Electronic wageslips - send them, or force retrieval?

Takmon

dc197 wrote: »

Thanks for replies.
The employees are IT savvy and are capable of downloading their payslips. I'm trying to determine whether "make available for download" is a reasonable interpretation of "send them electronically".

What system do you suggest they use to "send them electronically" ?

The most widely used system is email but that is far from secure and it would be negligent for them to send them this way.

They could send them encrypted by email but this then increases the difficulty for people to access them and makes it difficult for people who want to access them from mobile phones and tablets.

But even email requires you to log into a mail server to retrieve the email, which is similar to logging into the portal to get the payslips. So unless someone has a mail server at home you can't actually send them directly to that person if you are being pedantic.

dc197

Takmon
You raise an interesting point. Security is important but the matter I'm concerned with is pushing instead of pulling, and whether my company's implementation meets the legal requirement to "send them electronically".

Pushing an email with an attachment would be ideal, and I am not concerned that the mail system is insecure since the data would not be leaving our tightly-controlled network.
If that's not possible then pushing an email with a link to go to to portal - via log in - would win second prize. Something like "Hello John Smith, please click *here* to retrieve your payslip; so you know this is not phishing your address is 123 Fake Street".


Downloading a PDF file to a workstation from a website is also not perfect. The IT admin in my office joked that he could easily via the downloads folder of all users' workstations to see the payslips (well I hope he was joking). Eeek!


Cheers

WhenIam64

Have a look at the guidance to the legislation. Guidance is exactly what is says and is not binding but ...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/794900/payslips-legislation-april-2019-additional-info-on-payslips.pdf

This bit is perhaps the answer to your question

Enforcement

A worker who thinks that they have not received a payslip, or that the payslip they have received lacks the required information, may bring a claim before an Employment Tribunal. If the tribunal agrees, it must make a declaration to this effect, which it may publish on its website. The tribunal may also order repayment of unnotified deductions made in the 13 weeks preceding the presentation of the claim, even where the employer was otherwise entitled to make the deductions.

This is separate from a claim that a worker has not been paid properly, such as a claim for
unlawful deduction of wages, where other remedies are available.

So have a word with ACAS first then off to the ET if there is a case.