As organisations grow, so does the complexity of delivering change. What starts as a handful of projects managed by capable individuals can quickly evolve into multiple programmes, competing priorities, increasing stakeholder expectations, and greater operational risk.

Growth brings opportunity, but without the right delivery structure, it can also create confusion. This is where many organisations reach a turning point. They begin asking questions like:

• Why are projects competing for the same resources?
• Why is reporting inconsistent across teams?
• Why are leadership decisions being made without reliable delivery data?
• Why do successful projects seem to rely on individual people rather than repeatable processes?

The answer is rarely a lack of capable people. More often, it is the absence of a PMO framework that has been designed to grow alongside the business.

A PMO Framework Should Scale With Your Organisation

Many organisations assume that because payroll is running and employees are one of the biggest misconceptions about a PMO framework is that it is only needed once an organisation becomes large or complex. In reality, the most successful frameworks are designed early, then evolve as the business matures.

Rather than creating layers of governance or unnecessary administration, a scalable PMO framework provides the right level of structure at the right time. It introduces consistency where it matters most while remaining flexible enough to adapt as priorities change.
A PMO framework should never become a bottleneck. Instead, it should create clarity, establish confidence, and support better decision-making across the organisation.

Start With Strong Foundations

Every scalable PMO framework begins with a small number of well-defined fundamentals.
Clear governance establishes who owns decisions and how accountability is managed. Consistent project methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, or a Hybrid model) give teams a shared approach to planning and delivery. Standard reporting provides leadership with meaningful visibility into progress, risks, and resource capacity. Defined roles remove uncertainty and help teams understand where responsibility sits.

These foundations create consistency without adding unnecessary complexity. As delivery grows, these same principles simply expand alongside the organisation rather than needing to be rebuilt from scratch.

Visibility Creates Better Decisions

As project portfolios become larger, visibility becomes one of the most valuable assets an organisation can have. Leaders need confidence that they understand what is happening across delivery before problems begin to emerge.

A mature PMO governance framework provides more than project status reports. It brings together meaningful information that helps leadership answer important questions:

• Which initiatives are on track?
• Where are delivery risks emerging?
• Are resources being used effectively?
• Which projects are delivering strategic value?
• What decisions need executive attention?

When information is consistent and visible, organisations spend less time gathering updates and more time making informed decisions.

Case Study: From Data Complexity to Clear Strategic Direction

Roger Roger Marketing, a fast-paced performance marketing agency managing multiple clients, campaigns, and projects, reached exactly this point. The team had strong strategic direction, but execution visibility and operational consistency hadn’t kept pace with growth.

“We knew what we needed to do, we just didn’t know where to start.” — Cory Gordon, Owner, Roger Roger Marketing

Alxemy implemented a PMO Lite setup built around a practical 30-60-90 day roadmap. Within the first thirty days, the team had structured, consistent delivery underway. By day sixty, that structure was being adopted across every active project. By day ninety, the business had shifted from reactive firefighting to confident, data-led strategic planning.

“We’re confident the data going in is accurate, which means we can step back, learn from it, and start applying those insights to our long-term strategy.” — Cory Gordon, Owner, Roger Roger Marketing

Read the full case study →

Build Processes That Can Grow

Many organisations unintentionally build delivery processes around individuals rather than systems. While this may work during periods of rapid growth, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain as teams expand.

A scalable PMO framework focuses on creating repeatable frameworks that support everyone involved in delivery. This includes:

• Standard project governance.
• Common reporting frameworks.
• Consistent risk and issue management.
• Portfolio-level planning, supported by project portfolio management (PPM) tools.
• Repeatable project initiation and closure processes.
• Structured resource allocation and capacity planning, so resourcing decisions are based on real data, not guesswork.
• Defined delivery metrics and KPIs, covering schedule adherence, risk exposure, utilisation, and value delivered.

When delivery becomes repeatable, organisations reduce reliance on individual knowledge and create greater resilience for future growth.

People Remain at the Centre

While frameworks and governance are essential, successful PMO frameworks are built around people. The best delivery environments encourage collaboration, shared ownership, and open communication.

