Pay and Benefits

 

I read with interest your news story in the February issue about the success of a payroll giving scheme following a communications campaign. We also operate a successful giving scheme. However, it is not simply enough to have a scheme: its existence needs to be communicated effectively to staff and the benefits of giving straight from pay explained and highlighted – especially to the higher rate taxpayer.

 

We work in partnership with Workplace Giving UK, who have devised creative ways of communicating the scheme to our workforce, visit annually, send us regular emails to cascade out and provide us with reports on giving so that we can include this activity in our corporate social responsibility reports.

 

Our scheme was first put in place because a new joiner had used such a facility at their previous company and wanted to continue to do so.

 

Many people want to give to charity, but it has to be made as simple as possible. Charitable giving can often be one of those things that people don’t quite get around to doing, let alone ensuring that any giving they do is tax efficient. Many higher rate taxpayers are unaware that, even if they have signed a Gift Aid form, the charity they are giving to can only claim back tax at the standard rate. An effective Workplace Giving scheme makes it all much more straightforward.

 

Such schemes can also give an employer the opportunity to give something back to staff. In the first year of our re-launch, we matched all giving through the scheme pound for pound. This encouraged people to join the scheme and demonstrated to our staff that we were happy to support their charitable causes.

 

We have backed the Geared for Giving Campaign, which is calling on more employers to implement these schemes. I’m not sure whether the day will come when such schemes are universal, but the campaign is a great step towards this.

 

Jonathan Croucher Chief Operating Officer, Taylor Wessing

 

 

Ian D’Cunha’s article in the February issue makes a valid point. Outsourcing is not just about cost savings, access to expertise and ease of keeping up to date with ever-changing regulation. 

 

Retaining control of data and internal best practices remains critical to large companies with complex payroll requirements. Payroll and HR administration is now recognised as central to the success of effective HR management and it is a prerequisite for payroll data to be secured in a controlled environment to offer easy access for real time business insight.

 

Our new research shows that payroll departments aren’t downsizing. In fact, many companies are supporting their payroll departments by investing in extra tools to take advantage of payroll information to contribute to workforce intelligence. IT resources are stretched to the limit and more organisations are considering outsourcing this technical area to application specialists. 

 

Payroll departments are under pressure to adapt to constantly changing regulation. Outsourcing can alleviate this strain. The key is that outsourcing of hardware, IT, and technical support should not compromise the strategic function of payroll and HR administration.

 

As Ian says, outsourcing was previously all or nothing. Now, there is much more flexibility. What he doesn’t say explicitly is that there are payroll software providers that allow companies to enjoy the benefits of outsourcing the technical environment to a full or partial version of SaaS, while retaining ownership of the core payroll and HR administration function.

 

Controlling the payroll process reduces the risk associated with adapting to an external set of processes, allowing companies to retain their proven internal processes. Outsourcing is evolving and employers are now being given the chance to reduce costs without increasing their exposure to risk. 

 

Chris Els Managing Director, Accero