Our keynote agenda for the night ran like this:
- Payroll Partnerships - Lara Smart, LSC Group
- Industry Trends - Max Van Der Klis-Busink, Head of Service Delivery, Payzaar
- Danone Case Study - Marc-Oliver Fiedler, CEO, Payzaar
I might be biased but that’s an amazing group of payroll minds right there!
Let’s get into the highlights, shall we!?
Sharing Is Caring: The Importance of Payroll Partnerships
Lara Smart, founder of LSC Group and cherished friend of Payzaar, kicked off the evening’s festivities with an eye-opening presentation about payroll partnerships.
Lara always gets the crowd thinking when she speaks at our events, and this time was no different!
“Tell me something about my business that I don’t know.”
The central theme of Lara’s keynote was that any valuable partnership should tell you something that you don’t know. It should involve an element of education, a sharing of insight, or an exchange of resources. After all, every partnership (payroll-related or not) is a two-way street. Don’t forget: It takes Two to Tango!
But since this was a conversation with a room full of global payroll professionals, how does it connect to the industry?
“The better the partnership you build, the more you’re going to get out of it. It’s about trust.”
In Global Payroll, you work with partners on an internal (leadership, HR, finance) and external (providers, vendors) level every single day.
Lara advocates that in order to establish a truly healthy payroll ecosystem, the partnerships on which it is built must be defined by trust and transparency. With a freer flow of information and resources (both inbound and outbound), these partnerships have the power to result in additional insights and services that can benefit the entire organization in ways that wouldn’t be possible in a siloed operational structure.
Ultimately, Lara’s presentation left us with an important takeaway:
The relationships we build matter.
And if that isn’t the perfect message for a night of community building, then I don’t know what is!
Industry insights and payroll possibilities!
Did you know the 2nd Issue of Payzaar’s Global Payroll Industry Report is now available to download!? (Well, now you do! 👀)
Attendees of the event got an exclusive sneak peek into the latest report from none other than Max Van Der Klis-Busink, Payzaar’s Head of Service Delivery, who had the challenge of condensing 88 jam-packed pages into a whirlwind 15-minute keynote.
In typical Max fashion, he managed to pull it off with clarity, insight, and wit… Plus a couple of friendly jokes about HR.
Here are some of the most prescient payroll insights Max shared:
Filling the talent pool and enabling career growth!
Global payroll has a talent dilemma!
As businesses globalize, demand for payroll professionals is on the rise…But the talent pool seems dry...
How can organizations hope to fill this supply-demand gap? By investing in attracting diverse talent and empowering payroll professionals to progress in their careers.
And don’t forget Gen Z! They’ve already joined the workforce, and will be dominating it in the coming years. However, they have a different set of professional expectations that must be considered if we want to lure them over to the dark side (aka the wonderful world of global payroll).
Read more about How Gen Z is impacting Global Payroll!
It’s high time for hybrid!
How do you choose between global, regional, and local for your payroll provider strategy?
Simple…You don’t have to!
More and more organizations are embracing a hybrid model for their payroll systems, with responsibilities being shared between different global, regional, and local Providers.
What does this mean for organizations? The choice is yours! Carefully selecting the right Payroll Providers at all levels and establishing standardized processes will be crucial to your organization’s future flexibility and scalability.
And for Payroll Providers? It’s more important than ever to invest in the best payroll technology to ensure you can deliver the highest level of service across and scale their client base accordingly.
The Art of the Payroll Calendar
“Time is what we want most but what we use worst.” - William Penn
We all know that time is our most valuable resource, so why do we still waste so much of it on processes that we can optimize right now?
Investing in the automation of pre-payroll and inputting submissions, as well as redefining processing timelines with your Providers, can result in immediate efficiency gains that will give you the ability to invest your precious hours into tasks that truly require a human touch.
And then there’s the other classic quote: “Time is money!”. Well, believe it or not, streamlining and standardizing these outdated processes can also help to reduce manual labour costs and mitigate hidden outsourcing fees.
So what are you waiting for? The time to make these changes is now.
Audit hate? Automate!
Does audit anxiety still get you down? It shouldn’t!
It has never been easier to stay audit ready with all of the current technological resources at your disposal. By utilizing centralized payroll software, you can standardize and automate various controls across your workflow, enabling you to remain prepared for when the auditor comes a’knocking.
Whew! That’s all I’ll share from Max’s keynote here. Check out the full report for further industry insights.
Now, over to Marc to wrap things up!
Danone Case Study: Harmonizing Global Payroll While Accommodating Local Differences
Danone, the global Fortune 500 food and beverage company, had a payroll problem.
It wanted to harmonize its complex and fragmented payroll landscape (spanning 37+ payroll vendors across 55+ countries) while still meeting the specific needs of its diverse local systems.
The company quickly realized that a traditional global aggregator solution would not be a good fit, but where could it possibly find a cohesive unified payroll model that would also afford the region-by-region operational flexibility it needed? 🤔
You guessed it!
In his presentation of this unique payroll transformation, Marc-Oliver Fiedler shared how the Payzaar platform allowed Danone to streamline its payroll processes; integrate data flows across HR, Payroll and Finance systems; and strengthen operational controls on both a global and local level, without disruption or provider changes.
It was quite the payroll journey, and Marc left attendees with much to discuss over some rooftop drinks as the evening came to a close.
(Those of you reading at home can learn more about the Danone case study here!)
So, what’s next?
You didn't think that just because we wrapped up another amazing community event that we’d start slowing down, did you?
We’re still buzzing from the launch of our new Providers website and Issue #2 Industry report, and there’s many more exciting things on the horizon, including:
- A new Plug And Play episode with Max Van Der Klis-Busink and Angelique Rodrigues recapping even more highlights from the Barcelona event!
- A Payzaar Production 🎬 - Christmas Edition! 🎄 Announcements about our next industry & networking event! (The location is…🥁🥁🥁)
Until then, our little green hearts are still warm from the #PassionForPayroll we felt during our beautiful evening with Barcelona’s payroll community. 💚
