Looking to ditch paper payslips, but worried about resistance from staff? Whether it’s reducing your carbon footprint, cutting costs and time, or simply dragging your company into the 21st century, there are plenty of benefits to switching to an electronic payslip solution. All of these gains could be undermined though if employee uptake is low due to a robotic, un-engaging launch. Read on for some pointers on persuading your employees to embrace ePayslips, and how best to manage the switch.

Communicating with your staff

It’s important to gauge how your staff feel about the move to electronic payslips, and an effective way of doing this is to issue a memo. Advise that the company is looking to move to ePayslips, and welcome any thoughts or questions. This allows the opportunity early in the process for any concerns to be addressed, such as accessing payslips or security. Your provider should be on hand to equip you with answers so you can feed these back. Your memo could even include some questions you’re anticipating along with the answers, so you don’t end up answering the same query multiple times!

Sell ePayslips!

Don’t worry – we’re not advocating you charge employees for electronic payslips! We do want you to unleash your inner-salesperson though; ensure you sell the key features to employees so they know the benefits of an online payslip portal; from 24/7 access via desktop and mobile devices to current and historic payslips, to being able to securely send payslips to mortgage providers / banks. Mention any additional functionality that your system might offer, such as updating personal details, or viewing company communications. If you’re not sure on what extra functionality is available, just ask the provider so you can pass this on to employees.

Branded Portal

Whether it’s just a logo on the payslip, or a fully customised website and app, the feedback we’ve had suggests employees are more likely to embrace ePayslips if the portal is branded with their company’s colours. If your preferred ePayslips provider offers this facility, they should work with you to ensure the portal feels more internal than third-party.

Hold a workshop

One worry you may have is that employees who aren’t technically savvy will struggle to activate their account. Electronic payslip portals and the activation process are as user-friendly as possible, so problems should be minimal. Some of our own clients have held workshops during the launch, and reported that this was well received. Just advise that you’ll be available for a couple of hours for anybody that needs help to activate their account. You’ll probably find nobody comes to see you - don’t take it personally though; it’s probably just that everyone is coping fine! By making it clear you’re available to help, you aren’t alienating your less technical employees.

Gather Feedback

Once you’ve made the switch to ePayslips, it’s useful to see which employees are actually active. Enquire how they’re finding the new system, and check up on any employees that have never logged in. In most cases, these will be the same employees that never opened their paper payslips, but at least by checking you’re again allowing the opportunity for anyone having difficulty to make this known.

Remember that whilst ePayslips can save your business time and money, it is vital that employee morale is also improved as a result of the change, and by following the above steps, this should be the case.