Deel pioneers a new era in payroll

Globalisation is accelerating, and distributed work is also on the rise. This means organisations can find their next superstar anywhere in the world – however, this brings the formidable task of managing HR and payroll across a range of very different markets.

According to a recent study by Deel conducted in partnership with Forrester, 63% of large enterprises (companies with 2000+ employees) want to improve their efficiency across global payroll systems. An additional 49% want to reduce the complexity of their payroll – however, 48% also want to increase hiring overseas.

This type of expansion means navigating through local labour laws, tax regulations, and compliance issues – not to mention, hefty costs. It can also mean dealing with a wide range of local vendors, but according to Deel global sales officer Olivier Elbaz, this method of tackling payroll is quickly becoming outdated.

“Very few organisations are actually doing truly ‘global’ payroll,” Elbaz tells HRD. “Many have various providers for employees across different countries, but few have a platform that consolidates all of its payroll processing, without a middleman. The ‘single platform’ approach almost doesn’t exist.”

Elbaz highlights the many challenges that enterprises are facing when it comes to payroll. Costs are increasing, having multiple vendors can result in a lot of complexity, and the price of getting your payroll wrong is substantial. He notes that more mature organisations are already trying to consolidate their payroll globally, but like any major project, it takes time.

“If you’re trying to consolidate your vendors, you’ll likely have different contracts with all those vendors for various periods of time, and that can be difficult to navigate,” he explains.

“However, it all starts with the awareness that this method needs to change. If you want to improve efficiency and employee experience while also reducing your costs, then having that single platform is the way to do it.”

Global expertise under one roof

Founded in 2019, Deel has quickly made its mark in the payroll space. Its platform allows organisations to onboard, manage HR and pay employees across the world while staying compliant with local laws.

Elbaz notes that having a team on the ground in every country where it operates is vital to Deel. It allows the group to provide answers and solutions quickly, and also to take on major projects for clients looking to start up operations in a new market.

“Whether you’re in Australia, the US, Argentina, Mexico, etc. – we have the compliance and payroll knowhow, and we can tackle specific questions,” Elbaz explains.

“It’s as easy as building a Slack group and connecting with experts locally, and this is gold for so many companies. If you’re outsourcing your payroll and compliance to a third party, you can expect to have a 2-3 business day delay before your issue gets tackled. By contrast, we can answer most questions within a matter of hours.”

Elbaz notes that deploying payroll in a new country from scratch would take most organisations between 5-6 months. However, with its ability to roll out payroll in a large number of countries in parallel, Deel cuts this timeframe down to just 2-3 months – and ultimately, the best results are seen from the worker perspective.

“One of our biggest findings was how much payroll can potentially damage employee experience if it’s done wrong,” Elbaz says.

“If you have one central platform, you can give your employees the ability to track their PTO, download payslips, request expenses, etc. We know that most enterprise customers already have a system in place, and so we’ve invested heavily into our technology to be able to integrate all of our services back into those traditional systems.”

To develop the platform’s employee experience, Deel recently acquired African payroll provider  PaySpace. Elbaz notes that one of its best features is the ability for employees to interact with HR and payroll directly via WhatsApp – a feature Deel will be adopting.

Elbaz says that ultimately, the multi-vendor system for global payroll is increasingly lacking the efficiency and simplicity that modern organisations need. With single-platform solutions on the rise across other industries and areas of HR, payroll is sure to follow.

“Our long-term vision is one global native calculation engine that runs payroll for over 100 countries,” Elbaz says.

“We’re seeing companies re-evaluating their needs, cost and strategy when it comes to global payroll, and thinking about how to streamline their operations globally. Like any major IT or HR project, this doesn’t happen overnight – but the result is more control, more efficiency and higher employee satisfaction.”

To find out more about Deel and its global payroll solutions, click here.