Easing regulatory burden of submitting payroll paperwork
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Any company that does work where federal money is involved is required to pay their workers a locally competitive wage for their job role, and to report that they have done so to the federal agency contracting their services. This research project set out to understand how this process worked and what, if anything, could be done to reduce the burden on companies while improving compliance with the law.
Working closely with two other researchers, we found that a lack of standardization between agencies, difficult to use wage-rate categories for workers, and lack of clear rules, processes and calculations increased the burden on companies. We recommended targeted changes to policy, process and technology that could ease the burden. Some of these recommendations have already been followed, as our research helped spur another phase of work – involving prototyping technology to make identifying wages-rate categories easier for companies to use.
