Payroll departments never want to make a mistake when it comes to wage payments. Even so, research from SD Worx and reported in People Management has revealed that sometimes these mistakes happen – particularly in an overstretched payroll team from a small business.
Over 44% of Europeans have admitted that they have been paid late. The main reason given for this is matters of cashflow, with companies being unable to pay their staff because of late payments from other third parties. The second main reason – which is more frustrating – is computer glitches.
While a business works hard to get the situation rectified as quickly as they can, this survey, along with others, show there is a corrosive effect that an employer may not notice until it’s too late. There are several ways that this issue manifests itself:
- Fool Me Once…
Research from Kronos Incorporated has shown that it takes just two payroll mistakes to cause 49% of workers to leave their job and find a new one.
- Knock On Effects
With so many people finding themselves living paycheck to paycheck, there are severe knock-on effects of unpaid loans and bills that are made even worse by payroll problems. 37% of the respondents in the survey said they had been left making late mortgage payments because of late payroll payments.
- Ruined Reputations
88% of people paid late in the UK said that they were left with negative opinions of their employer because of late payments.
- Anxiety Over the Gig Economy
If you fail to make payments on time then it can be unsettling for all involved. This anxiety becomes even worse with workers of the gig economy, who are the most likely to use a late payment as a reason to find different work.
- Worker Disengagement
Being late with payments causes the workers to disengage with their employers and the overall workplace. They begin to adopt the mindset that if you obviously don’t care about paying them, then they won’t care about doing the work. It’s a mindset that can quickly spread among the workforce as well.
There are some things that you can do about payroll processing issues, including immediate responses such as:
- Reviewing in-house processes to ensure workers correctly log their hours
- Be proactive about communicating any problems, so that staff will be aware there is a problem before they are stuck with declined cards and missing money
- Ensure there is some oversight in the payroll processing department, and that there is a process for correcting any payroll problems.
If the problem persists, then you may wish to outsource payroll to minimise the effort put into payroll, free up some staff resources, and reduce the occurrence of payroll errors.
Get in touch with us today to learn more about outsourcing payroll!