#HRTechChat: Navigating Global Payroll Challenges with Remi Champeix

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Rémi Champeix is a global payroll transformation lead with over 15 years of experience. His expertise includes global payroll strategy, process design, governance frameworks, and system implementations. He is adept at simplifying payroll landscapes, centralizing tasks, and managing vendor relationships. Rémi sits down with Dylan Teggart for this HRTechChat, and they discuss Rémi’s passion for enabling people, simplification, and inclusive leadership. Rémi also addresses the challenges of EU tax compliance and discusses emerging payroll models and the limitations of AI in the European market.

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Transcript:

Dylan Teggart 00:00
Hi everyone. This is Dylan Taggart. I’m here with Remi Champeix. He is a Global Payroll professional with 15 years of experience doing transformation and process owning he’s currently working for French multinational company where he’s leading payroll transformation. Remi, thanks for joining me.

Remi Champeix 00:56
Hey, Dylan, thanks for having me

Dylan Teggart 00:59
Before we get started. Do you mind telling people a little bit about yourself beyond the brief intro I gave? Sure,

Remi Champeix 01:05
sure. So Remy, a French professional based in Poland. So 10 years I’m living in Poland really like it. Been traveling so far quite a bit. Been living in Senegal, Western Africa before that, for three years. Lived in Romania before that. So yeah, a lot of travels now decided to settle down to the beautiful Poland a bit about myself. So yeah, like, really, I would say Global Payroll, professional reading to payroll, professional and Global Payroll stuff. So 15 years of experience into this area really devoted towards a Global Payroll strategy, Global Payroll analysis, Global Payroll transformation, vendor management. So really, really, really dedicated into into payroll overall, I would say, for my whole track record,

Dylan Teggart 01:58
interesting. Yeah, I think you’re one of the few people I know who’s worked in so many different environments. You know, around the globe, they have a very interesting perspective. And starting with that, you know, we were kind of talking about the European region before we press record here. But you know, within the European Union, which Poland is included. You know, you’re dealing with multiple level, levels of tax legislation, multiple levels of compliance. How does that really how does that impact your day to day?

Remi Champeix 02:35
I think it’s a great question, and you’re absolutely right that well, Poland, but overall, Europe is really complex from general tax compliance perspective. I would make an example here, and I would refer to the global complexity index that alight has been releasing, I think, every couple of years. And I think almost every time you get France, you get Germany, you get Italy, you get Belgium, in the top 10 most complex countries, most complex payroll, and in general, that’s because of the tax compliance. So tax compliance is a big thing, and to be honest, it’s one of the main reasons why a lot of companies enter into Global Payroll, and we’ll come to that into probably more detailed, because it’s so complex to maintain that you need a solid global framework and Soviet payroll suppliers to make sure that you stay compliant in that regard.

Dylan Teggart 03:32
So in your day to day, kind of working life, what is the team you need to surround yourself with to be effective when dealing with all that.

Remi Champeix 03:40
I think you obviously need strong payroll professionals, that’s clear. So the skills of the team, then it’s really a question of how you run your payroll operations, because you would know that you have two types, let’s say, of models. I’m making it a bit simpler than what it is, but either you just buy the software, so to say, from the supplier, and then you basically are the one dealing with it. So you run the payroll yourself, or you outsource everything. And there are several level of granularity here, but it’s, I would say suppliers is running payroll for you. I think for me, the key is to be able to get a supplier that takes care of the tax compliance for you, because in my experience, that’s the number one issue when we go around payroll, the lack of stability overall, and the fact that regulation keep changing, more or less, depending on the countries, but in France as an example, comfortable speaking about it, it’s it’s changing all the time, and it’s very difficult, not to say impossible, to keep track of it if you’re on your own. So for me, the key here is to select a supplier, possibly global supplier, and again, we’ll come to that later. That is not only running peril for you, but it’s also making sure that your software and your operations are kept compliance.

Dylan Teggart 04:53
So what are some of the unique problems, problems that you or challenges that you run into in France that would be. Different.

Remi Champeix 05:02
So again, the I would say, number one challenge is really the, in my opinion, the complexity of the payroll, which, again, is coming from the tax challenges that you get there, the fact that you have layers of exceptions, layers of bracket and exceptions, and that this keeps changing. That’s clearly one, I think the fact also that a lot of companies are heavily unionized, which, you know, is great to some extent, but it’s adding collective labor agreements in the mix, which in general, payroll suppliers are not really good at taking meaning. They need to customize their systems. So the way I see it in France, and I mean, you could say the same from other countries, but typically in France, that’s really I would say the challenges that I see.

