Case Study: Implementing payroll, absence and time-tracking for a US services business

The challenge

The client wanted to implement new solutions for payroll, absence and time tracking for approximately 8,500 US colleagues. The technology would replace outdated and heavily bespoke legacy systems. The leadership team also saw an opportunity to transform policy, processes, and ways of working.

The client chose different vendors for payroll and absence/time-tracking, each with varying implementation timelines. The complexity of the implementation programme involving multiple vendors meant they needed to complement their internal team with deep technical expertise.

They asked Change Associates to help.

What we did

We started by shaping the project’s preparatory phase, identifying and planning the activities required across payroll, time-tracking, absence, compensation, and other relevant system modules, including the approach to decommissioning existing systems. We also worked with the internal teams to review reporting, HR policies, and integrations and complete design templates for the new solutions.

Our Payroll Practice consultants configured environments complete with the client’s hierarchies and data, and used these to run familiarisation sessions with the client team. These sessions helped the team understand the capabilities, concepts, and principles used in the new solutions, enabling them to get the most out of the design phase and prepare for the changes they would face in their core systems.

We worked with the client and the third-party vendors to support the delivery of the programme.

This included:

• Providing technical advisory support and assurance alongside the project management throughout the programme.
• Identifying and recommending opportunities for process improvement, increased automation/ reduction in manual activity, and increased user adoption and compliance.
• Advising on best practice design principles, supporting and challenging the payroll team and other subject matter experts to drive towards best practice approaches.
• Recommending the best approach for validating employee bank accounts so the first pay run did not fail.
• Providing a specialist team to bolster the internal team’s capacity during systems testing, including test strategy, test scripts, defect resolution and user acceptance testing.
• Supporting launch activities, including parallel runs, go-live preparation, and cutover.
• Addressing technical problems throughout the process.

Our team continued to work closely with the client team through the first payroll run and hypercare period, providing year-end support and knowledge transfer to ensure the team was confident in the new systems and processes.

The result

• Both time tracking and absence and payroll went live on time for all US employees
• The solutions performed as designed with no significant issues
• The internal team felt confident in the new solutions and well supported through the change

Image (c) This_is_Engineering from Pixabay

“We made it to the first US payroll run because of this team without any material issues! We had our moments of stress over the last 12-plus months, but we never stopped collaborating and finding solutions. Thank you and you should all be proud of not only getting to this point but how we got here!
“We couldn’t have done this without Change Associates”

VP Global HR Service Delivery