Daughter's first full time job pay

Grumpy_chap

WinMeSomeStuff said:

She picks up just over £965 a month. She works full time 36hrs and 25mins a week with 45min unpaid break each day. She so far has no tax or NI coming out of this wage since she is not hitting the threshold. Altough the Salary on her contract is £16965.

I myself just cannot get my head round if she is being underpaid or not. It mentions on the contract,  "your first year of employment your salary will be proportionate to the amount of time left in the year". 

It seems as though payroll have applied the "proportional" part twice and, quite possibly, do not even know they have made a mistake.

£16,965 per year is, obviously, £1,414 per month.  This should be the top line "gross pay" entry on her payslip.

Started August, so 8 months in the tax year (assuming that is the year they worked to).  8/12 x £16965 = £11,310.  Divide by 12 = £942.50 per month which is close to the £965 you mentioned.

It really seems as though someone in payroll has not understood the "proportional" part, so applied is to the annual salary to work out what she should be paid in the year and then entered that into the payroll software which has then calculated monthly pay as 1/2th of the already adjusted annual figure.

A bit of checking required as the numbers don't obviously exactly match that.

WinMeSomeStuff said:

She is asking me to go in and explain to them, but I don't want to step on people's toes since even though she's my daughter, I don't want to make it awkward for working there if I were to get involved.

She is an adult, so she needs to go in on her own and you cannot represent her.
Is she in a Union - a Union Rep may be able to assist.

What you can do is help her raise the issue by assisting her to write an e-mail outlining the query.  Maybe along the lines of "my annual salary is £16,965 and I have worked 8 months of the tax year so gross earnings on a proportional basis are 8/12th of £16,965 equals £11,310.  Adding up the gross pay from each pay slip only comes to £7,720 hence I have been underpaid by £3,590"
(You need to check exact correct figures.)

Out of interest, what explanations have been provided by the company when the has raised it and the company have offered an explanation?  How has the "proportional" part been explained to her?

It is not ideal that this has gone on for 8 months as there may now be an added complexity when the correction is eventually processed and lands in a different tax year.

JGB1955

Am I right in thinking she has been paid less than the Minimum Wage for 2024/5 (£8.60 per hour)?

FlorayG

How large is this company? If it's a small local business with only a few employees and the payroll is done by a friend or family member then I think @Grumpy_chap is right they've completely misunderstood the 'proportional' part of the contract

maman

I think she should explain (tactfully) to HR or whoever she's discussed this with at work, that she'd like to have the explanation in writing as it's difficult to remember all the figures/answers after she's left the meeting. She could offer to put her questions in an email if that would be helpful to the company. 

BrimfulofSascha

Does she have a pension contribution via salary sacrifice? that could reduce her 'gross'. If she is indeed working 36 hours a week I calculate her hourly wage being £6.18. minimum wage last tax year was £8.60 an hour for 18-20 so she is being illegally underpaid if the work hours you stated are correct. I would escalate this and get HR to give her a full breakdown of hour her gross hours are worked out

Savvy_Sue

WinMeSomeStuff said:

I had a theory, that when she first started, she was part time 3 days a week. But then after two weeks they invited her to be full time which of course she was over the moon with. But maybe they did not change over to the full time pay and what she's picking up is the part time pay she would have been on. 

That's easily checked by looking at each payslip in turn: did her pay increase?

saajan_12

Another way of explaining it to them might be to take in a copy of all the payslips between Oct24 and Mar25, and explain that
* She understands it should be proportionately reduced, so 8/12 of the £16,965 = £11,310 for the year. 
* Adding up the eight payslips, she gets to way under that. 

WinMeSomeStuff

FlorayG said:

How large is this company? If it's a small local business with only a few employees and the payroll is done by a friend or family member then I think @Grumpy_chap is right they've completely misunderstood the 'proportional' part of the contract

There is a small amount of staff there and the person who sorted payrol recently retired.  I will do as many of you have suggested to politely get her to ask to have their breakdown in writing so it is not confusing to her.

kimwp

Good opportunity to make sure she understands how tax, ni and min wage works

Grumpy_chap

WinMeSomeStuff said:

I had a theory, that when she first started, she was part time 3 days a week. But then after two weeks they invited her to be full time which of course she was over the moon with. But maybe they did not change over to the full time pay and what she's picking up is the part time pay she would have been on. 

That still does not seem to tally with the figures you shared.

Annual salary £16,965
Monthly salary £1,414
3/5th of £1,414 equals £848, NOT the £974 she has been paid.