Automating Payroll: Attracting Top Gig Economy Workers Done Right

Attracting top talent requires keeping your gig workers engaged and motivated to deliver the best quality work possible. Ensuring timely, accurate and consistent payments is one of the pillars to retaining exceptional gig workers, especially in today’s competitive business environment. With more full-time employees switching over to independent contractor positions delivering on-demand work since the pandemic, in 2020 alone the gig economy participation was up by 33%, with 78% of freelancers expressing interest in seeking, or more, work in 2021.

How to Attract Gig Workers?

All recent studies and research seem to boil down to the same conclusion- remote work and flexible scheduling are here to stay. In fact, in 2020 there were 24.6 million part-time gig workers in the US with an average 60% that worked as freelancers at least weekly; this roughly translates to one-third of Americans earning their paycheck working freelancing jobs. However, this decision to take a step back from full-time employment does have some areas of concern that must be highlighted.

Firstly, gig workers are not entitled to work benefits that full-time employees enjoy. Secondly, payroll interruptions and delays can have a severe impact on their day-to-day financial stability. The latter has such a strong impact on freelancers’ decision making that 40% of gig workers said that faster payment is enough of an incentive to make them choose one company over another. This means the ability of one company to issue prompt and accurate payments grants them a higher persuasion power over its competitors to be able to hire and retain the most skilled gig workers available.

Raising a dire need for instant payment solutions, speed and ease have emerged as definite non-negotiables for gig employees. Freelancers having a clear preference for instant payments will soon become a powerful magnet for businesses to drive in exceptional resources that fast track their success. This is where the adoption of an automated payroll processing system becomes an essential technology to get great freelancers lining up at your doorstep with an active interest in your opportunities.

The Inefficiencies of Manual Payroll Processing

Building a case for automated payrolling processing is simple; manual payroll processing cannot keep up with the requirements of the gig economy workers. Gone are the days when a large payroll team would be number crunching for weeks, and handling paper-based accounting records prone to errors and duplicate payments. From tedious timesheets, tax deductions, wage calculations to overtime charges, almost 1/3rd of freelancers have, at some point, not received payment for the work they’ve done leading to their decision to never work for the same business again.

With no tools for fast reporting, reliable analytics, and supporting fast-growing scale of operations- manual payroll processes become increasingly difficult to prepare, manage and track. Data security is also a cause for concern; no automation means less likelihood of data encryption which can jeopardize confidential financial information.

Let’s not forget, the more gig workers you hire, the more time your team will need to process payments making organizational growth more challenging of a goal than it should be.

Why Switch to an Automated Payroll Processing Solution?

Any process your business automates gains the advantage of becoming scalable- you can invest more time into hiring the right talent, and your finance team can better track other aspects of your financial performance. Overcoming payroll delays and administrative errors is another area of inefficiencies that can be avoided altogether by ensuring that your gig workers are always paid the accurate amount within committed timelines. The result? No follow ups, stronger employer branding, and higher talent retention rates.

Automations helps establish patterns, decreases duplicity, automates redundant processes, and simplifies workflows to make payroll processing less complex, and more results driven. This is supported by researched conducted by the Institute for Robotic Process Automation; automation has a widespread impact on an estimated 40% of back-office administrative functions for businesses.

More and more companies are turning towards artificial intelligence (AI) to add speed and precision to their payroll processes; common applications include self-service support, reporting requests, and technical troubleshooting. A survey of chief financial officers (CFOs) found that that 47% predicted that payroll will benefit the most from AI integrations, with 57% expressing confidence that AI can reduce human error, meanwhile 56% believed it cuts costs. According to Zion Market Research, the global cloud-based payroll market is forecasted to generated approximately $13.4 million by 2026 between 2019 and 2026.

Standing Out in the Gig Economy- Solve Your Payroll Pains with Nium

Now that you’re ready to leave your manual payroll systems in the past, partnering with Nium can help make your freelancers feel more engaged and appreciated. A great opportunity to strengthen employee loyalty, payroll automation that delivers timely, accurate, and reliable payments consistently reduces the risk of your talent looking elsewhere for work. Nium’s global payment platform help power your business growth by making payments to gig economy workers across the world a breeze. Paying remote resources becomes quick, precise, and you are not limited to a local talent pool to get your work done.

Nium is the modern payroll solution facilitating pay-outs across multiple countries and currencies, with complete payment visibility, one simplified backend process, access to new global markets, and real-time global payments. Spearheading a better experience for your vendors and service providers, payment recipients have the flexibility of choosing how to get paid so you can focus better on running a smart business.

Want more information? Schedule a call with our team today.