TotalFinaElf: fuelling the payroll engine
TotalFinaElf
TotalFinaElf is now the fourth largest oil company in the world. Previously the company was three separate businesses: Total, Fina and Elf. Total and Fina merged in 1999 and Elf joined them in 2000. The converged group represents a £70billion capitalisation in the market. It has over 1200 service stations throughout the UK supplying more than 10% of the UK retail market. It has a particularly strong presence in the South East Midlands and the North.
The challenge
Prior to 2000, the three separate companies each had their own payroll system for Head Office salaried staff. Total used bureau service, Elf had an in-house system and Fina used Logica's managed payroll service. Since coming together, TotalFinaElf identified each company's payroll as an island in the business that was not only complex (requiring a large team of experienced people), but also costly and inflexible.
Once identified as such, the task was to find a better way of managing it, or possibly outsourcing it.
When the group started looking for a solution for the company as a whole, the key criteria on the selection process was the scalability and reliability of the technology behind the system. Of all the solutions they looked at, Logica demonstrated that it had the most professional data centre, disaster recovery and business continuity plans. Most importantly, the execution of these plans was proven, through the regular testing process that Logica carried out.
Other factors that drove the decision included resourcing, legislative issues, IT support, scalability, accountability, innovation and reliability and the ability to reduce costs.
During the implementation and project phases of the campaign, consultants, analysts, programmers, project managers, legislation managers and the senior team at Logica were all on hand to offer advice and develop a system that was exactly tailored to TotalFinaElf's needs.
The answer
Fina was the first operation to be fully outsourced and Logica's cost effective fulfilment of this service was the major driver behind the subsequent complete business process outsourcing for both Total and finally Elf.
Logica now provides a fully managed payroll service for the whole
Prior to the outsourcing project, Fina service station staff were paid on a weekly basis with a fixed amount based on their basic registered hours. Adjustments were made the following week if they'd been over or underpaid. When payroll moved to a monthly cycle, some staff left before TotalFinaElf could recover overpayments. Together, Logica and TotalFinaElf changed the policy to a 4-weekly basis so that staff are only paid actual hours worked. At the same time, the timesheet data capture process was automated. This has reduced overpayments, re-calculations, manual cheques and employee queries. It also meant that individual payslip prices were reduced, allowing further savings.
Logica has also invested time writing procedures for the Total staff (holidays, P45, P46, sickness and so on) in order to help the service and reduce staff queries. The merger of Elf, Total and Fina's payroll functions was achieved on time, on budget and key performance indicators from the service level agreement are repeatedly met or exceeded.
"Logica has proactively and continually recommended process changes, many resulting directly in price reductions. Some of these initiatives have also delivered cost and time savings to TotalFinaElf," said Steve Gettings, compensation and benefits manager, TotalFinaElf UK Ltd.
"Logica has never missed a pay day, achieved consistently high levels of accuracy in the complex and constantly shifting retail environment where the potential for inaccuracies is high, fulfilled all relevant statutory obligations and coped admirably with the regular changes caused by our ever changing business," he added.