Paydates

cnghr

I know that in most states, you have to let your employees know when you intend to pay them, and if you are going to change payday to another date for some reason, you have to give a reasonable amount of notice. In my state it's by the payday before the one you're changing.

My husband's company has issues with getting the payroll paid on time. They are supposed to pay on the 5th and 20th of each month, but instead it's more like "around" the 5th and 20th. They pay on a semi-monthly basis. In the time he's worked there, it's been early a few times, on time a few times, and late several times. Usually it's only a case of his direct deposit hitting the account one day after it was supposed to, although last payday it was two days late. Today should be payday, but once again, his direct deposit didn't show up.

He asked his boss about it and was told something about some federal something-or-other (pardon my vagueness, I got this from my DH and he didn't understand so wasn't able to communicate it to me very well) that allowed it to be more of an approximate date rather than right on the date itself, and then he said "Your wife should be very familiar with that if she's worked with payroll." I've worked with payroll for over 18 years and have never heard of any such thing. We've never paid on any date except the one we tell our employees we're going to pay them on, and I've never heard of any loophole that would allow us to pay somewhere around that date and not right on the date we say we're going to. Do any of you who work with or have worked with payroll know anything about something like this?

We're both very frustrated with this company...they have a mere fraction of the number of employees of my company, yet can't manage to pay on time most paydays when we manage to pay on time every payday!

stilldazed

I looked briefly in my references and didn't find anything about a federal requirement to pay on a specific schedule. I did find the following in one reference: "There is no federal law that sets out how often or in what form employers must pay wages to employees. However, most states address these issues."

Hope that helps.

cnghr

I knew there was no federal law regarding it, and I know in my state they say that you are required to let your employees know when paydates are and pay on those dates or give prior notice if you change a paydate, but I'm beginning to think my husband's boss is just making excuses for the fact that it's showing up late more often than not. We were talking about it again last night and he said that his boss also said it was our bank's fault because we were holding the direct deposits or some such thing, which of course I know is not true, since I work for the bank.

This is so frustrating, largely because I've been involved in payroll for as long as I have and have always managed to pay all my employees on time!

stilldazed

That's my hunch as well. The boss sounds like an excuse maker instead of a problem solver.

C Wilson

All though FLSA doesn't specify the frequency in which a payment must be made "customarily and regulary". Employers must establish a frequency for payment and maintain it, once it has been established. I would say that the 5th & 20th are the established dates and that's the day it should be paid.

Look at AK stat.23.05.140, 23.05.180, 23.05.280. These require semi-monthly or monthly payments and list the penalties for non-compliance. Hope this helps.

cnghr

Well, we discovered the answer. Not that it makes us particularly happy, but here it is: the company's employee handbook (which we finally managed to get our hands on a copy of) states that the pay periods end the 15th and last working day of the month, and that employees will be paid sometime during the five business days following the end of the pay period. Now, why my husband's supervisor didn't know that is anybody's guess, since he has worked there for something like 8 years, but at least now we know. Basically, they've allowed themselves the leeway to take a week after the end of the pay period to pay if they want to, and as long as they don't go OVER the five-business-day allowance, then they're fine. I don't agree with doing it that way, but then they didn't ask me how to run their business!

joannie

>Well, we discovered the answer. Not that it makes us particularly happy, but
>here it is: the company's employee handbook (which we finally managed to get
>our hands on a copy of)


That certainly leads to more questions. Why didn't your husband already have a copy of the handbook? And why did you have trouble getting a copy? All our employees receive a handbook when they are hired, another every time we update, which is about every 2 years, and within a day or two of requesting a new copy because they can't find their copy.

Dutch2

Joannie... We placed our Employee Handbook on line (internally acess only) for all employees to access. Sure beats having to print out so many copies. Updates are much easier as well. They can always print out a copy in their work area if they wish, but this seldom happens. It is more likely they will just print out the page or two concerning their most recent opportunity.

joannie

I would love to be able to do that, but 75% of our employees are truck drivers or mechanics who do not have access to computers either at work or home. In fact, I only have 4 drivers out of 73 who do have internet access.

cnghr

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 01-23-09 AT 11:24AM (CST)[/font][br][br]My husband's company keeps their handbook on their Intranet, which is what we do. However, when they told him he could pull it up on the computer and look at it any time he wanted to, they didn't consider the fact that he is driving a truck all day and even if he is in the office for a few minutes, he doesn't have a computer he can use. Every time he asked HR about it, they just told him he could look at it on the Intranet, but without a computer to use at work and because he couldn't access the company's Intranet from our home computer, he was stuck. There are only three employees at the location he works at; him, his supervisor, and the receptionist/dispatcher, and from what I'm hearing I don't think his supervisor has ever even looked at the handbook himself, so I was glad the receptionist took pity on him and printed one off for him. It cleared up some details on several policies that he wasn't sure about, and I always like to be able to look at the handbook from the companies he's worked for, just because I have a professional interest in how employee handbooks and policies are written.

Here, if somebody wants a hard copy of our handbook because they don't have access to a computer (which is a rare occurance anymore) I just ask their supervisor or somebody else at their location to print it out for them.

Aha, Joannie, I just read your new post and I see you understand very well the issues my truck driver husband has with not having computer access!

joannie

Very well, indeed, and it is a shame those of us who rely on computers daily quickly forget how difficult things can be when computer access is not available.