. They want to do it, and, frankly, they are better at it. This includes direct deposit, W-4, paystub, time off and contact info.

Consider how this improves HR touchpoints throughout the employee lifecycle. An employee can check their PTO balance when they are planning a vacation. Similarly, they can request shift changes without texting a manager. When applying for a loan, they can download pay history without calling HR.

Bottom line? Elevating the employee experience improves engagement, productivity and efficiency. These improvements, in turn, boost employee retention which is a widespread challenge right now.

hr strategy
ALERTS, NOTIFICATIONS, TIMECARD APPROVALS

“Intelligent’ clocks” (hardware and web-based) make time tracking easy and accurate. This helps managers avoid unplanned overtime. In addition, you can prevent off-schedule work hours. Furthermore, custom prompts reduce missed punches. Improving the accuracy of timekeeping will reduce payroll bloat and hours theft.

SHIFT PLANNING

Keep shifts fully staffed with drag-and-drop schedule building. The WorkforceHub scheduler also lets you set double booking and overtime alerts. Self-service shift-swapping makes life easier for your employees and notifications keep the right people in the know.

MOBILE AND REMOTE

With WorkforceHub, this is the year of ‘HR in your pocket.’ Your employees always have access from remote locations and can log in from any browser. Ease of communication and efficiency go hand in hand.

hr strategy

Let’s recap the benefits of a single HR solution:

  • Operate on a smaller labor budget
  • Free up time to support both remote and onsite employees
  • Eliminate HR silos, duplicated work, and fragmented management
  • Attract top talent to help your business thrive
  • Use HR analytics to do data-driven workforce planning
  • Employee self-service boosts productivity and morale–especially for remote and mobile workers
  • Streamline transactional HR processes so the HR department can focus on employee engagement

Companies across the globe are facing a new reality filled with economic volatility and business uncertainty. While certain industries are impacted more than others, the next several business cycles will favor those organizations that have built up a measure of resilience and agility across their core areas. Aberdeen Group

Strategic Human Resource Management

Talk to a Swipeclock Time and Labor specialist for more information about how our software works with your payroll system. We integrate with the most popular payroll platforms and may be able to build an integration for you if we don’t already have one.

WorkforceHub handles the mission critical processes of small businesses. Schedule a WorkforceHub demo today.

Simplify HR management today.

Simplify HR management today.

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