SUBJECT:	Paperless Payroll at Duke
DATE:	May 26, 2009

 

Duke continues to pursue opportunities to promote environmental sustainability and cost reduction. A new initiative – Paperless Payroll – promises to significantly advance Duke in both of these areas, and in other important ways. One facet of this initiative - electronic distribution of direct deposit pay statements - has been in progress for some time, with great success. Today, more than 13,000 staff and faculty have chosen to discontinue receiving paper statements and now access their statements online through the Duke@Work self-service website. We plan to build on that success in the months ahead.

Effective July 1, 2009, Duke University and Health System will transition to full adoption of electronic pay statements for direct deposit. The final paper statements will be distributed on June 25, 2009, for monthly-paid employees and on July 2, 2009, for biweekly-paid employees.

This action is the latest in a series of steps to reduce costs in an effort to address the University's $125 million budget shortfall. Eliminating paper pay statements was one of the ideas submitted by faculty and staff through the Enduring a Troubled Economy website. The Duke Administrative Reform Team reviews these ideas for opportunities to create greater efficiencies and cost reduction.

As context, Duke typically purchases, generates, and manually distributes more than 600,000 paper pay statements a year. This paper-based model is costly for Duke in terms of dollars and environmental impact. The current model also contributes to less than optimal departmental efficiency and financial controls.

Duke implemented Duke@Work over a year ago. The self-service website, which offers employees access to view and update their personal information online, has been broadly embraced throughout the University and Health System, with approximately one-third of the total Duke workforce no longer receiving paper pay statements.

The experience of Duke@Work has contributed to significant gains in terms of daily administrative efficiency within departments, as well as for the ultimate recipients who receive their information much sooner under the electronic model. Furthermore, the electronic safeguards around the data are more reliable than a paper-based process in which paper statements touch several hands before they reach the ultimate recipient. And in many cases, unclaimed paper statements are returned to Corporate Payroll Services for destruction.

Clear and concise instruction on the use of Duke@Work is available on the Human Resources website. Any further questions regarding the Paperless Payroll initiative can be directed to Corporate Payroll Services at 684-2642. Thank you for your support of this important initiative.