n our last DPB News, we asked you to take part in a survey on the Digital HR Office.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the large number of participants in our survey. Thanks to you, 289 trees will now be planted in Zambia.

Your feedback is also very important to us. Your user experience helps us to further improve and develop the application. Thank you!

Before turning to the survey’s results, here’s an exclusive interview with our managing director.

Interview with Dirk Stefan Haase, Managing Director of Paychex Deutschland GmbH
Summary of the results

Interview with Dirk Stefan Haase, Managing Director of Paychex Deutschland GmbH

Question: The digitization of business processes is progressing at a rapid pace. With the introduction of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Paychex has provided its customers with the Digital HR Office and thus created a solution for secure data exchange and the most convenient communication possible. Paychex has been working on implementing the application for over two years. Looking back on the introduction of the Digital HR Office, what was your experience in the beginning?

Answer: We’re delighted that DPB was activated in time before the GDPR entered into force. We have now created a legally sound solution for secure data exchange – for us and for our customers.

With the development of this cloud application, we entered entirely new territory. As a practical matter, it was apparent that an enormous amount of time would be needed to complete an extensive software project such as the Digital HR Office. Our considerable experience and know-how were critical to helping us achieve good results. But adoption comes after implementation, which is why our work at the Digital HR Office is not yet finished. We continue to do everything we can for our customers to develop the application further and to improve it according to feedback from our community of users.

Question:The Digital HR Office seems to be a challenge for some users, especially when starting out. Some customers felt things were getting more complicated and that they were losing touch with their personal contact. Can you briefly explain why the Digital HR Office is important and why it makes processes simpler, not more complex?

Answer: The law changed! The repercussions for employers and payroll accounting have been dramatic. No longer is it up to the employer to decide whether to take the concern about employee data very seriously or only seriously. Complying with the new law has made the transmission of personal data and settlement orders via the new platform indispensable.

Paychex cannot avoid this requirement, nor does it want to. We are also taking our customers on this journey with us for their own protection. We intended to continue to simplify and support the operation and user experience. Among other things, we are working on free additional services such as user webinars and other topic-specific introductory videos.

Here’s a short look ahead at upcoming developments: We’ll be giving users more online forms so that you write fewer portal messages. This should further improve usability. The only thing we ask customers is what is specifically needed for their company. At the same time, we automatically check the content for correctness and completeness before the form is sent. Not only does this reduce the expenditure of time, but the customer’s personal contact will benefit as well. Our customers will thus be served more quickly.

Question: Some customers say they cannot easily find the documents in the archive. Can you give us an idea of future developments for the use of the archive?

Answer: We’ve received a lot of interesting suggestions from our customers. We have taken a closer look at the various settings and checked the functions. Search criteria can be improved so that documents can be located even faster. Also, if a particular document is available in different versions, we should be able to indicate this more clearly. In general, we want to make it easier and faster for you to find what you are looking for. Of course, we keep our customers up to date on any further developments and improvements.

Question: Are the days numbered for the traditional payroll specialist? Has everything now gone digital? For what kinds of requests can our customers continue to use the more personal "direct route" via telephone and e-mail?

Answer: Personal, reliable, and knowledgeable service remains our hallmark. Your beloved e-mail and the simple fax are the only things that now belong to the past technologically for transmitting personal data. As always, our employees can be reached by telephone. In this respect, nothing's changed. Your contacts have also kept their personal e-mail address. However, when it comes to the data of the employees of our customers, the details can only be exchanged in writing via DPB. This is what the law requires.

For urgent issues, DPB has another big advantage over traditional e-mail. When you use the DPB, your message always reaches the responsible employee. If the customer’s payroll specialist is not available, the message will go directly to the representative – 100% of the time. Traditional e-mail, on the other hand, was often left unnoticed in the inbox, sometimes for several days during the employee’s absence.

Question: In the product video, you speak of greater simplicity. For some users, though, there is still room for improvement in this area. Could you also give us some insight into what measures have been planned to increase simplicity and reduce complexity?

Answer: Along with the free training and workshops mentioned earlier, we’re also working on the following technical developments:

Improved indexing in the archive
Simplification of tasks/process lists in the portal
Improvement of authorization structures

Question: DPB can actually do much more than just exchange messages with the payroll specialist and search for documents in the archive. For example, there’s the creation your own digital personnel file, E-Lohnschein for employees, the collaboration and secure file exchange with employees, tax consultants or other external service providers. The survey shows us there is still relatively low utilization. Do you think it’s because there is a lack of need, or is there rather a lack of familiarity?

Answer: We will gradually demonstrate using application examples which features are available to users and how they can benefit from them. For this purpose we’re increasing the number of videos and also offering targeted training. We look forward to continuing with our customers along this path of understanding the new possibilities.

Summary of the results

Current usage behavior

More than half of the respondents use the Digital HR Office once a month to securely transmit data to Paychex via the portal or to research the available payroll documents. Almost one-fifth of the respondents already use the Paychex portal several times a week; almost 10% of the respondents state this for use of the archive.
The Digital HR Office is currently used by about one-fifth of respondents to store their own files in the archive or to provide employees access to them.

Assessment

More than half of the respondents see the Digital HR Office as a useful application for ensuring that their own payroll is processed securely and in compliance with data protection regulations. Less than one-fourth of respondents consider this statement to be incorrect.
17% of respondents found cooperating with Paychex has become much easier through DPB. Half of the respondents disagree with this statement.
25% of the respondents stated that the payroll documents are clearly stored in the DPB archive. Almost half of the respondents see potential for improvement here.
Just over one-fourth of respondents like to use portal forms because they are simple and easy to use. 43% are still unfamiliar with the use of portal forms.
So far, around 20% of those surveyed recognize the potential to archive their own documents in the Digital HR Office or to use DPB for cooperating and exchanging files with employees or tax consultants.

Overall satisfaction with the Digital HR Office

34% of the respondents are very satisfied or satisfied with the DPB; 39% of the participants see room for improvement in terms of their overall satisfaction.
Challenges here lie, above all, in the application’s perceived complexity. This is frequently explicitly stated in reference to the storage of the documents in the archive (20%) and for working with portal messaging functionality (15%). With regard to support for getting familiarized with the application, users favor more extensive content, documentation, and training opportunities. Unfortunately, for 13% of those surveyed, personal contact with Paychex payroll specialist or contact persons has deteriorated somewhat.
Among the 60 reasons users gave for their satisfaction with the application, the view prevails that the application simplifies the process (cited in 32% of the reasons for the user’s satisfaction), while 22% of users mention ease of use. Other reasons for satisfaction are the digital availability of the documents (13%), the possibility for structured, lossless, and secure communication (12%), and GDPR compliance (8%).

Willingness to recommend

When asked "On a scale of 0 (not likely at all) to 10 (very likely), how likely is it that you will recommend Paychex to a friend or colleague looking for a payroll provider?" 41% of participants gave us generally positive feedback with ratings of 7 to 10. We’re delighted to hear this! Customers who would not currently recommend the portal to others mostly reference the issues listed above about user dissatisfaction with the portal. Here, we also thank respondents for their honest feedback. Your experiences are critical to helping us further improve the portal and our service.

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