A PMO framework should support project teams, not control them. It provides guidance, removes unnecessary barriers, and helps leaders focus on delivering outcomes rather than navigating administrative complexity.

When teams understand expectations and have confidence in the delivery framework, they are able to move faster while maintaining quality and accountability.

Scale with Purpose

Growth is rarely linear. Priorities change. Markets shift. Organisations evolve.
A scalable PMO framework is designed with this reality in mind. Rather than continually redesigning governance as the business grows, organisations can build a delivery capability that adapts naturally over time.

The result is greater consistency, stronger visibility, and increased confidence across every stage of delivery.

Final Thoughts

Building a PMO framework that scales is not about introducing more process. It is about creating the right structure to support sustainable growth. When governance is clear, reporting is meaningful, and delivery frameworks are repeatable, organisations are better equipped to manage complexity without losing momentum.

The strongest PMO frameworks don’t simply oversee projects. They provide the clarity, confidence, and control that allow organisations to continue growing while delivering change successfully.

Alxemy has supported organisations across payroll, technology, and professional services with practical PMO frameworks that scale from a handful of live projects to full portfolio management.

The results are consistent: improved reporting confidence, stronger governance, and greater visibility across operational performance.

Ready to build a PMO framework that scales with you?

As your organisation grows, your approach to delivery should grow with it. A PMO framework provides the structure, visibility, and governance needed to support sustainable success, today and into the future. Contact Us to talk through what good operational foundations look like for your business, or explore our PMO services to see how we can help.

For many organisations, payroll, workforce management, and HCM systems are the backbone of daily operations, ensuring employees are paid correctly, leave is managed accurately, compliance obligations are met, and workforce data is available when needed.

Yet these systems are often left unchecked for years. Configurations become outdated, manual workarounds emerge, processes evolve, and legislative requirements change, causing even well-implemented systems to drift from best practice and create compliance risks, inefficiencies, and unnecessary costs.

A regular payroll compliance health check helps organisations confirm whether their systems remain compliant, accurate, efficient, and aligned with current business needs.

The Hidden Risks of “Business as Usual”

Many organisations assume that because payroll is running and employees are being paid, everything must be working correctly.
Unfortunately, compliance and operational issues often develop gradually and remain hidden until they become significant problems.

Common examples include:

• Incorrect leave calculations
• Payroll processing errors
• Outdated system configurations
• Manual processes that increase administration time
• Duplicate data entry across systems
• Inaccurate employee records
• Manual time and attendance processes leading to incorrect leave or public holiday calculations
• Compliance gaps related to employment legislation

These issues can remain unnoticed for months or even years, creating financial risk, operational inefficiencies, and frustration for both employees and administrators.

By the time a problem is discovered through an audit, employee complaint, or remediation programme, the cost of fixing it is often significantly higher than the cost of identifying it early.

Compliance Is an Ongoing Responsibility

New Zealand employment and payroll legislation continues to evolve, requiring organisations to regularly review their systems and processes.

Areas that require ongoing attention include:

• Holidays Act obligations
• Leave entitlements
• Minimum wage requirements
• Payroll taxation
• Employment relations legislation

Of these, Holidays Act non-compliance has been the single greatest driver of payroll remediation programmes across New Zealand, with many organisations only discovering material underpayments through formal reviews or investigations, often years after the issues first arose. Even experienced payroll and HR teams can struggle to keep pace with legislative change while managing day-to-day demands.

A health check provides an independent assessment of whether your systems, processes, and configurations remain aligned with current legislative requirements and best practice. This matters: the Labour Inspectorate and Inland Revenue actively investigate non-compliance, and a number of New Zealand employers have undertaken significant, costly remediation programmes in recent years, issues that a timely health check would, in many cases, have identified before they escalated.

Technology Alone Doesn’t Guarantee Compliance

Modern payroll and HCM platforms are powerful, but software alone does not ensure compliant outcomes.

