Abstract
Employees’ compensation management is one of the most important tasks in human resource management. Employees are very important to an organization and it is essential to ensure that their compensations are released in time and in the right amount to ensure that they remain motivated. Outsourcing this service may be considered as one of the solutions, but it is not the best approach. Automating this system using appropriate software would be the best strategy to use in managing employees’ compensations. Of all the software available, the most appropriate one would be Compease Salary Administration Software because of its efficiency, ease of application, and its reasonable cost compared to programs from other vendors.
Introduction
Managing employees’ compensation is one of the most important tasks within the human resource department. Every employee’s salaries or wages should be correctly calculated and disbursed within the right time. The traditional method that heavily relied on paperwork has proven to be ineffective, especially in large organizations with thousands of employees. This traditional method has numerous errors, and it was common to find that payments were delayed, or a wrong amount awarded to a given employee.
According to Kugel (2010) many organizations are currently considering outsourcing these services as a way of improving the efficiency in this area of management. However, the emerging technologies are bringing a new approach of dealing with this problem, eliminating the need to outsource the service. By automating this process, it becomes easy to track down employees’ details, accurately calculate the salaries or wages, and effect payments within the right time with the help of special software.
There are numerous vendors who have specialized in offering administrative software that can be used to automate these processes. In this research, the focus will be to analyze some of the software that can be used in this process to make it simpler and more effective at this organization instead of outsourcing the service.
Available Software Programs that Can be Used in Managing Compensation
According to Stein (2006), it is very important for a firm to determine the right approach of managing their employees’ wages and salaries. When the process is to be automated, then it is necessary to pick the most appropriate system that has the capacity to deliver the services required. Sometimes it may be challenging to choose the appropriate system because of a number of issues. Currently, there are numerous program vendors offering this service that an organization can use. Brightpay is one of the most popular products that a company can select when intending to automate the system.
It is one of the most efficient systems in the market today, and many organizations have been actively using it to manage compensatory and other employee management issues (Boachie-Mensah, & Dogbe 2011). The second popular software available in the market today is Compease Salary Administration Software. This software has been used by many organizations within the United States and Europe to manage employees’ remunerations and issues about their regular leaves. The third software that employers have been using is Paylite.
This product is popular in Gulf Coast Countries, especially in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Bahrain. Although it is yet to gain popularity in other regions like North America and Europe, it is one of the programs that has been considered effective in managing employees’ compensations within an organization. In this study, the researcher will narrow down to two programs that can be used when managing compensatory issues within an organization. The two programs are Compease Salary Administration Software and Brightpay.
Comparing Compease Salary Administration Software to Brightpay
These two programs are very popular in the market today when companies are seeking to automate the process of managing employees’ compensatory issues. Both have the capacity to process salaries and wages of permanent and temporary employees within an organization. The two programs are very effective in managing employees’ payroll within a firm. They can be programmed to issue payment on weekly, fortnightly, or monthly payments as per the standard terms.
They have the capacity to monitor savings schemes within an organization, and to make the information available to relevant stakeholders. They are also programmed to manage pension schemes of employees instead of using paperwork to process and store such information. The system also have the capacity to calculate holiday pay, and determine employees calendar to ensure that an organization does not shut down because all employees have gone on holiday. These features make it appropriate for them to be considered effective when making the decision to automate employees’ management process.
However, Robb (2013) says that when choosing the program, there are a number of factors that should be considered in order to ensure that the chosen system is the most appropriate. This is where the difference between the two programs comes out clearly. The cost of installing and managing Compease Salary Administration Software is less compared to that of Brightpay. Compease Salary Administration Software also comes with a manual that can be used by the organization to run the system.
This means that with some little training of specific employees, a firm will not need to hire specialized employees to undertake the duty of managing the program. Wolf Gordon is one of the success stories when it comes to the application of Compease Salary Administration Software. The firm has been able to reduce the number of employees working in the employees’ compensation department because of the application of this software. This department has also become more efficient in managing employees’ remuneration.
Employees Needed to Manage the System
From my own experience, I believe that the number of employees needed to manage the system will vary based on the size of the database, and the information that will need to be processed. I believe that an automated system can only be considered appropriate if it has the capacity to cut costs of operation by reducing the number of employees in the department. When this system is implemented, all the employees’ data will be stored in a central database that can be accessed by any of the relevant authorities.
Payroll for the employees will also be developed automatically in the system. The employees in the pension department will no longer be needed because the system will take over their duties (Mattel (2000). The number of employees that is needed will depend on the volume of data that the system should manage. On average, I believe that about five employees will be needed to manage the system. This number could increase or decrease depending on the task that is to be performed by the system.
Conclusion
Automating the process of employee compensation is one of the best ways of improving efficiency of this process. Although other firms would consider outsourcing this process, in-house management of the system with the help of appropriate software remains the best solution. Compease Salary Administration Software is the most appropriate software because it is not only easy to use, but also costs less compared to programs from other vendors
References
Boachie-Mensah, F., & Dogbe, O. (2011). Performance-based pay as a motivational tool for achieving organisational performance: An exploratory case study. International Journal Of Business & Management, 6(12), 270-285.
Kugel, R. (2010). Sharpening compensation management’s dull edge. Business Finance, 16(4), 26-26.
Mattel, G. (2000). New technology to support incentive compensation management. Workspan, 43(7), 18-20.
Robb, D. (2013). Avoid the hidden costs of SAAS. HR Magazine, 58(6), 91-92.
Stein, J. (2006). How hotel managers might protect themselves from early termination. The Practical Real Estate Lawyer, 22(6), 7-17.