Local government went through major hurdles in 2021. It was a year of reaction and constant adjustment.
With better days ahead, organizations are now looking toward the future. 2022 will be the year of digital transformation. It will be a year of advancement, cyber protection, and preparation. If 2021 has taught us anything, it has been, “change is here, now how do we approach it?”
To help answer that, we thought we would outline what trends we expect to explode in 2022.
1. Cloud Technology
The past two years have clearly, and sometimes painfully, highlighted the need for local governments to create a more agile and digitally defended workforce. The protection, recovery, and remote capabilities the cloud offers are causing municipalities across the country to consider this exciting digital advancement to meet the constantly growing demands.
One of the quickly developing threats to public entities is cybercriminals. In 2020 and 2021 we saw an increase in cyberattacks targeting both large and small entities, now making cyberattacks a daily threat in 2022. These attacks commonly featured ransomware, which may soon become illegal to pay. It has never been more important to invest in tools that help your team prevent and recover from these events if they happen. The cloud is one of the easiest options to secure and back up data with additional benefits that help take the burden and some costs off data storage.
With these benefits, the popularity of cloud technology has been growing sharply and is only expected to increase throughout 2022.
2. Automated Accounts Payable & Vendor Payments
Current accounts payable processes commonly involve a lot of manual work: cutting checks, tracking vendor payments, and entering the same data multiple times and in multiple places. These steps, while seen as simple and straightforward by themselves, cause a lot of headaches and frustration when put all together.
Imagine a solution that allows your organization to outsource vendor payments to your software.
Automating vendor payments allows your organization to:
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- Securely hand off vendor payments.
- Have payments paid out electronically.
- Allow easy reconciliation when completed.
3. Self-Service HR Options
Paying your employees properly is too important and requires the payroll office’s full attention. With the current demands HR and payroll departments face, any amount of work that can be taken off their plate will ripple benefits throughout the organization.
Employee self-service portals are becoming a popular way to mitigate demands and empower employees to get information for themselves so the office can focus on important payroll tasks.
Smartphones, together with cloud technology, are allowing employees easy access to their own portals, even while not in the building. Employees now can check:
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- Accrual information and time-off requests.
- Paystubs for confirmation and download.
- W2 documents.
- Updates for city-wide news and bulletins.
Public employees deserve to have their HR and payroll information at their fingertips and saves them from having to ask the same questions over and over again. These modern tools are allowing payroll staff to focus on important payroll tasks rather than having to download lost paystubs or W2 information.
Guiding and helping local governments embrace new and advancing technologies is a big driving force for us. When your needs and objectives align with the right technology, the result is a more effective and responsible government, and for us, a thing of beauty!
Learn more about how we can help you adopt new technology.
Prefer to speak with us directly? Schedule a call now.
