Earlier this year, the government passed new legislation requiring employers to provide payslips to all workers, and making it a statutory right for all workers to receive an itemised payslip, showing hours on payslips where the pay varies by the amount of time worked.
The government has been paying more attention to employment law in the last year or so; it had become clear that some employers had been flouting the law and ignoring their employees’ rights to minimum pay.
There has also been bad publicity about zero hour contracts, where the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours, and the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered. This has provided opportunity for unscrupulous employers to abuse the flexibility this type of contract was designed to offer and take advantage of employees.
All workers, including those working zero hours or on a contract basis, should receive a payslip, either on paper or electronically, around the time of their determined payday. This must include:
- the gross amount of wages or salary to be paid
- the net amount of wages or salary to be paid
- the amounts of any variable deductions
- the amounts of any fixed deductions
- a breakdown of how the wages will be paid if more than one payment method is used (e.g. cash and cheque)
Prior to the change in the law, it was sometimes difficult for employees to match up the actual amount of time they had worked with the amount of pay received.
As from April 2019, a payslip must show the total number of variable hours worked. This is only required when workers are paid based upon the amount of time they have worked. This could be because of overtime, because the number of hours they work changed in each pay period, or the rate they are paid for working certain hours is different to others.
The payslip only needs to show the hours that actually vary. For example, if a worker is paid to work for 30 hours in a pay period but has also worked overtime for 7 hours, only the additional 7 hours should be recorded. These extra hours can be shown as a single total or they can be broken down, and you also need to ensure that the information on the payslip is laid out in an easily understandable way.
These changes were enshrined into law earlier in the year, so by now your company’s payroll should have been adjusted in line with the new requirements. If you have any concerns about whether it’s fully compliant, or if you have any other queries, get in touch with our friendly and helpful experts and we’ll be happy to give you any guidance you need.
