How outsourcing payroll can improve HR efficiency and reduce costs
As a Human Resources (HR) manager, you want your team to focus on strategic HR imperatives, not back-office administrative tasks. But all too often, your team has to spend precious hours on time-consuming jobs like processing payroll instead of focusing on strategic priorities like employee engagement or talent management.
If your HR team is already stretched to the limit, managing payroll can be even more of a challenge. You know that a late pay run can result in unhappy employees. You also know that a rushed pay run may have errors. The last thing you want is to generate costly fines or lawsuits for your company because of a simple payroll mistake.
The solution for many companies in Singapore and the APAC Region has been to outsource their payroll.
Let’s look at how outsourcing payroll could improve HR efficiency while also reducing costs.
Save valuable time while preventing costly compliance errors
HR team responsibilities have grown significantly in recent years from day-to-day personnel management and administrative tasks to now delivering key company objectives. In between scheduling interviews, running performance appraisals, and processing payroll, HR professionals can struggle to find the time for core strategic imperatives.
This means essential but non-urgent goals like strengthening company culture and employee experience often suffer. It’s no wonder that many HR teams are feeling stressed and overwhelmed. And when HR teams are overstretched, payroll errors may happen.
Small payroll mistakes can have big consequences for your company, including:
- Costly non-compliance fines and even employer jail time: as just one example, employers in Singapore who fail to pay Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions for their employees correctly and promptly can be taken to court. If they’re convicted of late CPF payment offences, employers face up to $5,000 in fines per offence and up to six months’ imprisonment for a first offence.
- Reputational damage: payroll errors can generate negative publicity for your company, resulting in distrust from both clients and investors. In turn, this can reduce profits and lower the value of your company.
- Employee dissatisfaction: getting paid correctly and on time is a basic expectation for every employee. Repeated payroll errors can lead to employee dissatisfaction, which can ultimately reduce productivity and increase staff turnover.
In the APAC Region, payroll regulations are complex and change frequently, making it more difficult for HR teams to stay up-to-date. If your company also operates within multiple countries, payroll compliance becomes more difficult as your team needs to stay abreast of each nation’s unique regulations.
Outsourcing payroll frees up the time your HR team previously spent attempting to keep up with changing compliance regulations and doing tedious, repetitive payroll processing tasks. It gives them the capacity to properly concentrate on core strategic activities that add more value to the business.
Enhance productivity by streamlining processes and making data analysis easier
Expert payroll outsourcing vendors use advanced, all-in-one Human Resource Management System (HRMS) solutions to automate and streamline payroll processing. This eliminates the need for manual calculations or data input, which can significantly increase the speed and accuracy of your pay runs.
More streamlined payroll processes also enhance productivity by enabling your HR team to spend their time and energy on core strategic business activities. Beyond this, your company would no longer need to purchase the latest HRMS software upgrade or maintain the cloud security to support it – generating yet more savings.
Additionally, outsourcing payroll can improve HR efficiency by making data easier to analyse. Different types of advanced HRMS software used by payroll outsourcing vendors can provide unparalleled reporting capabilities and workforce visibility. Detailed reports can be generated at the click of a button, providing business insights faster and more easily. Armed with these insights, your team can make better strategic decisions for your company.
All-in-one HRMS Platform, Ignite
Access to a team of experts without the salary costs
Finally, outsourcing to an expert payroll service provider gives your company access to a pool of HR knowledge specialists without the expense of retaining them in-house. Our team of payroll experts here at BoardRoom have worked across multiple industries, and in multiple countries and situations, which means they can:
- guide you on best practices;
- identify key risks and potential problems, and provide practical solutions that save your team time and resources;
- ensure your company remains up-to-date and fully compliant with all relevant payroll regulations; and
- provide regular reports and valuable insights for your business.
Not only that, but you can also take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that our team of professionals at BoardRoom have across a range of business disciplines, including:
- accounting;
- tax; and
- corporate
Our centralised services enable you to receive assistance in multiple fields while streamlining your outsourcing processes.
"Outsourcing payroll makes sense"
If your HR team is feeling the pressure to do more with less, now is the time to consider outsourcing payroll.
Our team of payroll experts at BoardRoom can take care of payroll for you, freeing up your team to refocus on delivering strategic HR imperatives like strengthening company culture and increasing employee engagement. Essentially, this means increasing your HR team’s efficiency, while reducing costs as outlined above.
That’s why outsourcing payroll makes sense for so many companies in Singapore and the APAC Region. Speak to our payroll specialists today about how to outsource payroll services for your company.