How SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central and Payroll Ease Compliance Burdens and Simplify Core Processes

Seeking Relief from Onerous Regulatory and Compliance Burden

Regulatory changes have added further complexity to an already significant regulatory burden facing HR today. In 2020 alone, the COVID pandemic led to a 36% increase in legal changes. And at a local level, government simplification strategies are driving a move away from paper-based statutory reports towards real-time electronic communication, with the transition adding a layer of complexity to addressing local HR requirements.

To lessen the burden and streamline processes, organizations of all sizes are turning to SAP SuccessFactors, a scalable cloud-based solution for human capital management (HCM). With SuccessFactors, you're able to track anything needed for compliance at a country level—in forty-five languages—and at a state level in the U.S.

Globalization Starts Locally

Globalization really starts locally. SuccessFactors Employee Central, also known as Core HR, is utilized in two hundred different countries. SAP has a team of local experts who work with legal advisors and government authorities to research and monitor each country's laws, so that it is able to address over nine hundred legal changes every year, in addition to developing best practices to avoid non-compliance legal risks and the related financial implications.

SuccessFactors is localized in over one hundred versions for Employee Central and forty-eight locales for Employee Central Payroll (ECP). With localization at the core of SuccessFactors, you can spend more time supporting your employees and less time dealing with complex regulatory requirements.

Introduction to SuccessFactors Employee Central

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central (Core HR) provides a single repository for employees and contingent labor to view and maintain all relevant HR data – a single source of "truth", along with best-practice processes supporting all relevant work events—from transfers and promotions to concurrent employment and termination. Embedded localization drives global compliance across your enterprise.

By driving good, clean data and ensuring that once the data is entered, it's correct at any point within the system, HR moves from being a transactional division in your organization to becoming a strategic force. Let's take a closer look at some of the ways Employee Central is making life easier.

Built on Role-based Permissions

Employee Central is built on role-based permissions, which allow you to see, do, and change things pertinent to your role as an employee and your role as a manager of other people. On your SuccessFactors dashboard, Quick Actions appear as a colorful series of possible action items that can take you directly to what you need to see and do—things like viewing your pay statement, viewing your profile, accessing the org chart, or even recording time off. You also have a list of to-do items or reminders, which can range from items waiting your approval or anything that requires action tied to an established workflow.

Quick Action: Org Charts

By clicking on Org Chart, you can see, for example, where you fall in the organization, as well as everyone that reports to you. In this case, we are signed on as Geoff Hill, and the numbers below his picture indicate that he has 8 direct reports and 22 indirect reports. The employee on the far right has a dotted line matrix employee reporting relationship to Geoff, and the employee on the far left, Anson, is currently on a global assignment. By clicking on Anson, for example, Geoff can pull up employee details and drill down further as needed. As Anson's manager, Jeff can do things like a job or compensation change right from here.

Accessing and Updating Profile Data

You can click on My Profile on the main page and access your core HR data for a range of needs:

• Using the pencil icon, you can update relevant biographical information on your profile—because you know that information better than anyone else. And the historical data remains part of the record as well.
• Access your payroll information, dependents, etc. and make necessary changes.
• If you need to request time off, the system will show you your time-off balance, whether others on your team will also be absent during the same timeframe and can notify your manager for approval if necessary.
• View your benefits and make changes to reflect a life event or during open enrollment, with "effective dating" triggering payroll at the appropriate time. Again, workflow and approval processes are built directly into the system.

Facilitating Change: Job Changes, Promotions, Terminations

Let's say that Geoff in our earlier example clicks on Jakki, a direct report, to review her compensation. Geoff is able to see her total compensation history during her tenure with the organization, as well as her salary positioning for her range penetration, her Compa Ratio, and where she falls in comparison to the rest of the organization.

If Jakki moves into a new position in a different part of the organization, the system will automatically reflect the new department, supervisor, location, time zone, etc.—changing her cost center without anyone having to reenter that information.

Taking it a step further, let's say that Geoff has indicated a 7% increase in salary for Jakki in her new position. What happens next? Within the system, you can establish business rules, such as "a compensation change above 5% requires an additional approver".

So, with this business rule in place, instead of the usual three approvers—the manager's manager, a compensation manager, and an HR business partner—the system adds the CHRO so that she is made aware of a change outside of the established norm. Geoff can also add a note, which will be helpful to the approvers throughout the workflow.

In the case of a termination, the system prompts you for all the details, from the reason for termination and specific details about compensation to the transfer of direct reports after termination.

All of these capabilities are part of the Core HR or Employee Central portion of SuccessFactors. And it all ties into the Payroll piece, which it the subject of our next blog post.

Illumiti and SAP SuccessFactors

Illumiti is a leader in implementing SAP SuccessFactors and custom-fit SAP software solutions in over 120 countries. As an SAP Platinum Partner, we are proud to say that we were the number one partner in North America for SuccessFactors in both 2020 and 2021, bringing together proven human resource consulting and SAP SuccessFactors implementation expertise. To learn more, visit https://illumiti.com/solutions/sap-successfactors/

Watch for our upcoming post: Leveraging SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll to Reap the Benefits of Continuous Payroll.