How Cloud Software Helps With Managing Payroll And HR Processes When Business Is Disrupted

The coronavirus pandemic is putting many businesses’ processes to the test. It’s difficult to know who will turn out to be the companies best positioned to cope. But it seems likely the ones who’ve adopted a more digital approach, and are taking advantage of the many benefits technology offers, will be in a better position to achieve a level of stability and keep operations running in a shorter timescale than those that don’t.

Digital technology allows businesses and their employees to work remotely and more flexibly, enabling real time data to be captured and shared between everyone that needs it. That helps them be more responsive to sudden changes and better supported with making well informed decisions – all while keeping day to day activity functioning as necessary.

It’s crucial that employees are paid accurately and on time. Fail to run payroll properly for whatever reason, and a business risks seriously damaging its relationship with employees.

From an HR perspective, key data needs to be available for a whole range of reasons but for many that requirement has never been felt as acutely as now. It’s essential for facilitating the decisions that need to be made to keep businesses going. HR must be set up to deal with issues like employee illness, and associated cover requirements, on an accelerated scale. It needs to address how people can be best and most safely deployed.

Many companies must also balance immediate short term priorities and financial considerations with the recognition that letting people go now could ultimately hurt the business more in the longer term. It’s vital that good data is behind the analysis so decisions are made on as rational a basis as possible.

In a “business as we once knew it” world, payroll and HR software offer greater efficiency, accuracy and productivity. And when a crisis hits, a strong digital cloud-based foundation can prove to be a lifeline.  As long as there’s an internet connection, physical location doesn’t matter at all.

Companies set up with remotely accessible cloud-based payroll and HR software are able to give the appropriate employees access to real time information as and when needed.  They’re able to create the reports they want, and run the systems as required.

Depending on the configuration, it can be enabled to allow employees to utilise self-service options relating to their personal information too. As well as taking some input burden off HR, it can lead to greater transparency, giving all employees instant access to their own payroll and HR data.

The analytical capacity of cloud-based systems is impressive. It allows users to carve up the information by whatever parameters and fields they need and get immediate, real-time reporting. As soon as the data is in the system, it’s ready to be reported on in moments. The information that businesses are relying on to make the best possible decisions is as relevant as it can be.

On-site systems must be kept updated which is often a time consuming manual task for IT and it’s possible for data to be lost or disappear during the process.

Cloud-based HR and payroll software is instead maintained through regular software updates. The updates maintain the integrity of the security and are typically also designed to incorporate the most recent legislative changes, ensuring software remains compliant with the latest payroll and HR regulations. In these times of exceptional circumstances, such updates also ensure software can be quickly adapted to handle new payroll and HR arrangements and terminology.

Current circumstances are inevitably forcing companies to scrutinise how they work and reflect on alternative approaches that’ll enable their workplace to thrive to a greater extent both now but in the future too.

Companies may not only begin to consider if the time is right to introduce cloud-based payroll and HR software, but also whether they could benefit even more by having a cloud-based outsourced payroll.  Such providers are clearly well placed to deal effectively with the ‘business as usual’ payroll.  But at a time of unprecedented business disruption, outsourced payroll providers are invaluable in guiding “extraordinary” payroll activity as new requirements rapidly materialise too.

If your business is reviewing its processes and would like to learn more about what would be involved in introducing cloud-based HR and payroll software, or outsourcing payroll, please do get in contact with us.