Payroll and Onboarding: Avoid the Headaches, Engage the Employee

Transcription

1 Payroll and Onboarding: Avoid the Headaches, Engage the Employee

2 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 2 Remember your first days at a new company? Remember the excitement and seemingly endless opportunities ahead until you got stuck in the seemingly unending quagmire of onboarding forms. Maybe you forgot to bring a check and couldn t complete your direct-deposit form. Maybe your new salary had you perplexed over how many exemptions to claim on your W-4. At the end of the day, were you even sure that you d accurately completed all of the correct forms? HR and payroll processes are critical in shaping an employee s first impression of a company an impression that s key to engaging employees and retaining top talent. Need proof? According to research by the Aberdeen Group, 86 percent of new hires make their decision to leave or stay within the first six months. Overwhelming a new employee with a flood of paperwork, mishandling even a little bit of their personal information, or making a mistake on an initial paycheck can make all the difference between having a new hire who s setting off on the right foot and one who s already disengaged and will ultimately be less productive than if things had gone smoothly. This brief will show how payroll can flex its strategic muscles to make the onboarding process smooth and easy, and how it can help keep an employee s relationship with HR and payroll pain-free throughout their employment. 86% of new hires make their decision to leave or stay within the first six months

3 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 3 Be Prepared for Each New Hire s First Day Even before a new hire shows up for the first day on the job, you need to make sure you have all of the data and information from HR or the employee s hiring manager to accurately and efficiently onboard for payroll. It s not just a matter of confirming the new hire s pay rate. You also need to know the exact job code, pay grade, or any similar types of job descriptors or identifiers your organization might use. In addition to that kind of critical information, you can make the process even smoother and faster for a new hire if you know any benefits the employee is eligible for in advance, such as paid time off accrual.

4 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 4 Prepare Each New Hire for Their First Day For most new hires as well as for most payroll departments the W-4 and direct deposit forms are among the most critical steps in the onboarding process to ensure that employees get paid accurately and on time. Be prepared by letting new hires know what information or documents they ll need to have to accurately complete those forms. It s also helpful (and it bolsters employee engagement and their comfort level), to give them the option of entering their information online when it s convenient for them (assuming your organization has an online option). Finally, manage expectations about a new hire s first paycheck: Tell new employees about any ways their first check may be different from what they can expect going forward. Will it be for a partial pay period? Will it come as a paper check instead of through direct deposit? Will it come on a different schedule than their future paychecks? Will it have extra withholdings of any kind or not have withholdings that will start with the second paycheck? $0.00 The W-4 and direct deposit forms are among the most critical steps in the onboarding process

5 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 5 Prepare Each New Hire to Receive Their First Paycheck tip: Provide a short reference section on pay statements to explain abbreviations and key terms Give your new hires information to make sure they understand everything on their pay statement. Especially be sure to explain any abbreviations that you may take for granted (e.g., FICA) and any special categories of pay, benefits, or compensation they might receive. A good idea is to include a short reference section; ask your payroll forms vendor to format and design your pay statements to clearly and simply explain the reason for each type of earning and deduction. For employees who choose direct deposit, emphasize that online access to their pay statements may be an easier and more efficient method than getting paper statements delivered to them (if your company offers online access to pay statements, of course). Finally, give new hires a way to contact you or your office, in case they have questions about their paycheck later.

6 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 6 Make It Easy for Employees to Make Changes Later Develop a communication plan that includes regular reminders to employees about the potential impact of personal changes on their tax status (e.g., marriage, the birth of a child, etc.). It s also a good idea to keep employees aware that qualifying life events could affect their health benefits and allow them to make changes outside of the annual enrollment period. Provide instructions on what they need to do to make changes to their tax status, deduction amount, or benefits as a result of a qualifying personal change. If your company offers electronic forms and payroll management, provide W-2s and year-end pay statements online to ease the burden on your staff of making any necessary corrections manually.

7 PAYROLL AND ONBOARDING: AVOID THE HEADACHES, ENGAGE THE EMPLOYEE 7 Choose Electronic Forms Automation to Create a Great Onboarding Experience Payroll can play a big role in creating a great onboarding experience and engaging new hires. That means they ll hit their potential sooner and stay with the company longer. But that mission for payroll can be intimidating, and the process can be fraught with headaches and pitfalls especially if you re handling it all manually. A forms engine automates the onboarding process for you. It makes it easier for you to ensure your new hires have easy, efficient access to the forms they need and the accurate information they depend on. For your new hires, it makes onboarding and making future changes faster and easier. Just a little thing, like being able to electronically complete and sign a W-4, can bolster employee engagement. Research shows employees increasingly expect their employers to give them consumer-like online experiences for payroll, benefits, and training. Electronic forms automation also gives you the ability to take advantage of data warehousing for all of your employees pay statements and other critical pay forms. It s essentially a managed archive for current and terminated employees. It gets your HR and payroll staff out of the business of constantly responding to requests for previous statements, copies of payroll changes, and other forms. At the end of the year, electronic forms automation allows you to easily, efficiently, and accurately process and distribute W-2s and host them for access by you, your team, or the employee from then forward. Finally, electronic forms automation can create other custom forms that can help your colleagues in HR make onboarding a great experience: benefit fact sheets, new-hire packets, HR signoff forms, and with the right solution provider any unique forms your company requires.

8 about cic plus CIC Plus has been making customers lives easier for more than 15 years by providing the industry s best online HR and payroll forms management. We get W-4s, W-2s, pay stubs, and custom HR forms online quickly and securely. Our cutting-edge electronic document technology lets us skillfully manage the process giving HR and payroll administrators more time to manage their days. We empower employees to access their own HR or payroll forms anytime, anywhere. Our paperless solution to HR and payroll forms management is supported by first-class customer service, and that s earned us the trust of some of the country s largest companies Ridgeway Ave. Skokie, IL