The Coronavirus outbreak has drastically changed business and commerce throughout all parts of the world. This has in turn affected employment and as well as subsequent payroll. Even after the pandemic slows down, businesses are bound to experience a lot of unforeseen changes in their payrolls, which are discussed at lengths below.
Unforeseen Challenges
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the employees have chosen to return to their home cities and work from there to complete tasks and assignments. This has, in turn, dispersed people of the team across various cities and countries. This makes delivering their paychecks more challenging especially if traditional methods of payroll have been utilized so far by the company.
Furthermore, accessing all data and files that could otherwise be stored in company laptops and desktops cannot be directly accessed anymore. Human Resource Staff that work continually on office provided systems and books will be majorly impacted by the lack of information retrieval. This will, in turn, affect the constant payroll that employees who are continuously working expect at the end of each month.
As employees work from home, the accountability in terms of the time spent completing office work also changes and cannot be effectively tracked at all times. Many enterprises have also chosen to let go of employees or even alter the terms of the employment contract to keep up with the declining markets and capital. To account for all these factors and smoothly transition during such stressful times is a definite challenge for many firms especially given many of the legislative complexities that these processes entail.
These challenges that are being experienced currently will not be majorly altered even after the crisis as the recovery period is expected to last for at least another two years. This would mean that the current protocol being followed by companies will have to extend for long after firms are back in business.
Countering The Problems
Although all these unforeseen challenges can be addressed directly, the changes that are made to the existing company’s structure cannot be reflected instantly. A good recommendation for companies would be to adopt a payroll system that is integrated and works using an online interface. This way all employees, be it from the HR department to the management, can access all data and have automatic payment schedules at the end of each month. This feature will allow for all the payment slips to be delivered electronically to the respective employee no matter where they are seated in the world.
As the system can be integrated with other software, you can have the time spent completing office work be accounted for and have it synced with the payroll. This will allow for the optimal amount of salary to be calculated and paid. Any leave and absences will also be accounted for by the payroll system relieving the HR staff of a lot of responsibility, especially when working remotely. Any changes made to employment contracts can be reflected in the payroll system with minimal alterations.
These counter changes can be made keeping the World Health Organization’s health and safety guidelines in mind. Even as companies will reopen their front for business, by outsourcing their employees’ payrolls, they will be able to continue operations as always. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to have the best payroll management software installed to cater to all payroll needs and necessities for your organization.