Dylan Teggart 05:49
And if you were to, you know, advise or inform a company, how would you tell them to better handle, you know, heavy unionization or collective labor agreements to make your life easier?

Remi Champeix 06:02
Well, it’s really difficult. I will be I’ll be upfront three difficult because in general, when you talk about labor, labor agreements, the strong pressure, lot of money involved, and a lot of takes right, because it’s the capacity of your business to keep running that can be jeopardized if unions get on strike. So ideally, you would be, I would say, abreast of the conversations, meaning, as a federal professional, you would be made aware of what’s cooking, what HR is willing to discuss with the unions, and you would make sure that you can chip in, and you can try to find a way to make any addition or any implementation in terms of collective labor agreements, bite size, meaning something that you could take into payroll without disrupting too much. Now, that’s idealistic, to be honest, because in general, you know, when there are negotiations, it’s first we negotiate, then HR finds a compromise with the unions, and then this is where payroll is invited to the table. However, it’s worth trying. Now, beyond that, I would say that what can be done also is, once you get your CLAS, try to see if you can unify them, because, in general, companies that are heavily unionized have several branches, several entities. So the key is to find a way to streamline those different collective labor agreements and turn them into, I would say, commonly splitted or commonly shared agreements across the entity, so you can unify them. But that’s very difficult. I want to be honest. It’s, it’s, it’s a huge challenge,

Dylan Teggart 07:33
which kind of leads to me just make my next question just because of your, you know, diverse experience in multiple continents. You’ve probably seen a lot of different models, and you’ve probably studied a lot of different models to do your job or on Play payroll strategy. Could you talk a bit about about those and some of the interesting experiences

Remi Champeix 07:57
you’ve had? Yeah, so I think it’s, it’s really a big topic. So if we talk about global payrolls, I mean, a lot of companies entered into Global Payroll at least they globalized their payroll operations, meaning that they reduced the number of suppliers that they have, and they centralize their operations, and they standardize the process, so they reach, I would say, a common baseline, which may be 80% of the process, which is really global, meaning the same across the each country, and then with payroll, because payroll is local, by sense, you would always have local activities. But I think there are number of companies that have been successful really globalizing the operations. But I think what is really interesting, and it’s really a topic that is close to my heart, is the fact that there’s a kind of illusion, in my view, that there are Global Payroll vendors. I don’t think there’s Global Payroll vendors, per se. There are apparel vendors that have a presence everywhere, but then you don’t get the same software, because they operate different software. You have Global Payroll vendors, or payroll vendors that present themselves as global but the truth is that they only cover under their own name. I don’t know 40 countries, 50 countries in the world, but then the rest, they don’t service you directly. They service you through third parties. So I think that’s very interesting, and probably we can dive in into that a little bit again, because the topic is really close to my heart. But as opposed to what people say, I don’t think they are really Global Payroll vendors.

Dylan Teggart 09:28
Yeah, so let’s, let’s dive into that topic a bit more, if you’d like Sure. Could you elaborate more on that?

