Not too many years ago, the payroll professional’s role focused mainly on being a country-specific payroll expert in payroll processing and gross to net computations, timekeeping/leave management, local tax and benefit rules, and payroll accounting. More recently, the role of the global payroll professional has expanded into multi-country subject matter that now requires knowledge and expertise in areas such as:

● Multi-country pay computation and delivery

● Individual and corporate tax aspects of cross-state and cross-country border workers
● Tax treaties

● Visa and immigration implications on payroll

● Implications of various methods of delivering relocation benefits including lump sums and reimbursements, by country

● Multi-country vendor management, payroll processes and technologies


These broader responsibilities have resulted in some organizations re-aligning and consolidating their global payroll organization(s) into shared service centers or global business services organizations to reduce costs and enhance the employee experience by:

● Further streamlining and enhancing controls and security over payroll processes

● Becoming nimbler in adapting technology advances in areas such as RPA and AI,

● Consolidating knowledge and expertise

● Consolidating and leveraging vendors more effectively

● Enhancing collaboration among constituent organizations, such as Tax, HR, Finance, and Procurement

● Providing valuable insights and analytics to management based on globalized payroll data in areas such as expense management, turnover, cross-border exposures, etc.

There are many reasons why organizations look to global payroll professionals to provide this expanded level of expertise. Downsizing activities over the past years have left many organizations thin on resources and expertise, resulting in their focus being limited to their most core business requirements and areas of exposure. For example, tax treaty analysis and permanent establishment exposure as they relate to personnel activities might previously have been the responsibility of the corporate tax department but no longer have the resources to monitor these activities. Budget constraints have had a similar effect.

While organizational constraints have resulted in limiting the traditional roles of tax and finance departments in their governance of personnel pay and mobility related activities, country rules and regulations have become more onerous and technology improvements have enabled local authorities to monitor compliance more closely. Consequently, payroll organizations have been asked to become more involved in these matters, or at least provide early warning to the tax department.

Although payroll departments have suffered from the same downsizing challenges and budget constraints as the rest of their organizations, global payroll professionals who have oversight responsibilities over key processes have taken on an expanded role to ensure global compliance and risk mitigation in payroll and payroll-related areas, such as mobility matters. Since global payroll professionals already have fundamental knowledge in many important areas, such as multi-country payroll and tax rules, tax treaty application, cross-border day limitations and consequences, expatriate administration and tax equalization, etc., they are natural candidates to take over these important responsibilities. In fact, some payroll organizations are now either co-located or combined with the mobility function within their organization’s shared services or business services department. This enables greater collaboration, proactive planning and better risk management.

If your organization has operations in multiple countries and/or deploys resources across state or country borders, it may be a good time to assess the effectiveness of your global payroll strategy and the risk profile related to your global mobility activities. Thrive HR Consulting can assist in such a review. Please give us a call!

Alan Moidel is an Advisory VP on Global Payroll at Thrive HR Consulting and a seasoned expert specializing in shared services, global payroll, mobility, and expatriate management activities. 





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