ADMINISTRATION - 07.07.2022

Dealing with employee pay queries

The statistics on pay queries

According to research by Iris FMP, 43% of employee contact with HR and payroll relates to payslip queries and over a quarter of employees have had six or more HR questions in the last three years. The same research also revealed that around a third of employees would consider looking for a new job if their employer paid them incorrectly just once, 44% would be demotivated and 51% would lose trust in their employer. These statistics indicate just how important it is for employees to know where to turn should they have a payroll question and to feel confident that they will get an answer pretty quickly - a slow response is likely to impact morale and possibly even retention.

The payroll induction process

To ensure employees know what to do if they have a payroll query, you should examine how key payroll or other important information is communicated around your organisation. A good starting point is to look at the new employee induction process. All too often the payroll induction is just the new employee being handed a starter checklist to complete with no further mention of payroll procedures.

Pro advice. Discuss with HR how the induction process could be improved to better inform new employees of your organisation’s payroll procedures. For example, the induction could include details about what pay is included in the first pay packet after starting, how to complete holiday, sickness, etc. forms and who to contact with any payroll queries.

Employee self-service

Probably one of the quickest and most efficient ways to shift queries off your desk is to opt for payroll and HR software that enables employees to manage their own payroll standing data and to have instant access to their payslips. An internet search will give you a number of software options.

By investing in an employee self-service payroll software option, employees can enter all their initial payroll details such as date of birth, address and NI number straight into the software which saves the payroll team time keying-in new starter data from a paper form.

Pro advice. By getting employees to manage all of their payroll and HR data in one place, it increases visibility and reduces the admin burden that sits on your desk.

FAQs

There are probably questions that you get asked on a regular basis such as “How do I book leave?” or “Can I have my payslips for the last three months?” Employees have a habit of forgetting things which results in them calling payroll for assistance.

Pro advice. Set up a payroll and HR FAQs section on the company’s intranet or shared network drive.

Pro advice. Consider running FAQ workshops which show and tell employees the quick way to navigate the payroll systems rather than having to go through it multiple times.

Central payroll queries email address

To avoid one member of the team getting all the payroll queries in their own inbox, you could set up a central “payroll queries” email address. Include an automatic reply on the email address which sets the expectations of when you’ll get back to them.

Employee self-service software options