Six Simple Ways to Streamline Payroll Management for Remote Teams

Remote work continues to dominate the workplace culture, with high-paying companies now looking at international talent, hiring foreign employees to fill vacant positions that would’ve otherwise cost them double or triple for the same workers in their home country.

Across several regions, companies are hiring employees outside of their borders, as many of them benefit from remote-only working conditions and the stronger dollar compared to foreign currencies.

Skilled workers in Latin American countries, in particular, have benefited from the remote working trend, as these countries often share the same time zone and are within relatively close proximity to the U.S.

Between 2020 and 2023, the number of U.S. and North American countries hiring new workers in Central America and the Caribbean has swelled by more than 300 percent, according to industry research by Lightcast.

With companies becoming borderless, keeping track of payroll processing becomes an increasing effort for small and medium-sized enterprises. Facilitating efficient, safe, and reliable payroll management requires businesses to adhere to different tax laws, income payment processing, and submit accurate information to local tax authorities.

Simple steps to streamline payroll processing

Keeping track of employees across multiple offices and time zones and having to deal with a slew of different tax laws requires proper payroll facilitation. Luckily managing international payment and payment processing has become easier in recent years due to the advancement in financial technology systems.

However, failing to provide sufficient automation for payroll could lead to further challenges in the near and short term, often causing major backlogs in payment completion for international employees, and running into problems with local taxation authorities.

The following steps will give a clear, and perhaps a more concise review of how businesses can streamline their payroll procedures to avoid unhappy employees and delayed payments.

Formulate Payroll Policies and Guidelines

For any business to function correctly, it’s essential to have predetermined criteria to help minimize any possible friction. Often, companies have employee workplace policies to curb the possibility of toxic workplace environments, micromanagement, or perhaps bullying.

However, in this regard, the exact need to be established for payroll, especially when a company works with international employees. As a good starting point, organizations must ensure that the proper guidelines and policies are in place, outline how payroll procedures will take place, and whether or not employees will be required to set up international bank accounts.

Formulating remote working policies will ensure that all employees, regardless of their level of appointment, their location, or time zone are treated equally. This helps to further minimize any potential errors that could arise during the payroll procedure and helps to establish a mutual understanding between employees and employers.

Communicate Payment Dates

As part of payroll policies and guidelines, another facet that employers need to consider is the effective communication of payment dates. Typically, businesses run their payroll on a monthly cycle, with wages being distributed to employees either at the beginning, middle, or end of the month.

Companies must ensure that they adhere to and comply with local jurisdictions regarding their payment procedures. Depending on the type of compliance matters, companies can set up how they will distribute payment to all their employees.

This will need to be clearly communicated to employees. This is usually stipulated in employment agreements or contracts. Employees will then need to communicate with their employers whether these days or dates are sufficient, and if changes need to be brought on in case of any potential grievances.

Create Deadlines For Payments

According to a survey of 4,000 employees, nearly half – 44 percent – said they had been paid late by their employers. In the same survey, 48 percent of those paid late were also paid incorrectly.

The resulting factor of missing employee payments or paying late, even by a few days, could lead to employees feeling dissatisfied, unhappy, and lower levels of company loyalty.

The survey found that 44 percent of respondents said that if an employer paid them incorrectly, they would consider leaving their job.

Employers must understand the importance of setting deadlines for employee payments. This is especially important for international remote working employees, where payments can take several hours, often days to be cleared and approved by local financial authorities.

Having deadlines a week or several days before the payment due dates ensures employers and payroll officers are fully informed of when payment deadlines are coming up. This also translates into the ability to budget for different payments that may occur each…