Remi Champeix 09:32
Yeah, well, again, you have two categories outside of suppliers, and I think it’s okay to keep the names, but you have ADP alight day for us, and I’m naming the strongest one, and I may forget some, but they basically operate a solution that, at least for light, and ADP is SAP based, so that’s their own product, but it’s derived from SAP, so they rely on the SAP technology stack and SAP roadmap. And then I. Right now, SAP, I think, is covering 45 or 50 countries worldwide through some preset configuration. So that’s great. I mean, the tool is working super fine in general. But then once you reach the other countries, and as a multinational, you obviously have more than 50 countries. Our chances are that if you have 50 or less, well, you won’t be covered entirely by the footprints of the likes of ADP Lite, then what they would offer you is a model where they actually integrate you to their network of in country apparel providers. And you know, there are pros and cons to that. I think this model is, to some extent, again, great when you get direct servicing, but I think that when you get service through third parties, it’s a little different, because you don’t get the same traction. You’re actually dealing with, okay, maybe an account manager that can be part of these companies, but then in the background, it’s another company who’s working for you. So whenever there’s a problem, well, it takes two times longer, in my experience, because those are other people that are looking for the problem with you. And then you go through your supplier, and the supplier is telling you, hey, this is where the ball is dropped, but we’re fixing it so on, so forth. So adding this model is convenient, because it’s simple, like it’s indeed, it’s one supplier, one contract, or two suppliers if you want, if you do it with several of them, but it’s one contract per supplier. And then if you’re not willing to deal with the detail in the background, because you know, peril maybe is not high touch, and it’s okay to go with the flow, and it keeps things simple. And maybe your company is not so complex in itself. I think it can work. But then if you have a company that’s really high touch, again, because you have factories, because you have very large headcount, or maybe because the culture is a culture of, I would say, perfectionism, I’m afraid that this model is a bit of a hit or miss. So in some countries, it’s going to work, because you will get the best of what the supply can offer under their direct servicing. But then in other countries may be more challenging for the reasons I was mentioning. That’s one model. But then there’s another model which is different. It’s the model that companies like KPMG, grand fonton, the Big Four, basically offering EY. I mean, they are all doing it now. They offer you payroll services in country directly under their name. But then in general, what I’ve noticed is that the integration is not fantastic here. I mean, the technology is not so great, because basically it still is local platforms or local tools that are not unified. So yes, you have one supplier, for instance, KPMG or EY or whoever, but then once you start to integrate with them, the tools are all different. So it’s not so obvious to find the right, I would say, platform for you to be able to unify standardizer processes. Now, there are a few changes that were brought to that recently. Now you have a number of aggregators companies, and maybe we’ll discuss that little later. PESA is an example, but there are more war for you. Integration Services, not only but they basically take your current scope of payroll and they integrate it. So that could be a great addition. That could be a great way to complement the deal with those suppliers. But I would say that the downside of this model is really that, yes, you have one supplier really directly servicing you, so one contract, and you know whom you’re talking to. But then, in general, for those technologies who are not specialized into payroll, the technology is not fantastic. Integration is not fantastic, and still it’s several different systems in the background. So those are the two big models that I’ve observed. And and I’ve noticed that companies either take model one, meaning they go with one or two suppliers, and they accept the fact that they have third parties in the background. That’s first, I would say strategy. And Strategy two is basically you go crisscross. I mean, you take the large suppliers that I was mentioning for the countries when they service you under their name. So you really take, I would say, the best of what they can offer, but where they don’t give you, or where they give you, sorry, the in country partners, I mean, those third parties, then you go with the other suppliers, you go with the likes of KPMG, Ernst and Young which in general cover ferry, I would say small headcount countries. But it’s a little more complex to manage because it’s more suppliers in the mix, but I think it’s a little more fine tuned. And if you’re a high touch company, I think it makes sense to go with this model, to

Dylan Teggart 14:44
be honest. And if you were to kind of listen, be given the keys to the to the CEO suite of a company like this, what would be, what would be your the changes you would make to make a better or, let’s say, you had the opportunity to make a Payroll Solution yourself. That did all these things. How would you kind of, what were the be the main things you’d structure into it?

Remi Champeix 15:06
So for me, I would say, I’m spitballing here, but if you were to ask me, okay, what would be your dream? I mean, what would be the best? It would really be a solution that could be potentially SAP based, or anything else, but something really seasoned that has been in the market for years and years and years, with very strong connections and capacity to stay up to date to the regulations. Because for me, again, that’s the key. If you want to have stable payroll operations, the Cornerstone is really reliable solution with strong integration, but really strong compliance management. So, you know, if I was able to express my wish list, I would certainly ask guys, please give us the same solution everywhere. Please have it pre configured everywhere in every country of the world. Because I really think that this is the key to really build a compliant and solid pair operations.

Dylan Teggart 16:01
Yeah, I feel like the upfront investment for that could be massive, but the long term repercussions could be, could be huge. So no

Remi Champeix 16:08
surprise here. I mean, the guys know why. I mean, they build a roadmap, and this roadmap, as I understand, is based on some their clients. So they survey their biggest clients, and they ask, Okay, what if tomorrow we expand in five or 10 countries, what would be the topics for you? And they run some service. I hope they do, and this is how they develop the roadmap. So yes, you’re right. It’s an investment, because you need to preconfigure your payroll tool against regulations, and every time, it’s different. But, you know, I really think this would be great if they were to manage that, and again, with 50 countries already done, I will be hoping that, you know, the money they invested, I mean, they could still use some of that and really leverage the investment done in the past, hopefully that they would not have to reinvent the wheel and reconfigure everything from scratch. They could still use in the existing to some extent, and still be able to offer some preset products, again, that would really cover to, I mean, to hold the whole globe, because for me, again, that’s a cornerstone of compliant payroll, right?

