Why we ended split payroll for assignees in Japan

For years our assignees in Tokyo were paid 60% in yen through the local payroll and 40% in home currency from the home payroll. The idea was to protect savings and home commitments from currency movement. We are a precision instruments manufacturer and usually have about 25 people on assignment there from Germany and the US.

With the yen where it has been, the fixed split meant people were short of local spending money while their home portion sat untouched. Reporting the home-paid part to the local payroll for withholding was also a monthly manual job that went wrong four times in one year.

From January everything is delivered through the Japanese payroll and assignees choose how much to remit home. Curious whether others have kept a split.