When it comes to who you choose to handle your payroll and Time and Attendance needs, it’s inevitable that eventually a change will be needed. For businesses, the real challenge often comes in the form of understanding when the right moment has arrived and how to begin the search for another supplier.
Your payroll and Time and Attendance and wider HCM processes represent critical elements of your day-to-day operation, handling sensitive data and requiring speed and accuracy in processing. Failing to get either of these elements right can have significant negative impacts on both your organisation and your people and contribute directly towards decline in levels of engagement, motivation and wellbeing, as well as directly impacting your bottom line and security.
With the impact of getting it wrong so pronounced, it’s no wonder that many businesses may be reluctant to change their HCM provider, preferring to stay with outdated or unsuitable solutions rather than risk potential disruption to their working processes. We understand that change can sometimes be scary but we also understand that there comes a time when looking for a new HCM provider is the best step that you can take for the long term health of your business. We wanted to explore some of the scenarios where searching for a new provider is a crucial next step for your organisation and to also dispel some of the mystery around sourcing a new solution.
When is it the right time to change your HCM solutions?
So, what exactly are some of the factors which may influence you to change your Payroll, T&A or HR solution?
- Support- Working with systems and technology unfortunately can come hand in hand with expecting things to go wrong sometimes. Now whilst no supplier can guarantee 100% that downtime, outages or errors won't occur, their commitment to providing ongoing and effective support is absolutely a metric by which you should judge them. An inability from your current supplier to respond efficiently and swiftly to errors or downtime in their service should honestly be a determining factor in your considerations to stay with them. If your current solution seems lacking in this regard, try looking for alternatives who can supply readily accessible support teams to assist you.
Support doesn’t end with chasing errors and putting out fires. Support extends to the overall health of your solution. How dedicated is your current supplier to updating and innovating the current solution you own? If it seems as though the system you are using is being left by the wayside in favour of a new product, it may be time to look elsewhere.
- Growth-As your company reaches new heights of success, the systems and processes you use must move in lockstep with your growth. If you find yourself expanding in head count or moving across multiple sites, it’s a perfect time to assess the suitability of your current set up and whether it has the capacity to grow alongside the needs of your business. Many organisations can find themselves caught out by sudden expansion of their headcount with solutions which may have had a focus on helping smaller businesses suddenly unable to cope with the new demands of their users.
- Security- In the modern, globally connected workspace, massive data breaches are a very real threat facing organisations. Whether as a result of mismanagement, poor security setups or simply down to outdated and unsuitable solutions, businesses across all industries will need to wake up to the potential pitfalls of lax cybersecurity, and the impact this can have on their most sensitive data and the hours it takes to put breaches right. Better safe than sorry indeed.
Never is this more important than within the HCM space. HR as a function involves the processing of masses of sensitive and business critical data, meaning that security is an absolute priority for the solutions which businesses place their trust in. Ask hard questions of your current supplier in order to gain an understanding of their capability and commitment to safeguard your data. If you find them lacking in any way, it’s time for a change.
With workforce management being so closely entwined with the broader business, Security is a paramount concern when assessing the suitability of your solution. Gaps in processes or outdated security can lead to harmful data breaches which can lead to shutdowns of key components of your organisation. When it comes to security, the message is clear- if one part of your business fails, another will too.
- Simplify- it’s no secret that technology is an ever evolving enabler in today’s society and when it comes to the world of HCM, it’s not uncommon to find that the solution you put in place even a couple of years back has now become outdated and outmoded. It’s also worth considering that unlike older systems, modern HCM solutions are far more modular in functionality and able to more effectively slot in alongside your current working processes. Given that the whole end goal of digital transformation is to cut down on manual input and generally make your life easier, doesn’t it make sense to assess whether your current supplier is capable of helping you achieve these goals?
- Demolishing silos- given the ever-connected state of modern working culture, more and more organisations are finding the concept of individuals or teams working in disparate bubbles or “silos” to be counterproductive. One of the greatest assets of HCM technology is that it enables connectivity between teams and also encourages erstwhile separate elements of an organisation to work in a more collaborative fashion.When thinking about your current set up, wouldn’t it be life-changing to have a truly intelligent system in place, one where you clocking devices and time and attendance solution could speak seamlessly with your payroll?
With remote and hybrid working models now forming a more dominant part of contemporary workforce structures, it makes sense to take the time to assess your current HCM solutions and check whether they are capable of aligning with the modern, widespread workforce. Do they also allow you to break down the older, less productive barriers between teams and if not, is it perhaps time for a change? Ultimately, do your systems truly allow your employees and people teams the ability to access the system and data anywhere, at anytime?
- Implementation- One of the biggest barriers to digital transformation is the concern around bungled setup and integration. Almost all of us can recall a time where a mishandling in the introduction of new systems or technology has had a dramatically negative impact on the effectiveness of new processes. Furthermore, companies who have had prior experience of being let down at the integration stage can often paradoxically find themselves sticking with the supplier who let them down in the first place, rather than search for an alternative and risk another botched setup.
What’s next?
At Advanced, we understand that taking that next step and making a change in your Payroll and Time and Attendance solutions can be a daunting prospect. The ramifications of getting it wrong is an ever present fear for businesses and can sometimes have a way of blinding us to the benefits of effective digital transformation of the HCM space.
We also know that you deserve to reach greater heights of productivity and profitability and to achieve this, sometimes requires taking a bold step and asking some hard questions about your current solution. Your business will have lofty goals and ambitions for the future and there’s no shame in expecting your HCM solutions to not hold you back in helping you achieve success.
Fundamentally, it’s all about choosing a provider who puts your needs first and is supporting you in helping ensure that your employees are paid on time and accurately for their hours worked, as well as being supported in all the other ways that the HR function demands.
If you’d like to find out more about how Advanced can you pay your people accurately and on time, get in touch with one of our friendly team members today.