The cost of living crisis represents one of the most significant threats facing businesses and their people, the effects of which- if left unchecked; could lead to damaging long term effects not just on the finances of their people but also on their ongoing physical and mental wellbeing.
So what exactly can businesses do to help shepherd their people through the cost of living crisis? From an organisational perspective, one of the keys to help mitigate the worst of the crisis seems to lay in ensuring that your management and people teams have access to the appropriate tools needed to help shape policy, guide conversations and take meaningful action.
However, without access to the proper tools, it will become near impossible to leverage the talents of your payroll teams in a truly meaningful way, drawing upon their experience to help craft policy and procedure to help your people. We’ve created Advanced Payroll to help businesses tackle the every day pay challenges they face and to free their payroll teams from the burden of manual inputs and admin heavy tasks, freeing them to harness their expertise in ways that can focus on safeguarding the wellbeing of your people.
What is the cost of living crisis?
The cost of living crisis is a multitude of factors which have combined to create the biggest decline in household income since the 70s. Experts have pointed to the long term effects of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic as driving elements but there is also evidence which points to more recent events such as the conflict in Ukraine and soaring energy prices as having a marked effect.
At the time of writing, inflation has also hit a 40 year high with the Bank of England reporting that inflation could rise by up to 11% by this autumn. This surge in inflation has already left its mark on food and gas prices, with staples such as meat and dairy products being hit particularly hard. This has led to an average increase of £454 a year for the average UK household’s grocery bills.
Hikes in energy prices are also a chief cause for concern. Despite announced government support packages to attempt to alleviate the worst of the increases, these measures have been viewed by financial experts as relatively modest and not a demonstration of long term support, particularly with utility bills set to increase beyond initially predicted levels.
How Advanced Payroll can help.
In light of the emerging cost of living crisis, it is clear that payroll has a fundamental role to play in helping to safeguard the ongoing wellbeing of employees.
Beyond freeing payroll teams to act as standard bearers and touchstones of good practice, your payroll systems are ideally placed to help you create a more sympathetic and rewarding pay structure.
We created Advanced Payroll specifically to help tackle challenges facing payroll professionals day in and day out. We’ve taken on board the experiences of people working in the field in order to craft a solution which can free payroll teams from the burden of admin heavy tasks and allow them to leverage their skills in more meaningful ways.
So what exactly can Advanced Payroll help you achieve?
- Real time payroll - Now more than ever, it’s important that your employees are being paid accurately for the hours they work. Advanced Payroll’s real time pay functionality allows you to accommodate for every change and run payroll at the very last minute, meaning your people avoid any roadblocks or delays in achieving their proper pay.
- Pay on demand- With finances on a knife edge for many and the potential of unexpected costs a very real threat to the wellbeing of your people, it’s important that you are able to empower them to move beyond the traditional, more rigid cycle of pay. Advanced payroll offers unparalleled pay on demand functionality, allowing you the ability to stream wages to your people as and when they need them.
- Reporting- Gain an unparalleled insight into your organisation and build out detailed reports which can highlight any potential disparities in wages. This visibility allows you to create a more equal and robust system of pay which puts your people first during the cost of living crisis.
- Compliance- With the cost of living crisis so dominant, it is likely there will be new legislation introduced to help combat the worst of its effects. Payroll teams already face a huge burden in ensuring compliance, with failure to adhere to regulations carrying the potential for severe legal and financial penalties. Advanced Payroll takes the burden off your hands, ensuring you remain compliant with even the most immediate legislative shifts.
- Greater visibility of wages- Empower your people and enable them better plan their finances ahead of time with greater visibility of their wages. Advanced payroll allows you to host your payslips on an easy to access platform for your employees, giving them a greater understanding of their incoming money and allowing them to prepare for the month ahead.
- Pay on demand overtime- With unexpected outgoings carrying the potential to seriously undermine the long term financial wellbeing of your people, it’s understandable that many of your employees will want to pick up extra hours in order to accommodate for heightened costs. The cost of living crisis is an immediate threat and therefore, doesn’t it make sense that your people should also be paid for these extra hours in real time? Advanced Payroll allows you to greater incentivise overtime shifts by offering you the ability to pay your people on demand.
What’s next?
We understand just how important the wellbeing of your people is to you and we also appreciate the crucial role that payroll has to play in shepherding your workforce through the cost of living crisis. We believe that the systems you rely on for your monthly pay cycle should be comprehensive and intuitive enough to help your organisations meet the challenges of the cost of living crisis.
Advanced Payroll offers you the scalability and flexibility you need to completely transform the way in which you run payroll, capable of working effortlessly across multiple sites and pay grades. Whether operating as a standalone system or integrated with our Time and Attendance, HR and Access Control solutions to form a comprehensive Workforce Management suite, Advanced Payroll helps you process payrolls efficiently.
Our solution gives you the comprehensive reporting, GDPR auto-processing and audit trail capability you need to have peace of mind that your payroll is being run accurately and in a compliant fashion month in and month out.
If you’d like to discover more about how Advanced Payroll can help your organisation meet the challenges of the cost of living crisis and safeguard the financial wellbeing of your people, Download a free brochure or contact us.