Many organisations have invested in sophisticated systems but are only using a fraction of the available functionality. Others continue to operate configurations that were established years ago and have never been reviewed. Compliance depends on far more than the technology itself.

It requires:

• Correct system configuration
• Accurate employee and payroll data
• Effective business processes
• Appropriate governance and controls
• Ongoing maintenance and review

A comprehensive health check examines the entire ecosystem, identifying opportunities to strengthen compliance while improving the overall effectiveness of the system.

Casual and variable-hour workforces present a particular area of risk. Without an integrated time and attendance solution, key compliance obligations, including determining an employee’s otherwise working day, calculating public holiday entitlements, and managing leave eligibility, are often managed through manual processes and spreadsheets. These approaches are difficult to audit, hard to maintain consistently, and frequently produce errors that compound over time.

Operational Efficiency Matters Too

While compliance is often the primary driver for a health check, operational efficiency can deliver equally significant benefits.
Over time, organisations frequently develop workarounds to address process gaps or changing business requirements. These workarounds can increase administrative effort, create duplicate tasks, and introduce unnecessary risk.

Common examples include:

• Manual data entry between systems
• Spreadsheet-based calculations
• Repetitive payroll adjustments
• Multiple approval steps that add little value
• Reporting processes that require significant manual intervention

A health check identifies opportunities to streamline workflows, improve system integration, and leverage automation capabilities that may already exist within your current platform.

The result is often reduced administration, improved accuracy, and greater confidence in day-to-day operations.

Data Accuracy Is the Foundation of Good Decision-Making

Payroll and workforce management systems are only as reliable as the data they contain. Small inaccuracies can quickly escalate, particularly when they affect payroll calculations, leave balances, reporting, or compliance obligations.

A health check reviews critical transactional data to verify:

• Payroll calculation accuracy
• Leave entitlement calculations
• Employee master data integrity
• Time and attendance information
• Reporting reliability

Identifying discrepancies early prevents costly remediation and ensures leaders can trust the information used to make workforce decisions.

Future-Proofing Your Systems

Business requirements rarely stand still. As organisations grow, restructure, introduce new policies, adopt new technologies, and respond to evolving regulatory expectations, systems that were fit for purpose several years ago may no longer support current needs.

A health check provides valuable insight into whether your payroll, workforce management, and HCM systems are positioned for future growth, identifying:

• • Configuration improvements
  • Opportunities for greater automation
  • Process enhancements
  • Areas requiring legislative alignment
  • System capability that may be underutilised.

Rather than simply addressing today’s challenges, this creates a roadmap for continuous improvement.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

When compliance and operational issues go unnoticed, the consequences can be significant:

Financial Risk

Payroll remediation, penalties, rework, and legal costs can place considerable strain on budgets.

Operational Disruption

Investigations and corrective projects consume valuable time and resources that could otherwise be focused on strategic priorities.

Employee Trust

Payroll inaccuracies and entitlement issues can quickly damage employee confidence and engagement.

Missed Opportunities

Organisations may continue investing time in inefficient processes without realising that simpler, more effective solutions already exist within their systems.

For many organisations, the greatest risk is not the issue they know about. It is the issue they have not yet discovered.

What a Health Check Delivers

A comprehensive health check provides organisations with:

• An independent review of compliance obligations
• Assessment of system configuration and setup
• Validation of payroll and workforce data accuracy
• Identification of process inefficiencies
• Recommendations for automation and optimisation
• A written report with prioritised, actionable recommendations your team can evaluate and sequence at your own pace

The outcome is greater confidence that your systems support your people, your compliance obligations, and your business objectives.

Don’t Wait for a Problem to Find You

Organisations routinely review financial controls, maintain critical infrastructure, and monitor operational performance. Payroll, workforce management, and HCM systems deserve the same attention. Regular health checks identify risks before they become problems, uncover efficiencies before costs escalate, and give you confidence that your organisation operates on a solid foundation of compliance, accuracy, and efficiency.

