SINGAPORE - Minimum salaries paid to foreign white-collar workers and skilled technical workers will be raised. This announcement by Ministry of Manpower comes after recent hikes in foreign-worker levies.
Managing payroll is a difficult task for all employers, especially those who are start-up bosses and have to manage a million other tasks besides employee pay. Such tasks may include contractual negotiations, product management, and research and development. It would only add to the stress factor if the employee payroll becomes an issue that is difficult to resolve.
The first problem: There are many factors that influence payroll, including qualifications, prior years of experience in the industry, previous position held within the company and any promotions since then, as well as the reason mentioned in the article above, the citizenship status of the employee.
Any or all of these factors could affect the payroll, and employees have to be clear on which factors add toward their monthly pay. The employer thus has to be very familiar with these factors and be able to keep track on the human resource throughout his company.
Thus it is very important that employers have some form of system to ensure their employees are not overlooked, and that their contributions and work are fully recorded to ensure fairness in pay rewards.
The second problem: How about time-based payroll? The time-based payroll is different from the monthly payroll in that an employee’s pay depends solely on his clocking in and clocking out of the system.
This could easily create trouble if the system is unreliable, and the clock-in and clock-out functions are poorly designed, do not fully reflect on the hours an employee works, or if the system does not take into account leave days, or is difficult to access and maintain from the employer’s perspective.
A time management software system, which combines the leave, time attendance and payroll functions, would greatly reduce such hassles, allowing employees to clock in and out easily, and also give employers the ability to check on employee attendance and pay him or her accordingly.
This streamlined attendance system reduces errors, many of which can occur in the time-based payroll system. By implementing a joint-system that combines leave, attendance and payroll, it makes life much easier for the busy employer.
The third problem: Government intevention. As seen in the article, especially in Singapore, the government may implement policies and laws to boost the productivity and labour market competency. It may be difficult to keep track of these changes in human resource hiring, so a comprehensive software system would help in establishing the minimum monthly rates for foreign white-collar workers.
As most employers know, foreign white-collar workers are often protected by their country’s own labor laws, and errors would not look good on the company and its reputation in the HR world, reducing its appeal to crucial foreign talent. To maintain competitive and relevant, companies – especially smaller ones – need to know how to stay on top of the game and be able to integrate all the new policies and regulations seamlessly into their payroll and HR management systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment