From employee self-service to reporting & analytics, we uncover what software buyers want to see in leading global payroll platforms.
Managing payroll for a global workforce is a complex task, requiring employers to navigate local employment and tax regulations and other challenges. Emerging global payroll platforms aim to simplify the process.
We spoke with customers of companies that offer global payroll solutions — Globalization Partners, Rippling, CloudPay, Deel, Oyster, Atlas, and Workday— and they told us what they want to see in the products they use.
Below we highlight what buyers are saying about global payroll vendors.
Globalization Partners
Product gap: Payroll lag time
I know some of it has to do with the foreign exchange process that has to occur, but there’s a fairly long delay from when payroll needs to be submitted until the payroll actually occurs….Instead of two days, it’s not three or four, it’s seven business days or somewhere in there that you have to submit it ahead of time. That’s something where if that could be shortened, that would make it easier for me to make more timely changes to our payroll for the professional. — Director of Finance at HR platform
Read the full transcript here.
Rippling
Product gap: Employee self-service support
The ongoing support has gone really well and the ability to integrate with our current apps has been fantastic. What could go better is that employees aren’t allowed to e-mail support themselves. So if there are any issues on either their payroll or their timekeeping and we can’t solve it as administrators, we as administrators have to be the ones to e-mail support.
Especially around benefit questions, that’s kind of like the double-edged sword with automation. Once you review the setup and you know that it’s working correctly, I don’t really have the purview to understand why things aren’t working as expected when an employee’s paycheck doesn’t look the way they’re expecting.
So it’s the employee e-mailing me saying, why did I get taxed? The latest example I had was why did I get taxed for my medical expenses. And then so they e-mailed me, I emailed Rippling, telling them the employee name and the situation. Then they did the research and they got me the right answer, but it would have been a lot quicker if they just eliminated me as the middle man. — VP, Controller at $100M+ funded HR platform
Read the full transcript here.
CloudPay
Product gap: Operations continuity
We’ve made significant gains in a number of the countries in terms of our payroll processes. We’ve automated a lot of the work that we now do. We have uniform processes across the different countries, which enables me to move people around across different regions to support. Because we’re running the same process pretty much everywhere. […]
If I was looking at one area where they could improve slightly would be within the operations side of things in terms of having continuity of people working within the operations teams. Because we’ve seen, I guess like most companies, quite a significant turnover in some areas. When that turnover occurs, there’s always a period of adaptation with the new team members. For us, we just want things to run smoothly all the time. We don’t want any handover. It shouldn’t cause any issues. Occasionally, that hasn’t always been the case. Yes, there are certainly areas that they can develop on that side within the operations team.
Read the full transcript here.
Deel
Product gap: Languages support
I think one area that could go better is I think they could have more languages. I think currently, they’re offering only English. But I thought that if they could support more languages from Asia or Africa, I thought that it could be easier for those people to use. — CEO at HR platform
Read the full transcript here.
Oyster
Product gap: Own local entities
They don’t run their own entities in a lot of places, so they’ll work through local partners, which allows them to be in a lot of countries quickly, but it can, depending on the quality of the partner, mean in the initial experience sometimes it can be harder or not as good.
And if we have a request for customizations that Oyster might be fine with, they aren’t the decision maker, it’s the local partner if we want to change the contract. And so they just simply can’t be as flexible when they don’t run their own entities.
I know they’re setting them up…And Deel seems to have like they’ve been setting up new entities of their own faster than Oyster. So that would be like a differentiator that maybe they could catch up on. — Head of FP&A at $1B+ valuation technology company
Read the full transcript here.
Atlas
Product gap: Reporting & analytics
Their reporting capabilities or focus on analytics is one space that I often find to be less capable compared to some of the other channels. Especially if you’re offering an HCM solution, you can still do a lot more reporting, [have an] analytical engine…any client looks for small dashboards which can help clients to understand what’s happening at any given point in time. I think that could be a good capability that can get developed over a period of short time. — Director, HR at Fortune 500 company
Read the full transcript here.
Workday
Product gap: Case management
The other downside, I would say, is its completely lacking in case management. We, and many other companies, have focused on ServiceNow for case knowledge…and end-to-end transaction management as the orchestration layer. My overall feedback on Workday would be it’s a good system of record. It’s a good core system. It is getting better in many areas, but it’s lagging on the employee experience and interaction layer. It’s not as user friendly on that side. That’s where it really falls down. They are trying to get into that system of engagement layer stuff, but they’re a million miles away from ServiceNow on that, unfortunately, which is probably the key issue, I would say. — Lead, Procurement at Fortune Global 500 subsidiary
Read the full transcript here.
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