Your staff love payday. In most cases, they rely on it to happen in a timely manner, just think mortgage or rent payments bouncing!  Whether you pay them weekly, monthly, or on a different schedule all together, it’s vital that they receive their correct wages at the agreed time. In fact, it’s a legal requirement to state a pay date in your contract of employment.

Failure to pay on time is a breach of their employment contract, and employees could bring forward a tribunal claim for unauthorised deduction from wages.

The accounts or finance team should be responsible for the processing of payroll, but it’s often the responsibility of HR to keep records and instruct them on how much to pay.

You can also use payroll software to keep track of all wages, and make sure everyone receives payment on time.

In addition, make sure your staff can view your company policies regarding salaries, bonuses, etc in the employee handbook, and email staff the handbook when they join the business.

With regards to how you respond to this grievance, if you have failed to pay them on time, you are as we stated earlier, in breach of your legal obligations as an employer, so its best to resolve this as amicably as possible and provide them with some reassurances that this won’t happen again to avoid them making an Employment Tribunal Claim.

This is definitely one where you should seek our advice before dealing with this matter, and as a retained HR Oxygen Client, you can simply pick up the phone or arrange a meeting with us so that we can walk you though every step of what you need to do.