Employers are unhappy with their payroll arrangements, with 100% of respondents to a recent survey agreeing payroll could be more cost-efficient in their organisation.

According to a poll from HR Access, only half of respondents who outsourced their payroll function believe this reduced administration overheads and 52% found it reduced the cost per payslip.

And although 89% reported good customer service from their outsourcing provider at implementation stage, this dropped to 30% after the initial stages. Almost a third (32%) are unhappy with the service they receive from their provider and 60% reported problems with their provider's ability to resolve areas of underperformance with the system.

Respondents to the poll identified the main areas of improvement within payroll outsourcing to be weak account management from providers, inadequate handling of change requests, poor customer communications, lack of continuous improvement of the system and suppliers' failure to assess their needs and requirements.