{"id":15169,"date":"2021-02-22T20:02:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T20:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailypay.com\/?p=15169"},"modified":"2023-05-12T12:32:44","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T16:32:44","slug":"technology-changing-payroll-dailypay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailypay.com\/resource-center\/blog\/technology-changing-payroll-dailypay\/","title":{"rendered":"Payroll’s Role is Changing: Here\u2019s How New Technology Will Change it More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Payroll as a profession has come a long way. A little over a decade ago, as automation swept into the field of human capital management (HCM), some saw the payroll process becoming a cog in the overall machine, absorbed into integrated systems that needed less oversight and skill to manage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions were raised: Was the role of the payroll professional diminishing due to technological advancement? If so, what did that mean for the profession?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that this payroll automation technology needs more skilled management and oversight than ever. \u201cThe dimensions of payroll are very broad and deep,\u201d said former American Payroll Association<\/a> President Linda Obertin, who participated in a recent Source by DailyPay podcast<\/a> called, \u201cThe Future of Payroll.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe relevancy of the payroll professional is even more critical today,\u201d said Obertin, who currently serves as director, Shared Services, at DXC Technology <\/a>overseeing Global HR and Payroll Services. \u201cEvery executive recruiter that I connect with will share their highest-demand requests, and the most difficult roles to fill are in the payroll and control specialist fields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technologies that are being developed need to be guided and appropriately adopted into operations. What are some of the key technologies that are certain to be considered in a payroll context?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimitris Papageorgiou, a partner at Accenture<\/a> who assists clients in selecting and deploying global HCM and Payroll solutions, specializes in identifying key technological trends. During the podcast he said on-demand pay, or earned wage access, is \u201cmuch more mainstream in our days, so many companies are actually now incorporating this as part of their strategy.\u201d (DailyPay<\/a>, sponsor of the Source podcast, is the recognized gold standard on-demand pay provider<\/a> that uses intelligent automation in its programs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond on-demand pay, other significant applications of robotic process automation <\/a>(RPA), blockchain<\/a> technology, machine learning<\/a> or artificial intelligence, natural language processing<\/a>, radio frequency identification (RFID<\/a>) and geofencing<\/a> all are becoming more prevalent in HCM applications. But adoption of these other technologies is mixed, Papageorgiou said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For RPA and artificial intelligence, applications require operating \u201cwithin an environment that has quality data and repeatable processes \u2026 neither of the two has yet enjoyed broad-based acceptance,\u201d Papageorgiou said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While far behind in adoption, blockchain technology, however, \u201cis going to be the single most impactful disruption in our space,\u201d according to Papageorgiou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlockchain in some interesting way is actually contradicting what we\u2019re trying to do with AI and RPA,\u201d he said. It is a protocol that is \u201ccompletely going to change the way we think about debits and credits and custody of data.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy belief is that once blockchain technology matures, a lot of the technology that we utilize today, including in some cases HCM, may not be needed in its present format or present utility,\u201d Papageorgiou said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A payroll professional\u2019s part in the transformation of processes will be important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we\u2019re thinking of our industry today, we really need to be focused on how technology is evolving our services\u201d to focus on the employee experience, Obertin said. \u201cEmployers expect us to have high-quality payroll delivery timeliness, and it\u2019s really about how we connect with the partners in the organization to deliver the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur role has changed from being more transactional, as Dimitris mentioned, to being more strategic, having a vision, having a plan and executing and being able to measure success, [which are] really, really key skills and strengths for our payroll teams and especially for our payroll leaders.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can access the full podcast and subscribe to other Source by DailyPay episodes here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DailyPay, the recognized gold standard for on-demand pay delivery, sometimes called earned-wage access, is a sponsor to the American Payroll Association<\/a> and also partners with the Bipartisan Policy Center <\/a>to help bring more awareness of policies that can assist Americans in building financial security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For additional resources on this topic, see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n