Dylan Teggart 17:11
And kind of transitioning into a similar topic, as you mentioned, expansion. You know, there’s obviously new trends forming in the market, in you’re in a part of the world where different trends are probably happening than in the US. So what are, what are some of the things you’re seeing happening, you know, this year, and what do you predict is going to happen in 2025 as well?

Remi Champeix 17:36
So I think there’s, there’s one thing which is definitely happening, and I think it started maybe five years ago, but I see it really apparent now. It’s the appearance of a lot of new players. I think we have easily 20, I would say, credible payroll players at the global, global scale. And I think at least half of them are aggregators. So it’s, it’s companies that don’t necessarily offer you their own engine for payroll, but they aggregate your current landscape, meaning you have payroll supplier a, payroll supplier B, blah, blah, blah. And you’re asking yourself, okay, what am I going to do to standardize this? Am I going to, I would say, dismantle my home setup and all those countries payroll. And am I going to, you know, spend, I don’t know, five to eight years implementing new Pearl solutions, maybe one parallel solution across the board, or am I just going to keep my landscape, because, after all, the suppliers are not so bad, but I will aggregate all of that through one tool, which is going to unify my landscape, because for me as a user, this is a tool I’m going to be using. So this is where I’m going to be watching all my process. I’ll be following all my workflows. I will be approving my parallel from there, one tool, unified report, unified layout. This is where I’m going to be able also to monitor the costs, so all the operations, the orchestration of the process, could be done from there. So I’ve seen that. I’ve seen a couple of companies, and I think what they offer is pretty promising. Of course, if you have issues with your payroll itself, if the engine is, I would say, totally not functioning, or if you have big issues with the supplier in the background, you won’t fix it through aggregation. But if you’re okay with your current suppliers, but you don’t want to invest into five to eight years project. I think this is an interesting tool, to be honest, which I started to to explore myself. So I really believe in this, this model. I know that this, those suppliers alone, involve quite a number of automation, sometimes automated reconciliation between the growth that you instruct and the gross payroll that you get in the system. So a lot of automation opportunities. I think this is all great. I think it will get better and better, but I really see this as a trend. So a lot of aggregators are trying to really hit the market. I think the key for them is going to be to address from a startup. Or maybe scale up mentality, because they started as scale ups, and their clients are, in general, startup or scale ups companies or tech companies, and for them to really adjust to multinational companies that are more complex, I think, to cater for and who are maybe a little more traditional in the mindset, I think that that’s the main stake for those companies, plus the fact that there’s a lot of them. So I don’t know if they will all survive. I mean, probably there will be a few, you know. I mean, some companies will disappear because I think there are too many players. But I think this is great. I think this is a great alternative to do. I would say models that we had in the past where we had no alternative. If you want to unify, you need to change all your Pell softwares. So that’s really a trend that I’ve observed. I think another trend is really around reporting and analytics. So I mean, there’s been a boom. It’s no secret to anyone that analytics have become super important for companies. They want to run some analysis. They want to be predictive and payroll, plus time and attendance, which in general go together, contains a lot of data that is really, really important, a lot of data that are around to employees behavior. I mean, sea cliffs and so on so forth, which are really, really precious. But also payroll carries what is, in general for companies, the number one expense. I mean salaries and all labor costs. So I think payroll is sitting on the gun mine in terms of reporting. And I think companies really started to use that. And I see really a trend now that suppliers, when they come to you, they really offer you some modules that are dedicated to analytics, and they make it a selling point with a marketing point with also insurance, not only payroll, with also Reporting Analytics, we can offer you very powerful analytics, which you can integrate to your own data warehouse if you want to leveraging the Fact, again, that they are proceeding a lot of data that are really insightful when it comes to the life of the company. So that’s really the number two trend that I have. And then there’s another one, which, to be honest, okay, maybe a bit of shame to talk about, because it’s such a basic but I really think now that the self service for employees and online payslips and online tax certificates is really now something common, maybe five to 10 years ago, you could say, Wow, fantastic. I mean, in this company, they managed to implement the payslip in this number of countries. I think now it’s a standard. I think all the companies now manage to implement eBay sleeps sometime, not through unified solution, but I think they all manage to do that. And I really think it’s a basic but also a trend that probably is now coming to an end.

