From back office to mission critical: Why 2025’s Global Payroll Week should celebrate the industry’s evolution

From back office to mission critical: Why 2025’s Global Payroll Week should celebrate the industry’s evolution

As Global Payroll Week reaches its eighth year, CloudPay, the global leader in payroll and payments solutions, has called for recognition of payroll’s evolution from back-office cog to a key component of the employee experience.

Once regarded as a bureaucratic component of HR, advances in technology have elevated payroll to the highest level of business importance. From bringing to life insights about the scale, cost and impact of a workforce through to being an integral pillar of talent attraction and retention, payroll is in a significant period of acceleration and has advanced up the C-suite agenda.

The future of payroll insight and capability is being driven by a culmination of the three As: AI, automation and API integration – each of which CloudPay is using to augment customer experience and deliverables, and to ensure additive value.

A review of CloudPay’s own growth over the past eight years demonstrates the transformation of payroll into a strategically important capability. This is nowhere more evident than in the 372% increase in annual payment runs that CloudPay completes compared to eight years ago, and the 117 countries it now operates in – an increase of 31 from 2017 figures (and with a capability to process payroll in 130+ countries).

According to CloudPay, this trend has been noted across the entire payroll profession, driven by a combination of increasingly globally-mobile workforces, developments in payroll technology and infrastructure, and changes in customer behaviours.

John Pearce, Chief Customer Officer at CloudPay commented:

“Global Payroll Week is a prime time to celebrate excellence across the payroll industry, and this year we should recognise its ongoing evolution. It now occupies much greater value in business operations and supports in strategic decision-making rather than just serving as a back-office cog. We just need to look at the influence that Earned Wage Access and Pay on Demand have had on talent attraction and retention to see the impact and influence that payroll has on wider corporate strategy.

“Payroll can now support the overall employee experience, improve staff retention, and provide unprecedented predictive workforce trends, all of which are reshaping the profession as we know it. We will only continue to see payroll evolve, and what lies ahead in the next few years is both uncertain and exciting at the same time. There has been a seismic shift over the past eight years, and the recent acceleration shows no signs of slowing.”



About CloudPay:

CloudPay leads the way in global pay innovation, delivering industry-leading solutions spanning payroll, payments and on-demand pay.

With a proud heritage of 25+ years, we serve over 2,000 companies globally in 130+ countries handling $24bn+ of payments in 110+ currencies. Our unified, end-to-end pay solutions enable payroll teams to pay their global workforce with outstanding accuracy and minimal risk, more efficiently than ever before.

We use advanced technology to offer seamless API integrations, powerful automations, and AI-driven insights with real-time analytics — all designed to empower businesses with enhanced decision-making and better, faster processes.

Our unparalleled managed service is tailored to each client with dedicated personalised support and guidance, while our in-country knowledge and global regulatory expertise unlocks unparalleled expansion opportunities for businesses to grow and thrive, compliantly and efficiently.

Working with CloudPay means gaining a strategic partner that harnesses the latest technology to drive growth and optimise the payroll and pay experience.

Together, that’s High-Performance Payroll, from CloudPay.


Media Contact:

Bruce Callander
bruce@bluesky-pr.com
01582 790700