A new survey has found that one-third of employers are using payroll technology that is at least 10 years old. The “Evolution of Payroll Technology Survey,” conducted by Kronos with the American Payroll Association, polled nearly 1,000 payroll professionals from small, mid, and enterprise-size organizations (SMBs) across all industries. The results found that outdated, manual processes and legacy payroll solutions limit a payroll department’s ability to track and report key performance indicators (KPIs), as well as affect their ability to keep up with today’s speed of modern business. Though 49 percent of all organizations surveyed admitted to not tracking KPIs in their payroll department, 29 percent polled use payroll systems that are 10 years old or more — the same age as Apple’s first iPhone. Malysa O’Connor, senior director of Payroll Practice Group at Kronos, said, “Many payroll professionals find themselves in a challenging predicament. They’re forced to rely on outdated solutions that provide limited visibility into payroll’s impact on overall organizational performance. Because of this, they are unable to build a proper business case to secure the investment needed to procure the modern, digital solutions required to keep up with today’s speed of business. Organizations that proactively invest in new payroll tools, that deliver in-depth analytics and an engaging employee experience, will unlock yet another door for improved performance.” The survey also discovered that “one in 10 respondents use a payroll system that is less than a year old, and 27 percent use solutions that are less than three years old.” As for a company’s biggest challenge, mergers and acquisitions were reported to be the hardest to overcome with their current payroll system, followed closely by changes in business goals, leadership and regulations. In the future, those surveyed would like to work with “digital payroll solutions that have self-service options for employees, provide on-demand reporting and analytics, track seasonal and contingency workers,” and enable leadership, operations and finance to include payroll data within their own reports.
One-third of companies are using payroll technology that is at least 10 years old, according to a survey of 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses by Kronos and the American Payroll Association. The survey found that one in 10 companies use a payroll system less than a year old and 27% are using systems less than three years old. The biggest challenge reported was mergers and acquisitions, followed by business goal changes, leadership and regulation. “Companies have been slow to adopt new technologies because they don’t want to spend money on upgrading their existing systems,” said Michael J. O’Leary, president of Kronos Research.