How well do you know your company’s pay stubs? Even better, how well do your employees comprehend them?
Employees may find it difficult to comprehend pay stubs. While some people never look at their pay stubs, others go over them with a fine-tooth comb, looking for errors.
You must be able to confidently answer any questions your employees may have in order to reassure them that your payroll processes are always accurate.
Furthermore, if your company has had to reduce employee hours due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, their take-home pay may differ from usual. This could have an impact on their tax bracket and entitlements. They could easily overlook important details if they don’t understand their pay stubs.
So, how do you explain all of the calculations, formulas, and deductions to a layperson?
Make sure your payroll team understands how to calculate pay
The most frequently asked pay stubs question from salaried employees is how the payroll team computes their pay.
One of the most common misunderstandings is that the hours shown on pay stubs for salaried employees are generally averaged over a 12-month period. Their calculations are thrown off by the shorter month.
Their pay stubs show that they were paid for working, say, 162 hours, but they only worked 130.
Including that information on your salaried employees’ pay stubs may slow down these types of inquiries. A check stub is a record kept by a business of each check executed for a money transfer procedure. Many sites offer check stub makers that give you access to make a paystub in one click.
Increase transparency about employer-provided benefits
Another difficult area to comprehend when it comes to pay stubs is how other aspects of your employees’ compensation are documented, such as pensions.
There are a lot of questions about what the employer pays and what they pay, in terms of how it’s shown on pay stubs. There are still a lot of pay stubs that don’t go into enough detail about all of the elements.
This itemization should be included in this field on the pay stub.
Use customization to help you understand pay stubs
The standard pay stub with basic pay information is insufficient for employees to get the full picture. Simple changes to your pay stub template could reduce the number of queries.
I feel there is a trend toward a more flexible and tailored pay stub that meets the unique needs of the firm.
Rather than relying on a single template, human resource managers should compare pay stub layouts and details to see how many levels of detail they can and should include.
Pay stubs should be digitized
Digitization is the most major change to pay stubs, which helps HR leaders in a number of ways.
Digitization has made it easier to create pay stubs because most software gives you a choice of templates that you can configure to what you think your business needs. Technology is a new business language that every company should speak.
Because it’s electronic, you can now put a narrative on a pay stub much more easily than if it were pre-printed stationery.
For example, if you’re getting a lot of questions about the average number of hours worked per month, you can easily update your pay stub to address that and stop those calls.
Implement employee self-service capabilities
When it comes to understanding pay stubs, employee self-service functionality is critical. In today’s digital culture, employees expect the same on-demand access to their pay stubs as they do to other elements of their life.
Payroll software may be used to generate a FAQ for commonly asked questions regarding pay stubs, which employees can understand and examine on demand.
This way, they can get immediate responses when they need them, and you won’t have to waste time answering the same questions over and over.
Prepare for voluntary attrition
When a person leaves an organization, their access to the HR portal is usually turned off or left on for a short period of time. In the end, both can cause confusion among former employees.
Some organizations have a separate, third-party portal where employees’ final documents can be uploaded. However, you risk non-compliance because you end up with pay stubs for multiple employees in multiple locations.
It’s a process that I recommend you give a lot of clarity and thought to.
Include comprehending pay stubs in your onboarding process
This may seem obvious, it is rarely considered when mapping the employee experience.
It’s never been discussed in an induction program, as far as I know. Personally, I’ve never had anyone go over my pay stub with me.
However, when it comes to payroll, I feel that many firms needlessly complicate things. It does not have to be as difficult as it is. When those processes are streamlined, it will be easier to distinguish between single and double-time pay, holiday entitlement, and everything else.
Because the issue is that people see things on their pay stubs that they don’t fully comprehend. As a result, it’s critical to set those expectations correctly when they join, so those elements don’t become confusing.
The pay stub is a vital document for a variety of reasons, and understanding your employees’ salary is critical for performance management.
This increases their trust in your company and their perception of their worth as an employee. It also saves you time by providing all of the information they require right away.
Payroll software handles typical pay stub difficulties automatically through automation, customization, and smart data. It allows you to create the types of payroll documents that are best suited to your business model and to make updates as needed.
