Payroll Briefs

Don’t Underestimate the Human Component of Payroll

August 13, 2020

When it comes to managing your company’s payroll processing, the task has historically been considered as a back-office, administrative role. However, your payroll manager has the significant task of serving your business’s most important asset: its people. Given payroll’s transactional nature, if you don’t have an effective payroll solution in place, it may be difficult to focus on the human component behind payroll. DM Payroll Solutions explores payroll’s human component and how an effective payroll processing system creates more time to focus on your employees.

Uncovering Payroll’s Human Component

Each month, payroll managers are responsible for cutting checks, keeping up with labor laws, managing the different kinds of pay (salaried or hourly) and staying compliant with regulations. On top of these responsibilities, payroll managers are also the first people your employees come to with questions and/or concerns about their pay. Given all of the different tasks involved in processing payroll, it can be difficult for your payroll manager to keep their head above water.

However, making time for your employees as people, not just paychecks, is just as important as administrative tasks. After all, there’s always the consideration of employees’ livelihoods outside of work, such as those struggling to pay their bills or planning to put money down for a large-ticket purchase like a house. Employees are the lifeblood of your organization, so ensuring they feel well-taken care of is imperative to morale and low turnover rates. Without some sort of payroll processing solution in place, your payroll manager is stuck manually working through payroll where they could otherwise be solving problems for your employees.

Creating a Balance

With some companies having anywhere from 1 to 10,000 employees, odds are someone at some point will have questions about their pay, so anticipating these conversations and having time available to have them is key. For example, say you have an employee who is concerned their pay for the last pay period was too low. Your payroll manager:

  1. Is swamped with cutting checks for the pay period, so they quickly email the employee saying if the pay was processed, then it’s probably the correct amount for what the employee worked. After, the employee feels angry, undervalued and anxious they are not receiving what they perceive to be the correct amount.
  2. Schedules time to meet with the employee, hearing their concerns and providing rationale behind the pay. The employee leaves feeling heard and aware of why they received this amount.

For payroll processing to be truly effective, payroll managers should balance accomplishing administrative tasks with ample time to work with employees. Fortunately, DM Payroll Solutions handles all of your administrative payroll tasks to ensure your payroll managers has more time available to focus on your employees. Our robust payroll tools streamline transactional functions, empowering your payroll manager to prioritize your people. When you combine payroll, time and attendance, employee recordkeeping and more into one platform, your payroll manager can manage large amounts of payroll information easily and still have time to collaborate with your employees. To learn more about how DM Payroll Solutions allows payroll managers to accomplish their administrative tasks as well as grow their people, contact us today.