Payroll, your time has come

Widening your benefits portfolio for (almost) nothing.

STUDENT LOANS, attachments of earnings, SMP, SSP, overtime, P45s, P11Ds… the list of things that payroll departments have to deal with is long, complicated and often not appreciated nearly as much as it should be.

Payroll is one of those jobs that is barely on the radar until something goes not quite right. Why then would an employer choose to add things that don’t have to be done to the list?

In general, most employers – and to be fair, most payroll departments, though there are some dishonourable exceptions – want to maximise employees’ income where this can
be done without cost to the employer. There is of course a cost in enabling employees to access benefits by payroll, which is the time of the payroll department and associated administration.

This is mostly hidden in general overhead but it is real, even though the employer is not making an identifiable ‘cash’ payment for it. So the benefit to the employee needs to at least match and ideally exceed the (hidden) cost to the employer.

The additional transactions for payroll will be more palatable in organisations where employee engagement is valued, and where payroll is recognised for the vital role it plays in organisational harmony and efficiency and therefore sees itself as key to delivering employee services, not just as a hard-done-by cog in an unappreciative wheel.

So what sort of benefits can payroll help with and why should they?

This gives a good flavour of how an amenable approach from payroll can significantly widen the range of benefits an employer can make available. The risks are very manageable once they are understood and the reward is great.

Payroll, your time has come.