As an HR leader in a college or university, you are very aware that it is a core responsibility to pay your staff accurately and on time, every time. But this is easier said than done when your team is faced with the difficulties of running HR Software in Higher Education that can’t manage multi-employment contracts which are so typical in universities. The growing trend of having campuses in multiple countries adds another layer of complexity: running payroll for a dispersed workforce that is subject to multiple different tax and compliance laws.
HR Software in Higher Education – The cost of payroll problems for universities & colleges
University employees need to be certain about their pay. Even more so in these uncertain times. The cost of payroll errors has a heavy toll on employee engagement and breeds dissatisfaction. In this day and age, it only takes one disgruntled ex-employee to share on social media their frustrations with you as an employer and your reputation can be tarnished for years. Attracting and keeping great staff is paramount to a higher ed establishment’s ongoing success, so no university or college would want to risk this. Especially when skilled staff are in such short supply.
Making payroll errors can cost you your staff and your reputation. The UK higher education industry is particularly prone to this because many colleges and universities have archaic systems which aren’t connected to their core people data and just can’t cope with modern requirements.
For those who haven’t yet upgraded their Payroll & HR Software in Higher Education, there’s a heavy reliance on Excel and manual calculations. As we know, to err is human and even the most diligent payroll administrator can key in the wrong information at times. Payroll is the most manually intensive function in people management. No wonder it is so easy to make mistakes with it.
HR Software in Higher Education – payroll today
One university I have been speaking with told me they still issue printed payslips and their staff don’t have any access to their payroll or core HR information. They can’t even amend their own details, such as changing their surname after they get married or changing their address when they’ve moved home. Even for small amendments like these staff must fill in a form and then get someone from payroll to validate it and upload the changes.
I wish I could say that is an exception, but sadly there are many educational establishments that are in a similar situation. Whilst a lot of universities are committed to digital transformation, often upgrading their student systems and ERP in particular, HR payroll has been overlooked in past years and I believe it is the function which most needs transforming.
It’s time for universities to evolve their payroll
It is time to ditch the printed payslips and move payroll, along with other core HR functions, to a modern system hosted in the Cloud. Employees can then view their pay information at any time, from any device and be empowered to update their personal information when needed. HR can have peace of mind knowing that they can more easily and accurately pay their staff, including temporary and contract workers, and automatically handle the different tax and reporting requirements for the multiple countries they operate in.
Secure Cloud hosting means that, with the right permissions, payroll staff can perform their core duties even if they must stay at home due to being pinged by the NHS Covid app or due to their own choice as universities and colleges move to hybrid working culture.
What’s possible for higher education with SAP Payroll Solutions
We provide SAP technology solutions specific to the needs of higher education. These include the SAP Successfactors Core HR Software in Higher Education as well as our own fixed scope and price system it.talentmanagement R2R for Higher Education which combines our in-depth knowledge of higher education HR and Payroll best practices with the market-leading SAP SuccessFactors technology. This software-and-services package has HESA reporting and other capabilities specific to higher ed built into the solution, including multi-employment contracts, complex payroll administration and filling and managing temporary staff.
SAP SuccessFactors has reinvented the payroll process with the ‘three-click payroll’. It allows universities and colleges to move away from batch-style processing to a continuous payroll process with real-time monitoring of payroll exceptions.
Payroll administrators can heave a collective sigh of relief as they wave goodbye to digging through countless error logs, spools, reports and having to create Excel lookups to find any payroll errors. The SAP system will flag errors and inconsistencies in real-time and enable ‘dummy runs’ so that mistakes can be rectified before each payroll run.
HMRC uses SAP payroll software, and they are one of the most digitally-advanced tax administrations in the world. SAP has been playing a key role in helping HMRC transform its HR and finance platforms. So, payroll managers working for universities and colleges can be sure that SAP payroll software is a really robust, strong solution.
Payroll for academic staff with multiple-employment contracts
Higher education establishments may currently have basic payroll systems that struggle with multiple accounts for each of the different roles. Most academic staff in universities and colleges have multiple employments. Someone might be working as a technician on one research project and as a co-investigator on another. They may also be a lecturer. Each role and project has a different contract. An employee may be paid by the hour, paid monthly and also paid per project.
NTT DATA Business Solutions is used to solve the operational issues involved with complex payroll management where multi-employment contracts are commonplace. SAP payroll technology is really strong in this area as well as being specifically designed to accommodate different payrolls in multiple countries.
Paying higher education staff in multiple countries
Increasingly, universities are opening up campuses further afield as it is often an easier sell than trying to get international students to come to the UK. As your workforce starts spreading around the world, you need HR Software in Higher Education you can trust that can accommodate the different payrolls in other countries.
Because the SAP payroll engine has been around for 30 years, we can provide payroll specific to 100 different countries. Every country has its own payroll rules, but universities can easily accommodate a global workforce with a truly global payroll solution that makes it easier to keep compliant with the local rules, even as legislation continues to change.
