Many global payroll projects reap the benefits from global reporting, yet many organisations find it hard to articulate what this ‘mythical’ benefit should look like.
Conceptually, it is understood that a global payroll solution should deliver greater insight via reports such as labour cost, headcount and turnover. However, what should we expect from a global payroll vendor?
A global payroll solution should really deliver reporting and analytics across five key areas:
Centralised Reporting
A global payroll solution should include a repository where scheduled individual country payroll reports are published in line with the payroll calendar and are accessible from one global tool. The scheduled reports will include country-specific legal reports, standard finance reports and client-specific reports built for a specific country (eg union deduction reports) and they should offer a single reporting repository for operational payroll reports.
Additionally, the central reporting suite should provide insight into the operational dimension of global payroll including service level achievement (SLA) reporting, looking at accuracy of data, timeliness of payroll and other key operational metrics.
Salary demographics
The next level of complexity, sophistication and benefit from global payroll comes when global reporting can be delivered across all countries in scope with consolidated payroll periods and in a single currency.
The global payroll solution architecture and technology must allow you to generate the right insight across your payroll engines, payroll periods and payroll currencies, combining standardised wage type groupings, employee live events and selected HRIS data.
Once a global, predefined set of consolidated wage groupings are established and the technology is in place, it will be possible to run regional and global reports such as:
Standard insights related to payroll:
• Total employees paid
• Annual average cost
• Evolution of average cost last month
• Annual total cost
• Evolution of total cost last month
• Percentage overtime last month
• Overtime in currency last month
• Hires/terminations last month
Insights related to HR data:
• Headcount changes for the last three months
• Hires/terminations last month
• Hires/terminations for the last three months
• Employee type - regular/temporary
• Employee type - salaried/hourly
• Percentage of absenteeism last month
Operational reporting
Operational reports are often displayed using dashboard-type views and provide insights into the operational elements of global payroll including integration, business events that are flowing from various systems, self-service data updates and SLA’s. The service delivery management teams, from both the client and vendor, to manage payroll operations, often use this level of reporting.
Operational predictive analysis
The next generation of reporting from a global payroll solution should be operational predictive analysis, where the data from all country operations
is so perfectly integrated and aligned that it becomes possible to report on data flows prior to a payroll run on key elements such as:
• Salary changes are greater as X percentage of current salary
• Wage types in one-time payment differ X percentage against previous runs
• Expected wage types are no longer included in integration.
Big data
Big data is a much hyped and often little understood concept. However, it is important to recognise that a global payroll solution with a consolidated global repository of data and a well-structured data setup is a key foundation for big data reporting. While the benefits of big data reporting are often related directly to broader business focus areas within payroll, future big data reports may include:
• Average salary increase per country/region compared to market
• Average overtime pay out per country/region compared to market
• Turnover per country/region compared to the market.
When looking to implement a global payroll solution, it is imperative that significant time is invested to design and develop the reporting and data analytics that are required both today and in the future.
Rob Hill has 16 years of experience in global HR and payroll transformation, consulting, system design and technology selection. He specialises in global workforce administration, talent management and payroll solutions supported by payroll and HR outsourcing services and shared services. He has spent the past 12 years working with NGA Human Resources across the world and recently moved to the UK. He writes about global HR and payroll issues and can be found on at www.linkedin.com/ robahill or on Twitter at @robHill18.
Many global payroll projects reap the benefits from global reporting, yet many organisations find it hard to articulate what this ‘mythical’ benefit should look like.
Conceptually, it is understood that a global payroll solution should deliver greater insight via reports such as labour cost, headcount and turnover. However, what should we expect from a global payroll vendor?
A global payroll solution should really deliver reporting and analytics across five key areas:
Centralised Reporting
A global payroll solution should include a repository where scheduled individual country payroll reports are published in line with the payroll calendar and are accessible from one global tool. The scheduled reports will include country-specific legal reports, standard finance reports and client-specific reports built for a specific country (eg union deduction reports) and they should offer a single reporting repository for operational payroll reports.
Additionally, the central reporting suite should provide insight into the operational dimension of global payroll including service level achievement (SLA) reporting, looking at accuracy of data, timeliness of payroll and other key operational metrics.
Salary demographics
The next level of complexity, sophistication and benefit from global payroll comes when global reporting can be delivered across all countries in scope with consolidated payroll periods and in a single currency.
The global payroll solution architecture and technology must allow you to generate the right insight across your payroll engines, payroll periods and payroll currencies, combining standardised wage type groupings, employee live events and selected HRIS data.
Once a global, predefined set of consolidated wage groupings are established and the technology is in place, it will be possible to run regional and global reports such as:
Standard insights related to payroll:
• Total employees paid
• Annual average cost
• Evolution of average cost last month
• Annual total cost
• Evolution of total cost last month
• Percentage overtime last month
• Overtime in currency last month
• Hires/terminations last month
Insights related to HR data:
• Headcount changes for the last three months
• Hires/terminations last month
• Hires/terminations for the last three months
• Employee type - regular/temporary
• Employee type - salaried/hourly
• Percentage of absenteeism last month
Operational reporting
Operational reports are often displayed using dashboard-type views and provide insights into the operational elements of global payroll including integration, business events that are flowing from various systems, self-service data updates and SLA’s. The service delivery management teams, from both the client and vendor, to manage payroll operations, often use this level of reporting.
Operational predictive analysis
The next generation of reporting from a global payroll solution should be operational predictive analysis, where the data from all country operations
is so perfectly integrated and aligned that it becomes possible to report on data flows prior to a payroll run on key elements such as:
• Salary changes are greater as X percentage of current salary
• Wage types in one-time payment differ X percentage against previous runs
• Expected wage types are no longer included in integration.
Big data
Big data is a much hyped and often little understood concept. However, it is important to recognise that a global payroll solution with a consolidated global repository of data and a well-structured data setup is a key foundation for big data reporting. While the benefits of big data reporting are often related directly to broader business focus areas within payroll, future big data reports may include:
• Average salary increase per country/region compared to market
• Average overtime pay out per country/region compared to market
• Turnover per country/region compared to the market.
When looking to implement a global payroll solution, it is imperative that significant time is invested to design and develop the reporting and data analytics that are required both today and in the future.
Rob Hill has 16 years of experience in global HR and payroll transformation, consulting, system design and technology selection. He specialises in global workforce administration, talent management and payroll solutions supported by payroll and HR outsourcing services and shared services. He has spent the past 12 years working with NGA Human Resources across the world and recently moved to the UK. He writes about global HR and payroll issues and can be found on at www.linkedin.com/ robahill or on Twitter at @robHill18.
