All-Access Payroll: Why You Should Implement Self-Service

If you own a business, chances are that you at least remember a time when HR services and payroll duties required both strictly paper-based resources and actual human interaction. With the rise of technology and tech awareness, however, your employees most likely don’t want to schedule an appointment with HR just to see how many vacation days they have.

While some services don’t jive with automation, here are a few updated payroll features you should offer your employees.

Information Portal

If your business doesn’t have some form of portal where your employees can update their addresses, tax documents, and other personal information, you’re missing out in more than one way: Your employees are probably frustrated that such a simple process necessitates a trip to HR, and your HR department is spending time handing out change of address forms to people who are more than capable of handling that process from behind their computers.

Most modern payroll services should also allow your employees to log in and view things like benefits accrual, remaining time off, and other information that they’ll usually see on their paystubs. One might argue that simply having a paystub should be enough, but you can’t put a price on convenience—and your employees will view that convenience as a welcome change.

Timekeeping

Considering how many businesses rely on calculating payroll by judging the number of hours for which an employee was “clocked in”, allowing your employees to enter their code from online may be a huge time-saver if you use any form of remote workers or contractors on a daily basis. In fact, even just allowing employees to clock in from their workstations instead of waiting by a physical clock can cut down on dead time in the office, thus increasing your employees’ productivity rates.

Benefits Management

Allowing employees to both view and manage their benefits on their own time is a huge deal—at least to your staff. Imagine a workplace in which—instead of having to call you or an HR staff member to submit a sick day request or ask for someone to cover their shift—employees can simply send in online requests from the comfort of their homes. Such a system cuts down on employee stress levels and allows you to streamline the flow of information in and out of your business.

It’s also worth noting that creating an automatic record of sick day use, benefit accrual, or other services that employees enjoy will take the burden of accounting for all of those hours off of your HR team and place it squarely in the hands of your selected payroll company.

Downloadable Documents

Many payroll services allow employees to view and download important documents, such as tax forms or old pay stubs, from directly within the payroll portal. This is an indispensable luxury come tax season; unless all of your employees magically do their taxes through the same payroll service that you use, being able to save and print off the necessary forms from one location isn’t just helpful—it’s borderline necessary.

Remember, simplifying the most stressful aspects of your employees’ jobs—payroll, tax calculation, paid time off, and so on—will ensure that their overall stress levels while at work are as low as possible.

Match Your Payroll to Your Culture

If your current payroll service is old enough to stop using the kid’s menu, it’s probably time to update it for the modern age. Tradition is fine, but using manual services—and paying people for the time they spend performing them—when you could pay those same people to perform more meaningful tasks is an egregious waste of your resources.

Typically speaking, any modern payroll service will fit the bill of allowing employees to check their information, submit requests, and do all of the ancillary small tasks that you’re currently paying other people to do.

Maintain a Positive Outlook

Many traditional employers will look at a technology-centric shift as a defeat of sorts; after all, removing the human aspect from things like payroll and other menial tasks—while wise—can feel like resorting to lazy or impersonal means. However, the true win for both you and your employees lies in freeing up your HR department to focus on more important attributes of your business, such as talent scouting, workplace culture, counseling, and so on.

With your HR department putting their energy toward more meaningful goals and allowing your employees to self-manage their minor payroll concerns, you can expect your business to improve from the ground up—all the while keeping your bottom line close to its prior position.

Even though it’s for the best, shifting your payroll technology and HR responsibilities will invariably result in a headache. For more information on how you can enable your employees to make their own payroll updates, call Abacus Payroll at (856) 667-6225 today!