The number of City of Helsinki payroll errors has been declining since the beginning of August. The trend remained unchanged in September. Every week, the number of errors corrected is higher than that of new errors occurred. This indicates that the expertise of our payroll administration has increased and that new errors can be prevented.
On 29 September, the number of unpaid wages was 66. The number of underpaid wages was 3,661, the number of overpaid wages 1,221, and the number of other errors 2,164. Unpaid wages and salaries are generally paid within two working days of the issue being reported to the payroll customer service. Other errors are rectified as soon as possible.
From 23 to 29 September, 6,172 contacts were made to the payroll customer service. On 29 September, the customer service queue had 7,439 contacts pending processing, while the previous week’s number was 6,689. As a result of customer service congestion, several contacts are being made concerning the same matter. This is also the busiest time of the year for the Education Division, further adding to the number of contacts made. In normal circumstances, the customer service receives approximately 5,000 service requests per week.
In order to improve the payroll customer service situation, recruitments are being made to the customer service and customer communication is being improved. New recruitments are also being made to payroll. Closer development of the payroll process was launched in September in cooperation between payroll administration and the Divisions. In addition, several operational improvements will be made to the Sarastia system during the autumn.
The City of Helsinki estimates that it will take at least this autumn to stabilise the payroll situation.
Stabilisation project focuses on preventing errors
At the beginning of October, Kirsti
Laine-Hendolin took over as the Director responsible for stabilising the city’s payroll, transferring from her former position as the Administrative Director of the Culture and Leisure Division.
“Many good and correct solutions have already been made to solve the payroll issues. However, the challenges are complex, and if easy solutions existed, they would have already been applied. In order to stabilise payroll, we must increasingly prioritise and schedule the various stages of resolving the issues related to the project.”
Laine-Hendolin also stresses that the entire process must be reviewed when stabilising payroll to make sure that the occurrence of errors is constantly declining and that any errors can be quickly resolved.
“The number of payroll errors is currently at an unacceptable level. In the long run, we want to achieve a situation that is better than with the old system.”