Global news agency Reuters has successfully outsourced paying its 460 Asia-Pacific employees to Australian HR innovator Empower Masterpay.

Since 2004, Empower’s Melbourne office has provided Reuters with a comprehensive payroll service that includes updating details in the database, managing all employee queries and answering Employee Self-Service questions. The service also provides leave management logistics, general ledger and uploading superannuation files into Esuper.

Empower manages the payroll for Reuters employees stationed throughout the region as well as Australian journalists who report from locations as far afield as Iraq and Afghanistan. While, to date, the payroll service has paid employees only through bank accounts in Australia, Empower has just developed a new bank format that will allow it to pay wages into a bank account anywhere in the world.

Empower’s Outsourced Pay Office manager for Reuters Jo Anne Sienkiewicz said Empower was one of a handful of global payroll service suppliers. “It was a decision made from their head office in London,” she said. “The Asia-Pacific region was last to go on board, but Reuters have been pleased with our ability to provide the service.”

Reuters is a global information company that collects and tailors information for professionals in the financial services, media and corporate markets. Although best known as the world's largest international multimedia news agency, Reuters derives more than 90 per cent of its revenue from its financial services business.

Jo Anne said providing payrolls for international employees required a flexible service. “Because Reuters is in the global news business, we have people going all around the world,” she said.  “I regularly deal with people from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, America and France. We also prepare reports for pension schemes for people in England, America, Hong Kong and France, so they receive the correct pension contribution.

“When we first started providing the payroll service for Reuters, some of the people who came to Australia did not have English as their first language. The solution was to install software that interpreted emails into English as I received them and interpreted my replies back into the original language. Dealing with employees for whom English is not their first language can be difficult. However I have now come to accept that ‘Dear Sienkiewicz’ is a term of endearment.”

For more information about Empower-HR’s Outsourced Payroll Office capabilities, call Empower Masterpay CEO Alan Greig on (08) 8332 6988 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

 For media assistance, call John Harris on 08 8431 4000 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it