I am distressed due to delayed salary payments and financial troubles it causes

Undervalued

twister_teddy said:

Well, I have indeed improvised and reduced my risks somewhat, now I think I'll stand for the principle.

Who says you can't do both

As I said earlier, if your employer is not paying you by the contractually agreed date then by all means politely raise the issue and ask them to rectify the situation. If a group of you are affected and / or a union is involved it will be easier.

However, unless you have reason to believe that the date is likely to keep slipping it is almost a moot point as it should be very easy to adjust your direct debits accordingly.

I do wonder if you are distracting yourself from the more important point, which is to try and adjust your financial situation so that a few days delay doesn't cause you such a problem.

clearancer

You are giving yourself unnecessary stress by blaming your employer for something you can solve. If getting paid on the dot is so important, change your bank. Being cooperative is part of being a good and valuable employee. 

twister_teddy

clearancer said:

Being cooperative is part of being a good and valuable employee. 

Exactly the point I'm trying to make, being cooperative is two sided responsibility. Anyways we'll leave at that as it seems we're going back in circles. I know what to do next. Thank you.

twister_teddy

twister_teddy said:

Undervalued said:

As I said earlier, if your employer is not paying you by the contractually agreed date then by all means politely raise the issue and ask them to rectify the situation. If a group of you are affected and / or a union is involved it will be easier.

I started this thread AFTER doing all of the above without getting to a resolution hence asking what would be my NEXT options from a legal stand point, there is no union in my organisation. Thank you and appreciate your input.

Brie

frankly I don't understand what good changing your bank would do.  You say you are with a well know high street bank (I'm thinking Barclays/HSBC/Lloyds etc) so they should all be on good solid systems that allow for easy, nearly instant payments being made (IT issues aside as this is a regular thing so not the bank's fault)

I think what people need to understand is the process of generating a payroll.  

So you are working and that is registered with your company's payroll team. 

You may do extra work or be off sick or be entitled to a bonus.  So your manager will ensure that the payroll team (via IT or by email?) is informed each month by X date.  Some things like if you hand in your notice will be for the current month, some like how much overtime last month will be dealt with in arrears.

So payroll will accumulate all the info from all the managers and compile a file with all the standard information and then all the extras or adjustments that need to be made.  Add NI & tax info, salary sacrifice, pension contributions etc.  This all needs to be done by Y date.

On Y date +1 the electronic file goes to the third party to process.  There may be some late adjustments that need to be catered for or some jiggery pokery of ensuring payments to all the bank accounts for staff plus to tax, NI, pension admin.  This needs to be done by Z date.

On Z date +1 the file is activiated and the payments go whizzing off into the interweb and into the various banks.  This may be instant or if for some reason there is a banking intermediary (building society, credit union etc) it may take another day or 2 to show in the account.

So

• if managers are slow to submit and payroll needs to chase there is a delay at X.
• if payroll is slow to resolve any issues, are short staffed, run into system problems there is a delay at Y.
• if the third party is slow to resolve any issues, are short staffed, run into system problems there is a delay at Z.

Net result pay is late into your account.

To my mind there is more likely to be a problem at X or Y - given that those are 2 deadlines - and so it's most likely to be a problem caused by your employer.  If they can categorically state that they have been doing everything still according to their deadlines then it's a problem caused by the third party but that's still down to your employer to resolve.

I would state to your employer that there is a problem and it needs to be resolved.  If your contract says you are to be paid by whatever date and they are failing to ensure that happens then they are responsible for the consequences including paying for any overdraft charges or DD failure fees that you incur.  That is what has happened in any company I've been in that ran into problems with their payroll. 

To keep a good relationship please ensure that any queries are unemotional and businesslike.  

Your employer may respond with changes to your T&Cs to say pay will be made by the 5th day of the month for the previous month which might be a good, perhaps temporary solution.

