The analysis includes payroll errors corrected between 15 September and 23 October (around 4,500), which were reported via the payroll customer service.
The identified causes of payroll errors included errors at the beginning of the payroll process, meaning situations where information affecting pay did not reach payroll in time or was missing or incorrect. There are also reasons at the payroll stage of the payroll process, when the information received by the payroll department has not been processed in time or an error has occurred. Problems with conversion, i.e. the transfer of data between the old and new payroll systems, also cause errors. There were also errors where no corrective action was needed. The analysis gives a reasonable view of the causes of the errors, although the reason for errors was not recorded for all the corrected errors analysed.
Support for the early stages of the payroll process
As there are many causes of payroll problems, there are also many ways of solving them. The payroll stabilisation project targets solutions at three areas, namely improving practices, ensuring the operational capacity of payroll administration and improving the payroll system.
The stabilisation focuses on preventing errors and improving the quality of the whole payroll process, in order to strengthen the city's payroll performance, to correct accumulated errors and normalise the situation. For the early stages of the payroll process, Helsinki provides support for supervisors and assesses the division of labour with the divisions. The usability of the payroll system is being developed together with the system provider to reduce errors.
The share of payroll errors on payslips has fallen
According to the latest payroll snapshot, the share of payroll errors on pay slips had fallen by the end of October. In October, the share of payroll errors on payslips was 4.6 per cent, down from 6 per cent in September. The October data will become more precise once all the errors for October have been recorded. At present, the vast majority of uncorrected payroll errors are partly due to missing wages. These include difficulties in transferring data between systems, which affects the payment of various bonuses and delays in processing tax cards. In addition, there are errors that need to be corrected in cooperation with the system supplier.
The second most common errors are other errors (e.g. errors related to holidays and absences) and the third most common are overpaid wages. The number of cases of uncorrected completely missing wages decreased in October. As a rule, missing wages are paid within two working days of the issue being reported to payroll customer service.
Payroll customer service is still receiving a high number of contacts. During the monitoring period there were almost 12,000. Multiple contact channels have been identified as the cause, so there are duplicate contacts for the same payroll error. As a corrective measure, the city will clarify and communicate customer service practices and encourage staff to make only one service request per issue.