At Alxemy, our fixed-price Compliance Health Checks provide an independent assessment of payroll, workforce management, and HCM systems, helping organisations across New Zealand reduce risk, improve performance, and unlock their systems’ full potential. You receive a written report with prioritised findings you can act on immediately, phase over time, or use to build the case for investment in your systems.

Ready for a clear view of where your systems stand? Talk to Our Team.

For many New Zealand organisations, payroll starts out relatively simple. A small internal team manages pay runs, compliance obligations feel manageable, and processes develop organically over time. But as organisations grow, payroll often becomes more complex than expected.

Additional pay groups, integrated time and attendance systems, changing employment agreements, allowance structures, Holidays Act interpretation, and increasing reporting expectations can all place pressure on internal payroll capability.

At a certain point, many organisations begin asking an important question: does managing payroll internally mean they also need to carry the full operational burden themselves?

Increasingly, the answer is no.

Payroll Support Is No Longer a Binary Choice

Traditionally, organisations have viewed payroll support as a binary decision: manage payroll internally using software, or outsource it entirely to an external provider.

Many growing organisations are now adopting a more flexible approach. Rather than handing payroll over completely, they retain ownership of their payroll platform and internal visibility while partnering with experienced payroll specialists to manage day-to-day operations and provide ongoing support.

This allows organisations to maintain control of their payroll environment without relying entirely on internal capacity.

Fully In-House Payroll

For some organisations, a fully in-house payroll model remains the right fit. The internal team manages payroll processing, payday filing, PAYE and KiwiSaver obligations, reconciliations, reporting, and system administration using their own payroll software.

What Works Well

An internal payroll model gives organisations direct oversight of payroll timing, approvals, reporting, and operational processes. Modern payroll platforms can improve efficiency through automation, employee self-service functionality, and integrated reporting. For organisations with stable workforce structures and experienced internal payroll capability, this approach can work well.

What Organisations Often Underestimate

Managing payroll internally using software gives your organisation direct control over payroll timing, approvals, and internal processes. It can be cost-effective initially and typically includes employee self-service functionality, allowing staff to access payslips and update personal details without HR involvement.

What to Watch Out For

Payroll software supports payroll processing, but it does not remove the need for payroll expertise. Someone internally needs to stay current with:

• PAYE and payday filing obligations
• KiwiSaver and ESCT requirements
• Holidays Act interpretation
• Employment legislation changes
• System configuration and upgrade management

As organisations grow, payroll can also become dependent on a small number of internal staff, creating operational risk and continuity concerns if key personnel become unavailable.

Managed Payroll Support Using Your Existing Software

Payroll is rarely just about processing pay runs. New Zealand payroll environments often involve complex compliance obligations, Holidays Act interpretation, remediation considerations, changing employment conditions, system upgrades, reporting requirements, and operational challenges that evolve over time. In addition to day-to-day payroll management, organisations may also require assistance with:

• Payroll compliance and legislative interpretation
• Payroll remediation support
• Leave and entitlement calculations
• Payroll system configuration and upgrades
• Reporting and reconciliation issues
• Workforce management and payroll integration challenges
• Process improvement and operational continuity

Access to experienced payroll professionals means organisations are not left navigating these issues alone as complexity increases.

Why This Model Is Growing

Many organisations no longer want “black box” payroll outsourcing, where processing sits entirely outside the business with limited visibility or platform ownership. At the same time, they may not want the operational risk and compliance pressure that comes with managing everything internally.

Support-based payroll models allow organisations to keep ownership of their systems, reporting, and payroll data while extending their internal capability with experienced payroll professionals.

Payroll Complexity Often Increases Gradually

Payroll challenges do not usually appear overnight. More commonly, organisations begin noticing:

• Increasing manual workarounds
• Growing payroll administration time
• Spreadsheet dependency
• More complex leave and allowance calculations
• Increasing compliance concerns
• Reporting limitations
• Reliance on one or two key payroll staff

These are often signs that payroll has evolved beyond a purely administrative task into a broader operational and compliance function.