The worry may also be that there's some underlying economic reason for the pay being late - i.e. the company is in trouble financially.  Hopefully that's not the case and it's something simply like too many people in the payroll chain being off sick or whatever.  One of the times you'll be happy to be told "it's covid, innit?!"

55ryan

I've worked in payroll at most levels.

I ask the question....does the company have cashflow problems?

The company seems unconcerned about delays in payment. My first thoughts were that the 3rd party are doing a part payroll run use the cash that is there/being made available, then when they get sufficient cash to pay the rest, the remaining part of the payroll is done. I did that a few times over the years.

It is a poor show if either your company and or the payroll company are not doing things on time. 

I certainly don't think the bank are at fault. 

twister_teddy

55ryan said:

I've worked in payroll at most levels.

I ask the question....does the company have cashflow problems?

The company seems unconcerned about delays in payment. My first thoughts were that the 3rd party are doing a part payroll run use the cash that is there/being made available, then when they get sufficient cash to pay the rest, the remaining part of the payroll is done. I did that a few times over the years.

It is a poor show if either your company and or the payroll company are not doing things on time. 

I certainly don't think the bank are at fault. 

Thank you, seems unlikely about the cash flows issues but I really can't confirm. Although I really hope that's not the case. I think its poor HR management at fault here. I've been made aware likewise issues have been going on for a few months where other employees have had their salary payments messed up (missed, delayed, incorrectly paid etc) and HR have passed the blame to third party payroll company saying they will change the provider but for whatever reason this isn't high enough priority to take a timely action, is that normal or expected with HR teams ?

I've been historically lucky to have never faced these kind of issues in my nearly two decades of service with multiple companies and all went nice and smooth. 

Marcon

twister_teddy said:

55ryan said:

I've worked in payroll at most levels.

I ask the question....does the company have cashflow problems?

The company seems unconcerned about delays in payment. My first thoughts were that the 3rd party are doing a part payroll run use the cash that is there/being made available, then when they get sufficient cash to pay the rest, the remaining part of the payroll is done. I did that a few times over the years.

It is a poor show if either your company and or the payroll company are not doing things on time. 

I certainly don't think the bank are at fault. 

Thank you, seems unlikely about the cash flows issues but I really can't confirm. Although I really hope that's not the case. I think its poor HR management at fault here. I've been made aware likewise issues have been going on for a few months where other employees have had their salary payments messed up (missed, delayed, incorrectly paid etc) and HR have passed the blame to third party payroll company saying they will change the provider but for whatever reason this isn't high enough priority to take a timely action, is that normal or expected with HR teams ?

Changing payroll provider is a much more complicated and time consuming undertaking than it sounds for a payroll with more than a dozen or so employees. It isn't a case of just handing over a memory stick or whatever with data on it! Often the old and new payrolls would be run simultaneously for a few months to check all has been moved successfully, but that has both time and cost implications.

I can understand and sympathise with your frustrations about late payment, but as there is a perfectly adequate remedy in your own hands, getting too worked up about it might not be worth the effort. Anyone on the receiving end of a breach of contract is required to mitigate their position, so moving your DDs to a few days later in the month would be expected of you.

Undervalued

twister_teddy said:

twister_teddy said:

Undervalued said:

As I said earlier, if your employer is not paying you by the contractually agreed date then by all means politely raise the issue and ask them to rectify the situation. If a group of you are affected and / or a union is involved it will be easier.

I started this thread AFTER doing all of the above without getting to a resolution hence asking what would be my NEXT options from a legal stand point, there is no union in my organisation. Thank you and appreciate your input.

Apart from the police and military (and maybe a few places like GCHQ) everybody has the right to join a union. They can advise and in some circumstances act for you (e.g disciplinary and grievance hearings) and the employer cannot legally refuse.  

Scorpio33

Rights?
Technically if you are not paid by the date stated in your contract, its a breach of contract.

The only thing you can do then is choose then to break that contract and leave without notice.

Obviously you don't want to do that, so either move your DDs / SOs until the 5th of the month, speak to your organisation about the issue and ask for assistance or both.