At Wise, we have seen an 87% increase in interest in our Flexible Managed Payroll over the last year, and a 275% increase since 2019. While we know from client feedback that our team of payroll professionals are doing an amazing job, we went digging to find out what other factors account for this surge in interest. Top of the list, of course, is staff turnover.

 

The Challenge of Retaining Reliable Payroll Talent

 

“Many people come to managed payroll because of turnover. People quitting. We have a lot of clients who are not finding the right resource or are not able to retain the resources they hire. At Wise, we are expert and we are consistent, and that’s what people are looking for,” explains Nicole Rayner, M.ED, a business development specialist at Wise Consulting. “With the way the job market is now, we are seeing a lot more interest.”

 

Tax Compliance in the Era of COVID-19

 

Another factor accounting for the uptick in managed payroll interest is insecurity around COVID-related tax complications. New and current clients are looking for a team that has a commitment to staying up to date on the COVID-relief legislation, differing state mandates and nexus issues that many people either don’t feel confident tackling or are too new to payroll to understand. “Our payroll professionals hold their Fundamental Payroll Certification and many are Certified Payroll Professionals or Canada Payroll Certified (or all three) and they are up to date on training and development. Tax knowledge has really been in demand and appreciated, and our clients have confidence because they know that we have been keeping current. When we speak with prospective clients, people don’t believe how much we know and how much they had been missing,” Nicole confides.

 

Recognizing & Appreciating Payroll Continuity

 

Because Nicole is regularly in contact with prospective and new clients, she hears all the reasons why HR teams struggle with payroll. Recently, she has noticed a trend that results in people sliding into contracting for managed payroll sideways. “We used to have people coming to us straight for Managed Payroll. Now, we have had more people engaging with us for a shorter-term project, like tax support or temporary payroll support for clients who have been cycling through payroll staff. They are seeing how competent our consultants are and they don’t want to hire someone else who is not as great.”

 

Managed payroll services can shield your organization from various situations in which one payroll team member who holds key knowledge departs without warning. Since the pandemic began, the Wise team has been responding to client payroll emergencies requiring short to long-term full payroll support. For organizations with undocumented processes, this is a scary situation to face when they don’t have a Wise team to jump in and provide immediate support. When payroll is partially or completely outsourced, one of the benefits is that the company entrusted with your payroll thoroughly documents processes and evaluates levels of compliance, working to increase accuracy, efficiency, security and to mitigate risk. They also create checklists and cross-train to enable replacement of team members when necessary without missing a beat.

 

Making Payroll Easier

 

Payroll outsourcing often covers the full range of payroll management, processing and administrative tasks for a company, regardless of whether the company’s team needs all of that support. This means that the company might end up paying for more services than truly makes sense for them. Many organizations might only want help with garnishment administration, quarterly and annual reconciliation, tax filing, and year-end issues. Others might want full-cycle payroll administration without the garnishment administration support. Wise is unique in offering a Flexible Managed Payroll approach that allows the client to decide how much or how little payroll support they want.

 

Increase Productivity by Lightening the Payroll Load

 

There are definite advantages to outsourcing payroll to professional payroll teams, including increased PII data security and an eagle eye on compliance issues. But one of the most common reasons to outsource is because in today’s shifting job market HCM teams have more important things to do. Recruiting, onboarding, developing retention strategies, supporting remote workers, staying on top of sick leave, and communicating and upholding vaccine attestation requirements, to name a few. Nicole points out that “transitioning the daily administrative burden to Wise allows clients to focus on business priorities. We have the ability to provide dedicated resources with specialized experience in payroll, multi-state and jurisdictional compliance to augment the client’s existing team.”

 

Achieve Payroll Confidence

 

Managed payroll clients are often pleased to finally achieve:

• Reduced errors from manual handling of data
• Enhanced security and confidentiality
• Savings from reorganizing internal resources
• Protection from turnover risk
• Savings of expenses in recruitment, retention, training, development, and certification to support a revolving door of in-house talent
• Compliance risk management
• Accurate payroll tax support
• Time saving and increased productivity

 

With Wise, you can be assured of accurate and compliant payroll tax support, quarterly and annual reconciliation, tax filing, COVID credit, tax and compliance support, year-end support, remote worker tax know-how–and receive the payroll processing administration support you really want. Contact us today to schedule a consultation with a Wise payroll expert.