The Right Payroll Model Should Support Long-Term Growth

The right payroll approach is not simply about software. It is about ensuring your organisation has the operational capability, compliance oversight, and continuity needed to support payroll accurately and consistently as complexity grows.

For some organisations, that means continuing with a fully internal payroll function. For others, it means extending internal capability with experienced payroll specialists who can manage payroll operations within the organisation’s existing systems and processes.

The right payroll support model should do more than simply process payroll. It should strengthen your organisation’s payroll capability as your business grows.

The key is finding a model that gives your organisation confidence, flexibility, and access to the expertise needed to support payroll successfully over the long term.

If your payroll is under pressure, we can help you find the right model for where your organisation is headed. Talk to our team.

Learn more about Alxemy’s Managed Payroll Services

Leave Accrual During Parental Leave

Employees on parental leave will remain entitled to annual leave as is the case presently,
however, instead of becoming entitled to 4 weeks of annual leave on their anniversary date,
they will accrue leave based on standard working hours.

Under the proposed legislation, leave will accrue at a minimum rate of:

          | 0.0769 hours for every standard hour worked

The key question is how “standard hours” are defined for an employee who is not currently
working. The Bill introduces a clear answer.

How Standard Hours Will Be Determined

The employee’s leave accrual will be based on the standard hours they worked before commencing parental leave.

This means:

• If an employee had consistent standard hours before taking parental leave, those hours will continue to be used to calculate leave accrual while they are away.
• Employees will continue accruing leave even though they are not physically working during their parental leave period.

This change ensures continuity and prevents employees from being disadvantaged simply because they are temporarily absent from the workplace while caring for a child.

Temporary Changes to Standard Hours Before Parental Leave

The Bill also addresses a specific scenario: what happens when an employee temporarily changes their working hours shortly before commencing parental leave.

Without a rule to address this, short-term changes to hours could unfairly skew leave calculations in either direction. The Bill closes that gap.

When a Temporary Change Applies

A temporary change is defined as:

• an increase or decrease in standard hours; and
• a change that remains in place for no longer than three months.

If an employee and employer agree to a temporary change to standard hours within the three months before parental leave begins, the leave accrual calculation will instead be based on the employee’s standard hours immediately before the temporary change commenced.

Why This Matters

This provision prevents short-term adjustments to work hours from unfairly affecting leave entitlements.

For example:

• An employee who temporarily reduces hours due to pregnancy-related circumstances will not have their future leave accrual unfairly reduced.
• Likewise, an employee temporarily increasing hours shortly before parental leave will not artificially inflate leave calculations.

The intention is to ensure leave accrual reflects the employee’s genuine long-term working arrangement.

Amendments to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987

Clauses 184 to 188 of the Employment Leave Bill introduce several amendments to the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. These amendments primarily focus on correcting long-standing issues surrounding holiday pay and parental leave payments.

The most significant of these is the removal of a calculation method that, in some circumstances, has resulted in employees receiving no holiday pay at all after returning from parental leave.

Removal of Outdated Holiday Pay Provisions

Changes Under Section 184

Section 184 amends section 42 of the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act by removing the words “and holiday pay.” As a result, the section title will now read:

          | Employer’s obligation in respect of remuneration

In addition, section 42(2) will be repealed. This subsection previously required holiday pay to be calculated using the employee’s average weekly earnings.

Why the Existing Rules Created Problems

The existing calculation method often produced unfairly low holiday pay rates for employees returning from parental leave. This occurred because employees on parental leave typically have:

• little or no gross earnings during the previous 6 to 12 months; and
• reduced average weekly earnings as a result.

Consequently, employees taking annual leave shortly after returning to work could receive significantly reduced holiday pay

In Some Cases, the Rate Could Be Zero

The problem was particularly severe for employees returning after 12 months of parental leave. If annual leave was taken during the first pay period after returning to work, the employee’s average weekly earnings could potentially be calculated at a rate of zero.

This meant an employee could effectively receive no holiday pay despite returning to active employment. This is the kind of outcome the Bill is designed to prevent.

