Workday's payroll proposition enters a new phase today with the unveiling of a pre-built integration solution called Global Payroll Connect and a new Workday Payroll offering provided by Strada, the payroll unit which span out from HCM technology services giant Alight last month. Operating global payroll has always been a big challenge for multinational organizations, which typically have to manage and reconcile data between at least five separate payroll systems, according to Workday. But with enterprises increasingly looking to improve visibility into workforce data while giving employees a seamless self-service experience, payroll integration is again becoming a hot topic.
The Global Payroll Connect solution will offer pre-built API integrations to connect to multiple payroll solutions from the likes of ADP, CloudPay, PwC, Payslip, Safeguard, SHAPEiN, Strada and Workday Payroll, providing a unified source of payroll data and actions from within Workday. The aim is to enable visibility into payroll processing across the global workforce, with connections into workforce data, absence, time tracking, benefits, compensation data, and other related components. Cristina Goldt, GM of Workforce and Pay at Workday, comments:
Together with our partners, we're making it easier for customers to consolidate all their global payroll operations right within Workday to provide their employees with a better, more efficient way of accessing and controlling their payroll data.
Strada partnership
Workday also today announced a new joint offering with Strada, the newest name in that list of payroll partners, although one with a deep pedigree. Strada was formed last month when Alight Solutions span out its payroll and professional services business in a $1.2 billion sale to private equity firm HIG Capital. That payroll business was the result of the acquisition in 2019 of NGA HR, a company with more than 50 years of history as a payroll provider. The professional services part of Strada has its roots in Alight's acquisitions of several Workday consulting partners. The sale frees up Alight to focus on its ongoing strengths in benefits administration and business outsourcing.
The newly formed Strada therefore has a longstanding track record of partnership with Workday, which culminates in the global availability today of a joint offering called Workday Payroll provided by Strada. This combines Strada's payroll presence in 57 countries with Workday's own payroll offerings in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, along with additional Strada payroll services which cover 186 countries in total.
As promised for other solutions using Global Payroll Connect, the Workday-Strada solution gives employees self-service access to payroll data from within Workday, and gives managers a unified view into finance, HR and payroll data. It's described as AI-powered, with the ability to analyze and interpret HR and payroll data to provide predictive insights and support decision making. Early adopter Prysmian Group, an electrical cable manufacturer headquartered in Milan, Italy, says the unified HCM and payroll experience improved visibility and cost control, increased efficiency, and standardized processes across regions. Integrating payroll was a key factor in the success of its HR transformation project, says a company official, who states:
We now have a connected and unified experience for HR and payroll globally and have improved efficiency and productivity by embedding automation and standardization.
A research report published by Workday last week, based on a global survey of 1,300 senior decision-makers, found that 50% of global organizations don’t have real-time insights into workforce costs, a single view of all global payroll, or real-time data integration, while 87% of respondents said the evolving complexity of payroll regulation is a big challenge. More than two in five respondents said their organizations plan to invest more in payroll automation in the coming year, while those who have already made such investments report a saving on average of two working days a week.
My take
Payroll was the very first HR operation to be computerized, more than 70 years ago, but HCM vendors still struggle today to successfully integrate payroll into their applications — and global payroll presents even more challenges, due to the complex topography of regulations governing payroll in different jurisdictions.
Yet at a time when the trend towards Frictionless Enterprise demands joined-up data and processes across the enterprise, it's no longer viable for payroll to operate in its own separate functional silo. HCM vendors need to help their customers bring global payroll into a unified system of HCM data and processes.
This isn't, however, the first attempt by Workday to figure out how to integrate payroll. The vendor's first instinct was to build its own native payroll, but despite promises to roll this out more widely, it's still only fully established in the US, Canada, the UK, France and Australia, with Germany long promised but never delivered. A decade ago, Workday sought to plug the many gaps in its payroll offering when it announced a partnership for global payroll with ADP. But that relationship has since been superseded by the partnership with Alight — now Strada. What it needs now are more customer proof points to show that this partnership — along with others in the Global Payroll Connect ecosystem — can actually deliver the goods. We expect to hear more on this at Workday Rising next month.
