"How would we create a comprehensive end state vision for our payroll or workforce management organization?"

End State Visioning

Creating a vision for the future is never easy. Stakeholders have competing interests, technology infrastructure is often fragmented, and functional needs seem endless. An end-state vision must address the people, process and technology aspects of a solution. Typically, visioning is based on best practices in payroll and workforce management, which come from the extensive empirical evidence collected in performance studies. In this way, an organization can maximize its efficiency and effectiveness upon realizing its vision.

"We need to assemble a compelling business case for a payroll or workforce management project. Where do we start?"

Business Case Creation

Having a vision is one thing. Getting it approved is another. The greatest of intentions still has to be backed up by a compelling business case which proves the long term financial benefits of an initiative. Metrics for savings (as well as costs) are based on a financial model that includes costs for

• software
• hardware
• change management
• internal and external
• services
• telecommunications or hosting fees
• maintenance
• expenses

"We are trying to decide on whether to outsource our payroll services or redefine our existing service delivery model. What factors should influence our decision?"

Develop an Outsourcing Strategy

Cost, quality of service, compliance risk, globalization and a host of other factors can play into decisions around the composition of an organization's payroll services. There is certainly no one-size-fits-all solution. However, outsourcing has been and continues to be a common trend for building a payroll organization to meet the needs of large, complex organizations.

"It looks like our payroll process cost is high and we are looking to reduce it. What can we do?"

Decrease Payroll Processing Costs

The first step is to confirm whether or not payroll process costs are high, as compared to peers or the entire industry. Benchmarking is an excellent way to accomplish this. Beyond this, most organizations perform a basic investigation to understand exactly where in the payroll taxonomy the inefficiencies exist. Experience shows that the time and attendance function is a key component of the taxonomy, and significant cost savings (both soft dollar and tangible) can be saved.

"Wage and hour compliance continues to be a problem in our organization. We're concerned about lawsuits. How would we go about addressing this?

Compliance

Wage and hour audits are on the rise, as are lawsuits of that nature. Is your organization safe? The recommended governance structure focuses on

• informing through education
• automating through technology
• monitoring through internal audits

"What should my payroll/workforce management technology strategy be?"

Develop a Technology Strategy

Whether your organization operates on paper, or has modern automated systems which are integrated with one another, there are always questions around upgrades, obsolescence and the viability of new functions. It is clear that most organizations want to maximize the use of their existing technology, while positioning themselves well for any new solutions which are easier to maintain and have a lower total cost of ownership.