The New Protection for Returning Employees

The Employment Leave Bill addresses this issue by ensuring employees returning from parental leave are paid at least their base rate of pay for annual leave taken after their return. This amendment creates a fairer outcome and removes the risk of employees being financially disadvantaged immediately after parental leave. The same protection will also apply to holiday pay paid while an employee is on parental leave

Repeal of Section 72

Section 187 of the Employment Leave Bill repeals section 72 of the Parental Leave Act. This repeal aligns with the broader intention of removing outdated holiday pay rules that have created confusion and inconsistent outcomes for both employers and employees.

Changes to the Calculation of Parental Leave Payments

Another major reform relates to how parental leave payments themselves are calculated. It is important to note that this specific reform, covering Paid Parental Leave managed by IRD, is the component scheduled to come into effect on 1 July 2027. The changes here relate to how IRD will calculate the amount of the payment due to employees on paid parental leave.

Because the comparison is based on actual earnings prior to the commencement of paid parental leave, it is important for employers to pay employees correctly for the hours worked before paid parental leave begins. Errors in that period will flow directly into the payment calculation.

Amendment Under Section 186

Section 186 replaces section 71M(1)(b)(i) and updates the method used to determine parental leave payments. Under the new approach, parental leave payments will be paid at the lesser of:

• $788.66 (the current paid parental leave payment); or
• the greater of: the employee’s ordinary weekly pay; or the average of the employee’s gross weekly earnings from all employments.

A More Accurate Earnings Assessment

The revised calculation method focuses on 100% of the employee’s weekly earnings before parental leave commenced. Importantly, it also considers earnings across all employments, rather than limiting calculations to a single role.

This change is particularly beneficial for employees who:

• work multiple jobs;
• have variable income arrangements; or
• receive fluctuating earnings.

The goal is to create a more accurate reflection of an employee’s normal earnings before taking parental leave.

New Definition of Relevant Pay Periods

The Bill also introduces clear rules for determining which pay periods are used to calculate parental leave payments. These pay periods vary depending on how the employee is paid

Implementation Date and Employer Readiness

The new parental leave payment provisions managed by IRD are scheduled to take effect for any parental leave period beginning on or after 1 July 2027.

This specific commencement date is earlier than the broader Employment Leave framework (including the new leave accrual rates and the removal of outdated holiday pay rules), much of which is expected to come into force two years after Royal Assent. As a result, employers may have a much shorter timeframe to prepare for these payment configuration updates.

That distinction is worth dwelling on. While much of the Employment Leave Bill conversation has focused on the two-year post-Royal Assent window, the parental leave changes operate on their own schedule. Organisations that assume they have the same preparation runway for all parts of the Bill may find themselves under-prepared for this section specifically.

What Employers Will Need to Review

If the Employment Leave Bill becomes law, employers will need to review and potentially update:

• payroll systems;
• leave calculation processes;
• parental leave policies;
• employment agreements; and
• HR administration procedures.

Because the changes affect both leave accrual and payment calculations, businesses will need to ensure their systems can accurately process the new rules before the commencement date. Early preparation will help employers avoid compliance issues and ensure employees receive their correct entitlements under the new legislation. (refer to our previous article: Employment Leave Bill: What You Can Do Now)

What These Changes Mean in Practice

The parental leave changes in the Employment Leave Bill are, at their core, about fairness. They close gaps that have existed for years: employees losing leave accrual while absent, employees receiving reduced or zero holiday pay on return, and payment calculations that do not reflect what an employee actually earns.

For employers, the technical implications are real. Payroll systems will eventually need to handle new accrual logic and a revised holiday pay method, but the immediate priority will be the updated IRD payment calculations arriving on 1 July 2027. Employment agreements and parental leave policies will need to be reviewed against this staggered framework

The Bill has not yet passed into law. But the direction is clear, and the 1 July 2027 date for parental leave provisions gives less lead time than many organisations may expect.

Understanding what is proposed is the first step. The next is assessing what it means for your specific systems, agreements, and workforce.

If you would like to discuss how these changes affect your organisation, our team is available to help.

Get in touch with Alxemy