Expert: Shirley McAllister, CPP, PHR - 7/23/2008

Question
My boss told the staff today, 9 days before payday, that he is changing payroll weeks and we would receive only one week's pay on July 31st.  I understand his reasoning in paying us for time worked vs. estimated time for W,T,F of payday week, but shouldn't he be required to give more notice?  Some of us have car and insurance pmts deducted auto. from our accts.  Also, is there a better way to make this change rather than shorting our checks?  Thank you for your consideration in this matter.  Trish in WV

Answer
Trish,

As a courtesy I give my employees 30 days notice of any changes in payroll procedures.

Legally the employer must tell the employees of the change before any time is worked under the new rules.

We made a change a few years ago resulting in a shortage in pay. We accomodated the employees in several ways to offset the shortage.
#1. We allowed them to use vacation or personal time for the week, in essence buying out vacation and personal time.
#2. We allowed them to take an advance on salary, but this was not popular as they had to pay it back when they got their next check which made it a week short.
#2. We loaned them the amount and than took it out of their check for the rest of the year. We had them sign a promissary note, but we did not charge interest. So if the weeks wages was 400.00 and we loaned the employee the 400.00 and there were 8 paydays left in the year we would deduct 50.00 from every check to repay the loan until the end of the year. If there are less paydays it would be more and if more paydays it would be less.

We were changing from semi-monthly to bi-weekly .

Shirley