Mellow Blog

HR & payroll, done properly

Practical, country-by-country guides on payroll, compliance and leave — and how to treat your people as capital to invest in, not headcount to manage. Written for HR leaders at growing companies across the UK, Ireland, USA, UAE, India and Australia.

Payroll to the penny in 6 countriesERA 2025 & local compliance built inConnects to Slack, Teams, Xero & QuickBooksBuilt for teams of 10–100
People Management UK

Unpaid leave and sabbaticals in the United Kingdom

Employers are not legally required to offer unpaid leave or sabbaticals in most circumstances, but they can choose to do so — and how they handle these arrangements has real implications for payroll,

5 min readRead →
People Management UAE

Unpaid leave and sabbaticals in the United Arab Emirates

Unpaid leave in the UAE is permitted but not automatically granted — it requires mutual agreement between employer and employee, and the terms should be set out in writing before the leave begins. Sab

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People Management Ireland

Unpaid leave and sabbaticals in Ireland

Unpaid leave and sabbaticals in Ireland have no single statutory definition — they are arrangements agreed between employer and employee, outside the automatic entitlements set by employment law. That

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HR Software Guides Global

Choosing Between All-in-One and Best-of-Breed HR Tools

All-in-one HR platforms eliminate integration overhead and data inconsistency. Best-of-breed offers specialist depth. Here is the honest assessment of when each model wins.

3 min readRead →
People Management India

Pensions and retirement saving in India

Retirement saving in India combines a mandatory provident fund system with optional schemes that employees can join on top. For most salaried workers, the Employee Provident Fund is the foundation — b

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People Management USA

Pensions and retirement saving in the United States

Retirement saving in the United States is largely voluntary and employer-facilitated, with no universal mandatory workplace pension. What you save — and how — depends on the plans your employer offers

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People Management Australia

Pensions and retirement saving in Australia

Superannuation is Australia's compulsory retirement saving system. Every eligible employee receives contributions from their employer — currently 12% of ordinary time earnings — paid directly into a s

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People Management UAE

Pensions and retirement saving in the United Arab Emirates

Retirement saving in the UAE works differently depending on whether you are a UAE or GCC national or an expatriate. Nationals are enrolled in a formal pension scheme; expatriates are not — they rely i

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People Management UK

Pensions and retirement saving in the United Kingdom

Workplace pensions in the UK are largely automatic: if you meet the eligibility criteria, your employer must enrol you and contribute to your pension. What you do beyond that minimum — and how much yo

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People Management Ireland

Pensions and retirement saving in Ireland

Pension saving in Ireland works through a combination of tax relief on contributions, a state pension paid from PRSI contributions, and — from 2026 — a new automatic enrolment scheme called My Future

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Payroll Global

Payroll Software vs Accountant: Which Is Right for Your Business?

Payroll software versus accountant-managed payroll: cost comparison, control, response time, and what the right answer is as your business grows.

1 min readRead →
HR Software Guides Global

HR Software ROI: How to Calculate the Payback

HR software ROI can be calculated precisely from time audit, error cost, and productivity uplift data. Here is the methodology that produces a number your CFO will accept.

3 min readRead →