Every business is looking at how it can reduce overheads and increase efficiency, non more so than now due to the forecasting of a recession. So, is outsourcing your payroll the right move right now?
In our view, few areas of a business are quite as ripe for outsourcing as payroll. So how can payroll outsourcing right now help you successfully manage your way through the current recession?
The key reasons are:
- Cut costs: In our experience, outsourcing will almost always be the cheaper option once you compare it with the true cost of retaining payroll in house.
- Improve efficiency: There’s nothing efficient about senior employees/directors/business owners who could be better employed elsewhere instead of spending time processing payroll. But that’s what often happens when you keep payroll in house, and it’s particularly common when times are tight and you find yourself needing to cover a greater spread of roles with fewer staff. Outsourcing payroll means you keep more of your people’s skills focused on work that grows the business and delivers a profit.
- Reduce the burden on your staff: Belt tightening often means one thing for remaining staff – the guarantee that their in-trays are about to get a lot bigger. Recessions inevitably lead to more work being shared around fewer people as businesses either find themselves having to lay off staff or delay recruitment. So, where there’s a simple way to remove some of that burden, such as outsourcing your payroll, it makes sense to take it.
- Reduce risk of making mistakes: The natural by-product of giving an already busy workforce more to do is that things get missed. It’s likely there are few areas of your business where you can afford to feel relaxed about mistakes, but when that area is payroll it’s vital that everything is right. Outsourcing hands the multiple risks – from inputting errors to keeping up to date with legislation – to someone else, who is an expert in the area.
- Access new tech, new thinking and new ways of working: Unless change is driven by new legislation (pensions auto-enrolment, for example) in-house payrolls tend to do what they’ve always done. They have a system that works, and they stick to it.
- Implementing new schemes quickly and accurately. Outsourced specialists are usually better at getting the new stuff right because it’s what we specialise in.
- Help retain morale: Sacrifices have to be made during a recession. But the more perks and benefits you have to trim, the more you risk affecting worker morale at precisely the time you need everyone on board. In the constant battle to find the costs you can cut that won’t lead to unintended consequences, payroll is the prime candidate.
Talk to us about outsourcing your payroll.
If you’re looking for ways to weather the forecast recession of 2022, outsourcing your payroll could be a simple and powerfully effective first step. Contact us for an initial chat.
