Every Effective Payroll Strategy Needs These 3 Features

Whether hiring overseas for the first time or scaling your global presence, the right approach can eliminate common payroll challenges

Payroll processing involves a lot more than meets the eye. Multiplied by several countries and different vendors, it quickly becomes clear how important a cohesive payroll strategy is to effective management. In a series of posts, we have addressed the key challenges that companies face as they begin to either hire overseas or scale their global presence:

In the concluding post on this topic, weÕll take a look at how you can best overcome these common challenges and efficiently manage your global footprint. Although your employees may primarily think of payroll in terms of whether they will get paid on time or not, a global payroll strategy has to account for everything from local requirements to the risk of penalties for noncompliance:

Compliance: Ensuring compliance with local laws and regulations in each country, including tax laws, labor laws, and data privacy laws.
Standardization: Developing and implementing standardized processes and systems for payroll operations to ensure consistency and efficiency across all countries.
Data Management: Managing payroll data in a secure and centralized manner, with appropriate controls for access and privacy.
Currency Management: Dealing with the complexities of paying employees in different currencies, including exchange rate management and hedging.
Taxation: Addressing the complexities of taxation across multiple countries, including withholding taxes, payroll taxes, and tax reporting requirements.
Payroll Processing: Ensuring the timely and accurate processing of payroll, including the calculation of earnings, deductions, and taxes.
Technology: Utilizing technology and automation to support the payroll process and reduce manual errors.
Communication: Establishing clear communication channels with employees and stakeholders, including regular reporting and updates on payroll processes and status.

So, how can a company accomplish it all? Here are three features every effective global payroll strategy needs.

1. Total visibility & control

Lack of transparency tends to be a major issue for companies with a multi-country footprint. Some may have outsourced payroll processing to a local vendor and now have no easy way to track deliverables, such as tax and payroll deadlines, across the organization. If the number of payroll vendors then increases as the organization grows, so do the issues.

With important pieces of data stored in different locations and processes varying by the vendor, both compliance and data security can suffer. When companies have to follow the lead of their payroll vendors, they have little control over an area that is fundamental to the success of the entire organization.

How to realize full visibility and control

The HSP team created GateWay to give expanding companies the control and visibility they need to effortlessly manage their global footprint. This pioneering, cloud-based platform for global expansion management (GXM) unifies all of your applications and data points from every country payroll in a single place. With features such as real-time calendars, common input templates, and harmonized output reports, you gain immediate insight and ability to standardize management, wherever you are.

And if your needs go beyond payroll, GateWay was designed to help you manage and scale HR, Accounting, Tax, and Statutory Compliance as well. At any time, it gives you the independence to view data and act on deliverables without needing to log into multiple systems or rely on people across the world to send the information you seek.

2. Complete Data Protection

Global companies stand and fall with data protection and privacy. But despite the increased regulatory scrutiny and highly publicized stories of sizable fines for inadequate data management, many organizations are still unaware of what it takes to secure employee data in different regions and countries.

Considering the wealth of personal data needed for global payroll processing, organizations without the appropriate measures in place leave themselves vulnerable to both breaches and accidental releases. A surprising number of companies still include personal data in email communication or lack the knowledge to proactively build an organization around data protection in accordance with applicable regulations.

In the vast majority of cases, data breaches are the direct result of employee mistakes. These issues also tend to go hand in hand with the aforementioned lack of visibility and control.

How to gain complete data protection

Secure communication does not involve regular email. With multi-factor authentication, GateWay allows pre-approved team members a protected environment for sharing documents and sensitive data. By moving all communication to GateWay, you eliminate the risk of random emails falling into the wrong hands or attachments being sent to the wrong addressee. Threats like phishing and other scams that so often trick employees into releasing personal data also become non-issues.

3. Guaranteed Compliance

Paul Sutton, an HSP General Counsel and one of the most experienced data privacy lawyers in the UK, makes some crucial observations in his piece on GDPR compliance. He notes, ÒUS companies are often still taken by surprise by the extent and complexity of the regulatory framework and the amount of work required to comply. Unfortunately, all too often companies think they are compliant when they are really not.Ó

As the gold standard for data protection and privacy worldwide, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) simply cannot be ignored. Yet, as the number of fines levied by European regulatory authorities show, many companies are paying a high price for noncompliance.

If you process the personal information or ÒdataÓ of EU/UK residents, you must have all the required technology, processes, and organization in place (often referred to as ÒTOMSÓ) to protect their personal data and privacy. In other parts of the world, the GDPR is either used as a model for nationwide frameworks or other stringent requirements apply.

How to achieve guaranteed compliance

Cross-border companies need not only assistance but specialized assistance to manage compliance, especially when it comes to the GDPR. Although the initial phase (for example, establishing the litany of written external and internal data privacy policies) can require significant resources, it is time well spent. Once every piece is in place, the upkeep requires far less investment.

Led by Paul Sutton, HSP has the expertise to help you meet all the GDPR compliance requirements. We back up our services with GateWay, which comes with compliance built in, ensuring crucial deadlines are met and relevant regulations taken into consideration.

LetÕs talk

We empower you to manage your global payroll with ease. By enabling total visibility and control, complete data protection, and guaranteed compliance, we provide all the foundational pieces needed for international success.