If Technology Improves Efficiency, Why Are You Hesitant? How to Get Started With AI, RPA

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics have been on the rise over the last couple years as a solution to improve efficiencies within organizations. Still, I see hesitation from payroll professionals to implement technology in their payroll process. Implementation of robotic process automation (RPA) takes resources and a budget. It is my quest in this article to help you overcome these obstacles.

How to Take the First Step

I admittedly was hesitant to embrace RPA because I simply didn’t understand what it meant. Frustrated, I challenged myself to learn everything I could about it. I had to chip away at my own excuses before I could start chipping away at the others. The following is the process to take:

• Make time—This can be the toughest hurdle. My department and I were already stretched thin. I knew our situation would never get better if we didn’t make changes. There’s no magic formula here. You simply must begin. Take that first step. Whether you commit to 15 minutes a day or 15 minutes a week, make sure you start. Increase your time in doable increments each session. Before you know it, you’ll have researched and learned more than you would have expected.
• Use the internet—Get started by looking up definitions and terminology that you’ve heard. Begin building a “cheat sheet” document that you can refer to. Read articles and save them as PDFs, so you can refer to them in a digital folder.
• Attend webinars—As PayrollOrg (PAYO) members, we are fortunate to receive free access to many webinars and discounted education throughout the year. Watch for any upcoming webinars on AI and robotics. Save the handouts to your digital folder. You may also have free webinar access with other organizations. Use all your resources.
• PAYO volunteer committees—Many of the PAYO volunteer committees, such as the Shared Services Task Force and the Strategic Payroll Leadership Task Force, have monthly meetings and might have AI and robotics as a topic. Ask one of the committee chairs to add the topic to the lineup. Ask questions of the other members. There is an abundance of knowledge and experience on the volunteer committees that you can tap into.

Purpose of AI, Robotics

RPA supports data-driven tasks. Everything you do in payroll involves data. You validate, reconcile, audit, and process. Those four tasks are just one of the reasons why AI and robotics are important to payroll. They streamline the tasks through machine learning (ML), like algorithms, which allows the payroll professional to be more efficient in doing other things. There will never be a shortage of things to do in payroll. We’re no longer task-oriented button pushers. We must let the RPA do that and allow us to be strategic payroll professionals.

Most likely, your third-party service providers already provide some form of AI and robotics function. If you’re like me, you probably noticed this and may not have known what it was. For example, our system will alert us of invalid or changed bank routing numbers associated with our employees’ direct deposit accounts. That’s a built-in RPA. Imagine hundreds of thousands of direct deposit accounts stored within the service provider’s system. A human being certainly can’t manually manage those comparisons. An RPA does the work and produces alerts.

Below are some examples of common RPA used in payroll. As you build your business case to present to your boss, you’ll want to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI). Start with a short list and add to it as you think of ideas. Here are a few examples:

• Voice assistants
• Text bots
• Self-service bots
• Chat bots
• Query resolution
• Fraud prevention
• Personalized learning
• Facial recognition
• California meal premium waiver process
• Tax jurisdiction update alert with address changes
• Temp agency worker processing

Define Your Biggest Payroll Challenges

Are you stumped trying to come up with your own ideas? Think in terms of solutions and start listing items that are manual and time consuming. Then find ways that RPA can save time and reduce errors. For example, consider the following:

• Telecommuters and hybrid workforce—With the dynamics of the workforce changing so much over the last couple of years, you need to be able to support your employees when they’re working remotely. Notice I said “need,” not “want.” Don’t discount the needs and don’t be afraid to use them.
• Self-service support—When I started in payroll, the thought of self-service for employees or managers would have been like being shot with a taser. Now, self-service is a requirement in most organizations and it’s not painful. It saves an enormous amount of time and paper, and it’s just as accurate. RPA can analyze the data submitted, identify errors, and have it all wrapped up for you to approve or implement into the live system.
• Reporting requests—You’re a payroll professional, not a reporting specialist, right? Building and scheduling a report may be easy, but the daily, weekly, and monthly downloading, saving, emailing, and reviewing are what takes so long. Imagine that you have bots that keep an eye out for newly processed reports and do all the subsequent work for you. If you’re required to enter pay period or pay dates for some of those recurring reports, a bot can look at a payroll schedule and automatically run those.
• Technical troubleshooting—How frustrating is it when you wear your IT hat more often than your payroll hat? Maybe employees automatically come to you for troubleshooting because their issue relates to payroll or the payroll system. You can design simple self-service-oriented troubleshooting bots that require the employee to use, escalating to the appropriate department based on the results.
• 24/7 bots—Are you required to always be available to support needs related to payroll and time and attendance? All these RPA solutions can be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Think of the accolades your executive decision-makers would gain by supporting their managers’ needs. A small budget to gain loyalty in return.
• Reducing manual tasks prone to error—Regardless of what anybody wants to admit, humans are prone to errors. You may be the best at what you do, but when you’re overworked and exhausted, you can make mistakes that you may not realize for months. Eventually, mistakes will chip away at your credibility. The longer you work like this, the more mistakes you’ll make. When the mistakes begin surfacing, your reserve credibility won’t last till retirement. Be proactive while you can justify the need for RPA to reduce or eliminate possible errors.
• Constant modification to regulatory compliance—Federal and state regulations are enough to keep you busy. Add multiple states and localities compounded by the number of federal employer identification numbers (FEINs) or company codes you have within your system, and that will migrate into a nightmare to manage. Slipping on any regulatory updates will put your organization at risk. Bots can look for updates and alert you when they apply to you.

Final Thoughts

Before making a final decision to take the deep dive to learn more about AI and RPA, remember the following to help you to overcome the hesitancy and get going:

• Get Thinking—Have a notepad handy—paper or electronic—and jot down those ideas that pop up at the most suboptimal times
• Get Started—Don’t delay. Start small. Small victories can leverage you to get approved for more strategic items on your list. In a year’s time, you’ll be surprised at what you’ve accomplished.
• Get Efficient—Adding AI and robotic technology will free up time so that you can focus on other improvements or projects and will move you closer to being a strategic partner within the organization—a true payroll professional

Michelle Flowers, CPP, PHR, is Director of Payroll at Highline Warren, LLC. She is the Co-Chair of PayrollOrg’s 's Manufacturing Best Practices Subcommittee of the Strategic Payroll Leadership Task Force (SPLTF) and a volunteer on PayrollOrg’s’s Ask an Expert (formerly Hotline Referral Service), Board of Contributing Writers, Education Grant Committee, Certification Item Development Task Force, Education Advisory Committee, Nominating and Elections Committee, Social Networking Committee, SPLTF’s Best Practices and Small Employers’ Best Practices Subcommittees, and the Unemployment Insurance Workgroup and Electronic Payments Subcommittee of the Government Relations Task Force (GRTF).