Employees’ happiness is directly tied to their levels of productivity and commitment to your company. Increased absenteeism, animosity, and a decline in work quality are some of the signs an employee might be dissatisfied. These symptoms can end up costing your business in more ways than just the potential loss of a staff member. Lowered morale and job satisfaction can spread like wildfire, creating a toxic culture that’s difficult to recover from.
The Right Payroll Software Will Keep Your Employees Happy
Low engagement and unhappiness on the job rarely develop overnight or come from one employee. The feeling of being unappreciated, poor communication, and strained relationships with peers and bosses are factors that can lead to unhappiness. So can a lack of trust or broken trust between the employer and employee.
Why Paycheck Mistakes Can Cost You
Making mistakes with employees’ paychecks is one way an organization damages trust. While money is often not the main reason why workers leave, accurate, on-time pay creates a sense of security. Payroll software for small businesses can help prevent errors, make direct deposits when promised, and let staff manage their benefits.
Frederick Herzberg, a behavioral scientist came up with an idea in 1959 that he called the “Two-Factor Theory.” This theory views wages as a potential source of job dissatisfaction if they are inadequate or missing.
Aptitude Research Partners has found that 49% of U.S. workers will turn in their resignations after two paycheck mistakes. Automating your payroll process can help you avoid such mistakes, ensure employees get scheduled raises, and remove workload burdens from HR staff.
With added features like financial wellness education, payroll solutions can even ease workers’ money worries.
How Payroll Software Can Prevent Problems
Ideally, employees join your company because they want to do the job. They gain meaning from the work itself and are intrinsically motivated to show up each day.
While purpose and achievement are doubtless important for employees’ job satisfaction, workers can’t be happy if they’re worried about their physical survival.
That survival, of course, depends on getting paid in a fair and timely fashion. Here are some of the ways payroll automation can alleviate that concern and increase your employees’ sense of well-being.
Prevent Mistakes
Have you ever looked at one of your pay stubs with a sinking feeling that something wasn’t right? Maybe your expense report reimbursements were missing, or your sales commission wasn’t calculated correctly. You had to find documentation, prove your case, and have a lengthy conversation with HR. It’s not a pleasant experience, and it’s worse still if it prompts feelings of panic over how you’re going to pay the mortgage.
Automated payroll solutions reduce errors related to human oversights by syncing hours, pay and salary rates, and PTO benefits. The software makes the calculations and sends out paychecks and direct deposits according to schedule. If your company keeps track of expense reports in a separate application, payroll software can sync approved reports.
Integrated apps can also automatically deduct vacation, sick, or personal time off from existing balances. With hourly employees, payroll solutions will correctly add paid holidays and time off as compensation. You can double-check pay rates and enter in additional commissions and bonuses if needed. Federal and state taxes will also be deducted without HR having to worry about compliance or calculations.
Fewer mistakes mean fewer unhappy employees in an HR or payroll specialist’s office. With accurate, dependable compensation, your staff can be free to focus on completing the work they signed up for.
Manage Employee Benefits
Some payroll apps let your staff sign in to a web-based interface to see and manage all their benefits. This can include health and dental insurance, 401(k) contributions, and additional perks like vendor discounts. When employees can see what the company is providing them besides a salary, it creates transparency. Self-service portals give workers a sense of control and reduce the time they have to spend contacting HR with questions.
With the ability to see the costs of different benefit plans and options, your staff can make informed decisions. By allowing employees to make changes to benefits online during open enrollment or when a qualifying event happens, you’ll reduce paperwork. Removing layers of red tape makes staff on both sides of the fence happier. HR and management won’t be buried in clerical tasks, and workers won’t have to wait for changes to go through.
If your company partners with other businesses to offer perks and discounts, some automated solutions can manage these as well. Employees can log in and see a list of where they can save on things like gym memberships and travel. They can click on the offers to learn more and claim discounts.
When workers discover all the ways an organization helps support their quality of life, they’re more likely to remain committed.
Provide Financial Wellness Education
Payroll solutions can be more than a convenient way to pay employees on time and give them access to benefits. Modern apps are moving beyond the basics by helping staff manage their personal finances. Anxiety and distress over money can sometimes come from a lack of knowledge and access to educational tools.
Financial wellness education can give employees the resources and advice they need to set and track goals. From budgeting to saving for emergencies and retirement, money management techniques can make staff feel more secure. Providing information about how retirement savings work can also reduce misconceptions and resistance to enrolling in your company’s 401(k) plan.
Financial education and counseling can boost work output and results, in addition to employees’ overall happiness. You’ll show that your organization cares about each staff member’s success as a person. You’re not just about ensuring the company performs well but also about your employees’ well-being.
How to Engage Employee Happiness
If someone had the magic bullet for making every worker happy, there wouldn’t be as many studies about employee engagement. That doesn’t mean leaders and business owners are going to give up trying.
Developments and research on personalities and job fit, motivational theories, job redesign, and organizational cultures will likely continue. The debate over what management can do to make employees happier may never reach a definitive conclusion.
As Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs shows, a lack of financial security can be stressful. When employees are frazzled about how they’re going to make ends meet, they can’t perform. When your staff gets the message that your company doesn’t value their financial wellness, they’ll find an employer who does.
Automating your payroll and employee benefits and providing financial education will show you care about their money and much more.
Image Credit: tima miroshnichenko; pexels; thank you!
Deanna Ritchie
Managing Editor at ReadWrite
Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Startup Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.
