Payroll must go on
Global Payroll Week is an annual opportunity to put the world of payroll in the spotlight. At SD Worx, we have relied on our payroll specialists during the past month more than ever before. Despite the unravelling pandemic and the most bizarre social circumstances we have faced in a long while, all salaries were processed smoothly and on time. That's quite a feat.
In mid-March, much of the globe entered lockdown. For some, trade and industry came to a grinding halt, others continued operations at reduced capacity or resorted to remote working. While 'needs must', it quickly became clear which industries can deal with unprecedented situations and are capable of an appropriate response. The situation did set off alarm bells for us as well, but we lost no time, implementing a step-by-step plan to ensure business continuity for our more than 70,000 customers. COVID-19 put our flexibility and resilience to the test, and our experts made it through with flying colours.
A smooth transition to remote working thanks to the cloud
Our cloud infrastructure allowed us to easily make the switch to working fully from home, thus safeguarding the health of our people, productivity and team spirit. The cloud played an important role in the continuity of our payroll service, enabling our transition to productive home working.
The next step was to set up a Pandemic Response Team. This was by no means a luxury, as we were receiving up to 65% more calls on some days. We didn't want our customers in more than one hundred different countries to be left without support at a time when they needed us more than ever. In many countries, new temporary measures, such as furlough provisions, were created. Where necessary, we organised webinars to clarify the regulations, sharing insight with customers and the wider industry.
Local expertise, worldwide
Thanks to the local expertise and presence, we were able to monitor all new developments closely and support our customers in all corners of the world. Payroll outsourcing has proven to be vital for our customers, as they were able to fully focus on other aspects of business continuity. They knew salaries were going to be paid on time, without a glitch.
Meanwhile, we’ve started making provisions for our eventual return to ‘normality’. This will undoubtedly occur in stages, as the various governments start to relax their measures. Our customers know they can count on us. Their payroll service has tackled the coronavirus situation smartly, withstanding a major test. A big thank you to all our co-workers for their dedication in recent weeks. Another thank you goes to our customers for their trust in our knowledge and expertise – for over 75 years now.
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