Dylan Teggart 22:58
Interesting, and, you know, I’m sure, like, here, AI, is, you know, a hot topic. How is it, how has it kind of been, I guess, how’s the carpet kind of been on, unrolled, unrolled there, laid out, rolled out there, I should say. And how are people receiving it? What do you kind of, how do you feel? It’s kind of, how has it been interacting with the day to day life of someone like you?

Remi Champeix 23:27
I’ll be honest, I didn’t get my head around it too much. I mean, I’m trying, I’m really trying to get concrete and tangible. I attended a lot of meetings around AI and practically applied to HR and to payroll. I I never got a very satisfying response of what practically so it’s going to do for us? And the responses I’m getting, it’s like, yeah, it’s going to automate. It’s going to improve. It’s going to Yeah, okay, but how exactly is it going to work? What is going to happen? Are we going to be replacing tomorrow people, because we’ll be able, with AI to identify all the common errors, for instance. And then the responses I’m getting are like, yes, it’s going to be possible. But then it takes some, you know, learning, machine learning, and some of okay, so then we’re back to something that was, again, maybe a little less than five years, very big. So the machine learning, like the automation. So I think conceptually, it’s not new what it would bring to payroll. I mean, again, that’s the way I understand it. And I may be wrong here, because I think the topic is very dynamic. But for me, conceptually, it’s not going to bring more than machine learning and automation that suppliers already started to invest into and companies themselves. But what I understand is that it may go further. It would be more powerful, so we may get faster, to a stage where, basically we would automate the payroll controls, and would be able to trust the AI, because the AI is so strong and so well that you. That, yes, it will really spot the errors. So not things that sound like errors, because in payroll, you know, you get a lot of things that sound suspicious, but they can be explained for a lot of reasons. So something powerful enough to really differentiate and capture what is really an error. Yeah, yeah, and understand AI could help us to get there faster. But again, that’s what I’ve been told. I didn’t really understand how much it’s going to differ from, again, machine learning and the previous automation that we’ve been you know, hearing about and a lot of marketing was made around but, but I really want to believe in it. I just want to understand a little better how it’s going to

Dylan Teggart 25:46
work. Yeah, I think, I think people are that’s becoming a more common topic. People are bringing up and including myself, and, you know, Nick and I, from 316 sites are going to HR tech in Las Vegas next month, and I’m interested to have conversations with people, more conversations with people, to see how in the over the course, even just the past month, past, sorry, 12 months, kind of expectations are changing and and what people really see is the future for this technology that everyone felt was kind of going to blow the doors open of everything we do. But I think when it hits the real world, it does always have a bit of more practical usage. And like you said, I want to see what those are going to be before we open up

Remi Champeix 26:32
really, you know, not dismissing this in any way. So I’m just being honest that I I still don’t grasp exactly how it’s going to work. What else is it going to do that versus, you know, already known automation and machine learning that we’ve heard about. But again, I do believe it’s going to change. I’m just curious, when is it going to be mature enough to really make a difference? And, you know, maybe make that we don’t need anyone to check payroll anymore, or we just need maybe one person to check a few exceptions that should be really nominal if the technology works fine. So I’m really looking forward to it, but I think now it’s more potential than something tangible that we are getting presented by the those who market this tool. Well,

Dylan Teggart 27:21
thank you very much. Very much. For me, it’s been a lot of great insight, and we have you’re incredibly informed on some of these topics, which is great to hear you have a very unique perspective before we wrap up. Is there anything else you’d like to touch on, or let people know? If,

Remi Champeix 27:38
no, I think that we really went through a lot of things, and I hope it wasn’t too heavy for those who are going to be listening to us or watching us, and probably it would call for some potential follow up where we could, you know, break down those items, because there were a lot of, I would say, content here, and some of those items deserve some deep dive. I mean, people may have question on that, and we may definitely to have a little more into those, but I think that was useful, I hope a useful conversation, and I think we really covered quite a lot of ground today.

Dylan Teggart 28:13
Absolutely, yeah, and anyone, for anyone listening, if you have any more questions, feel free to reach out to us at 3Sixty Insights, and maybe we can have Remi on again and get into it a bit more Absolutely. All right, thanks for listening. Everyone.

Remi Champeix 28:26
Thank you.

Dylan Teggart 28:27
Thanks, everyone. Bye.

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