NGA Payroll Complexity Research 2014: Multitude of Regulations and Reports Increase Payroll Complexity

LONDON, December 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

- NGA research ranks 35 countries based on their payroll complexity level

NGA Human Resources, a leading provider of global HR solutions and services, today announced the results of its Global Payroll Complexity Index 2014. This research - based on the in-country expertise of more than 800 payroll experts across the world - provides insight on how complex it is to reward an international workforce. The results of the 2014 survey confirm that organisations need to have a deep understanding of the characteristics of local payroll management in order to be able to successfully expand their businesses internationally.

About the results

According to the Global Payroll Complexity Index 2014, the Top 5 of most complex countries to run payroll are the following:

1. Italy

2. Germany

3. France

4. Belgium

5. Australia

The research confirms that Western European countries have a more complex payroll process when compared to the rest of the world. NGA believes that this relates to the nature and history of the various legal traditions in Europe: despite the European Union's ongoing efforts to further unify the regulatory framework, the ways in which member states manage payroll are still not aligned.

In addition, NGA notices a multitude of rapidly changing decision making levels and legal regulations in these countries, adding up to local payroll complexity. As such, payroll professionals increasingly need to focus on staying informed about the latest payroll legislation, and need to timely and correctly implement these changes into the payroll process.

At the other end of the spectrum, Asian payrolls are the easiest to manage across the globe, combining streamlined payroll processes and straightforward reporting procedures. This is not surprising, as these countries are making huge efforts to attract foreign businesses, to streamline payroll processes and to ease the administrative burden for organisations that want to grow in these areas.

In the Australian market the combination of Awards and Enterprise Agreements (EAs) as well as differing legislation (and payroll taxes) between states, as well as federally, introduces levels of complexity rivalling those of some of its European counterparts.

This insight enables organisations to be better prepared when venturing into new geographies and to better understand the complexity of payroll when developing plans for overseas expansion.

About the research

NGA's 2014 Payroll Complexity Index compiles the payroll complexity of 35 countries into a global ranking and looks into the complexity associated with workforce administration, compliance requirements and payroll regulation.

The report offers an overview of which geographies are more complex than others when it comes to compensating an international workforce. It includes a global overview and ranking of each country based on its payroll complexity, as well as a more detailed description of the impact of categories influencing payroll complexity: managing employee data, managing payroll data, the payroll calculation process, government reporting and declarations, and geographical influences on payroll.

Through each of these categories, more than 20 parameters have been analysed, including employee populations, payroll runs, gross-to-net calculation, legal/HR changes, and reporting frequency. The combination of all above aspects resulted in the Global Payroll Complexity Index 2014.

Michael Custers, SVP Strategy and Marketing at NGA Human Resources, comments: "Although most organisations don't consider payroll as being strategic to their business, understanding the various degrees of local payroll complexity provides a company with substantial economic, process and cultural insight. However, finding the expertise to correctly reward its workforce is not easy."

Contact: Manish Grover, +44(0)7983453962, manish.grover@ngahr.com