Ceridian UK predicts five key HR and payroll trends and challenges for 2012

Against a tougher economic backdrop, Ceridian UK, one of the UK’s leading HR and payroll providers, predicts five key HR and payroll trends and challenges for 2012: finding solutions that benefit both the employer and employee; ERPs’ declining influence; employee engagement to become ever more critical; the impact of pension reform on budgets and administration; and making talent acquisition really count.

Five members of Ceridian’s UK senior leadership team outline their predictions in detail below:

HR Director Challenges – Finding Solutions that Benefit Both Employer and Employee

Managing director, Doug Sawers predicts: “2012 will be a year of intense focus for HRDs, squeezed as they will be between four forces. The first challenge is making their workforces competitive, despite a heavier tax and administrative burden. The second is keeping their employer proposition attractive in a rapidly evolving labour market. The third is economic growth showing little positive signs for most businesses. Lastly, real incomes of individual workers are being squeezed for the fourth year in succession.

“Against this backdrop, identifying mutually beneficial (win-win) solutions which can benefit businesses and employees at the same time will be the key skill. Single-track solutions and answers will not be good enough.”

ERP Declining Influence

Nick Laird, chief commercial officer, predicts: “ERP vendors will start to see a dramatic decline in revenues, losing business to companies who have more customer-friendly, agile and cheaper technologies. They will therefore step up their acquisition of these more mid-sized vendors. Unfortunately, for the ERPs, the acquired companies will then slow down due to the bureaucracy and business model imposed upon them, becoming less competitive for a period of time.

“Big is not beautiful in agile software environments.”

Employee Engagement Ever More Critical

Jeremy Campbell, chief people officer, predicts: “During very tough economic times in 2012, HR will need to focus on supporting organisations to be as efficient as possible. HR will also have to balance reducing costs with engaging the workforce and fight to hold onto their top talent. Top talent will get itchy feet, as resources are reduced and projects get pulled. Organisations will have to prioritise projects into what are critical to the success/survival of their business and what can be deferred until the following year, many career developing/CV building projects will be pulled and therefore ‘top talent’ engagement will be a challenge. Clear open communication within organisations will become critical for employee engagement, with a big reliance on the quality of middle and senior management.

“There will be an overall need for more practical/business supporting HR in 2012, rather than HR focusing on HR-led requirements.”

Pension Reform Budget and Administrative Impact on Business

David Woodward, chief product and innovation officer, predicts: “2012 is the year when businesses fully realise the impact of pension reform. Not only will the costs of pension contributions be fully appreciated but the complexity and operational readiness needed for managing the new legislation will become evident. Businesses will need to ensure they have sufficient budgets, planning, resources and systems in place for what is destined to be one of the biggest changes in the cost of employment to hit UK businesses in the last 15 years.

“It is probably the largest employer administrative burden since the introduction of SMP back in 1986. The difference is that potentially every employee life is touched in some way or another. Cost wise, in contribution terms, the initial phase of pension reform is equal to an additional one per cent point hike in National Insurance for both employees and employers. This then rises to three per cent by October 2016.”

Making Talent Acquisition Count

Mark Merrick, chief operating officer, predicts: “While the U.S. and Western Europe continue to suffer from high unemployment and sluggish economies, emerging economies in China, Brazil, India, Singapore, Russia and Eastern Europe are exploding with growth.  Expect 2012 to be a challenging year in terms of talent acquisition. In high-growth countries like India and China, people leave their jobs multiple times per year – yet in slower-growth economies, companies are hardly hiring, so every hire counts.  HRDs in low growth/recessionary economies will be faced with slashed budgets.  Any investment will require short paybacks, typically less than one year.  Value propositions that make HRDs shine, or survive, in these dire economic times will be those that succeed.”

Notes to Editors:

Ceridian

Ceridian is one of the world’s leading HR and payroll service providers. In theUK, it works with over 5,000 businesses, large and small, delivering quality, accurate payroll and value-added HR services.

Ceridian provides national and international payroll and HR transactional services including HR outsourcing, employee benefits, workforce management, expense management, absence management plus employee assistance programmes.

Innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are also offered to clients who need a technology solution but prefer to employ their own people. These leading-edge software solutions can be purchased as a complete totally-integrated package, or in scalable modules, designed to flex with organisational needs.

Through decades of global experience, people capability and first class delivery of world class HR transactional solutions, Ceridian increases quality, reduces risk, boosts revenue, lowers cost and frees time for its customers to focus on their priorities.

From multi-nationals to small start-ups, Ceridian’s KnowHow enables their HR development journey.

For more information, visit www.ceridian.co.uk

For further press information on Ceridian, contact Jeremy Snook at JSPR on 01235 227572. Mobile: 07957 867139. E-mail: jeremy.snook@jspr.co.uk

CERIDIANPR0212/10.01.12

For further press information, please contact Jeremy Snook at JSPR on 01235 227572. Mobile: 07957 867139. E-mail: jeremy.snook@jspr.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

Ceridian

Ceridian is one of the world’s leading HR outsourcing and payroll service providers.  In the UK, it works with over 5,000 businesses, large and small, delivering quality, accurate payroll and value-added HR services.

Ceridian provides national and international payroll and HR transactional services including HR outsourcing, employee benefits, workforce management, expense management, absence management plus employee assistance programmes.

Innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are also offered to clients who need a technology solution but prefer to employ their own people.  These leading-edge IT solutions can be purchased as a complete totally-integrated package, or in scalable modules, designed to flex with organisational needs.

Through decades of global experience, people capability and first class delivery of world class HR transactional solutions, Ceridian increases quality, reduces risk, boosts revenue, lowers cost and frees time for its customers to focus on their priorities.

From multinationals to small start-ups, Ceridian’s KnowHow enables their HR development journey.

For more information, visit www.ceridian.co.uk

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