Sometimes it’s the simple things that make a meaningful improvement in how we get payroll done. I was reminded of that this past weekend while we were having dinner with a large group on the patio of a local restaurant. It was a typically hot, humid Cincinnati summer day and while we were in the shade and had ceiling fans above, those of us sitting on the west side of the table started to get some sun on our backs as time went on.
It started warm and then got hot. The waitress asked if we wanted more water? Yes, please. A few times. We were all having a good time, but the half of us on the west side were uncomfortable. But we kept going. Then my wife looked back behind us and saw that there were shades that could be rolled down – she nudged me and pointed up there with that look ‘You know what to do now Steve.’ Well, yes I did. I got up and lowered three screens to shade our table. And what a difference that made! Much more comfortable.
I’ve seen this phenomenon at my customers, too. Everyone is doing their work, getting payroll done but there are irritants. Annoyances. Things that everyone knows are bothersome, but no one takes time out to solve. Because we’re getting payroll done, of course. I’ll point out to my customers – hey look there, you can pull down that shade screen and get some relief. But you have to get up and do it.
Sometimes, they get up and do it. Too often, they say they’re too busy getting payroll done to get up and do it. Does that sound familiar to you, about your organization?
Maybe you have this nice self-service reporting platform from SpinifexIT or EPI-USE, but you never got around to rolling it out. Not very well, anyway. So you continue to run reports for people, emailing them out after each payroll. It would take a bit of effort to finish the roll-out and have people get their own reports as they need them, but wouldn’t that make your payroll environment so much more pleasant?
Or, maybe you’re taking all these voluntary deductions because that’s what you’ve always done. But these days, people are used to paying their cable TV, cell phone, rent and other personal bills online (yes, I’ve seen payroll deductions for these!). It would take some effort to stop deducting for those things but think of how much nicer payroll would be without them!
I’m sure you can now think of a few things that, like a sun shade, would make your payroll environment better if you took some effort to make it happen. Share them in the comment box below if you want to – I’d love to hear about them! The bottom line is that with some effort you can make things better – start small and work up to bigger things. Just start. Ask us for help if you want, but just start.