Dec 2021
22
Documents you must share with employees (and how you should share them)
What documents do I need to share with a new employee?
When hiring a new employee or worker there is certain information which you, the employer, must share with them. On the employee’s first day, they must be provided with a document known as a ‘principal statement’. The principal statement must include:
- The employer’s name
- The employee/worker’s name, their job title and/or description of work and their start date
- The employee/worker’s pay and how often they will be paid
- The employee/worker’s hours of work
- The employee/worker’s holiday entitlement
- Location/locations that the employee/worker will be working from (further details will need to be included if the employee is expected to work abroad)
- The length of the employment
- The length of the probation period and its conditions
- Information on any benefits
- Employee training information
Other information which the employee must be given on their first day which can be included on the ‘principal statement’ or can be provided separately includes:
- Sick pay and procedures
- Information on paid leave (eg. parental leave, bereavement leave.)
- Notice periods
Within two months of the employee starting, they must be given a ‘wider written statement’ which must include information on:
- Pensions and pension schemes
- Collective agreements
- Information on any other right to non-compulsory training provided by the employer
- Disciplinary and grievance procedures
Providing employees with payslips
For each pay period, employees must receive an itemised payslip which clearly shows:
- Total pay before deductions
- Total pay after deductions
- Amounts of any variable or fixed deductions
- A breakdown of how the wages will be paid if more than one payment method is used
What other documents should you share with employees?
While it is a legal requirement to share the documents which are listed above with employees, it is also important to clearly communicate company policies and procedures with employees. Examples could be an employee handbook, an IT policy, a working from home policy or a code of conduct document. Documents such as these helps establish what behaviour is expected of employees by the employer and to explain any consequences of breaching the guidelines. Not keeping employees up to date on what the company expects from them in terms of ethics and morals could result in legal or financial consequences for your business.
A regular staff newsletter is another example of a document that may be shared with employees. While not imperative, newsletters can be used as a way of keeping employees informed of staff events while also reinforcing your company culture.
How do I share documents with employees?
All documents should be easily accessed by employees. While you can share physical documents with employees, to save time and money, it is better to share these documents digitally. Sharing documents by email is another option but this can also become time-consuming. One of the best ways of sharing documents with employees is through an online employee portal where you can share tailored documents with individual employees or share company documents with multiple employees at once.
BrightPay Connect is an optional cloud add-on to BrightPay’s payroll software that allows employers to upload documents through their own online portal. Employees can then access these documents anytime, anywhere from the BrightPay Connect employee app on their smartphones or from an internet browser. Sharing documents with employees this way means they are instantly available for employees to view, whether in the office or working from home. Employees will receive a push notification on their mobile every time a new document has been uploaded or when the employer has updated a document. From the employer dashboard, you can also keep track of which employees have viewed which documents.
How can I generate employee documents?
BrightPay’s sister product Bright Contracts, syncs with BrightPay’s payroll software and allows you to easily create tailored employee contracts and staff handbooks which fully conform to the latest employment law guidelines. When there are any changes in employment law, Bright Contracts will automatically send you an update, making it easy for you to comply with employment law, even with no HR experience. These documents can then be uploaded via BrightPay Connect’s employer dashboard and shared instantly with employees.
To learn more about sharing documents with employees using BrightPay Connect, book a free online demo today.
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Oct 2017
9
The Benefits of BrightPay Connect for Employers
BrightPay Connect offers an employee self-service portal that provides employees with online access to their personal records and payroll details. Having a self-service portal in place directly benefits all employees, from line managers and HR to employees across an organisation. Here we take a look at the key features of BrightPay Connect and how having an online portal benefits the employer.
Features of BrightPay Connect for Employers:
- The employer dashboard gives an overview of employer details, any outstanding amounts due to HMRC, upcoming calendar events (e.g. annual leave, paternity leave) and a list of notifications, including any outstanding requests that employees have made using the self-service portal.
- The online portal allows employers to go paperless by uploading all HR documents including employee contracts and handbooks, disciplinary documents, company newsletters and training material to one secure online location.
- Going paperless allows digital access to payslips and other payroll documentation such as P60s and P45s. These will be automatically available to employees on their BrightPay Connect online portal.
- Employers can easily manage all leave for their employees including annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave and paternity leave through BrightPay Connect. The employee calendar allows employers to view the number of annual leave days remaining for each employee and how frequently an employee is on sick leave. Once an employee requests annual leave, employers can authorise or reject the request with changes syncing back to BrightPay payroll.
- BrightPay Connect enables employers to tailor user access, thus protecting sensitive HR information and employees’ privacy.
Benefits of BrightPay Connect for Employees:
The employee self-service portal will save both employers and employees time. The online dashboard enables employees to complete HR related tasks such as requesting leave, updating their personal contact details and viewing online documentation. Employers can then approve requests at the click of a button. This will reduce the administrative time for the employer and the employee, increasing payroll efficiency.
Once an employer has processed their payroll through BrightPay, payslips can be made available on BrightPay Connect instantly, with automated email notifications sent to each employee. This is cost effective for the employer and also saves time printing and distributing payslips. Employees can easily access their historic payslips at any time, which saves time if the employee needs six months of statements to apply for a loan or mortgage.
Employers can notify employees of policy changes, available training courses or any other important company announcements by uploading HR documents. This improves internal communication between managers and employees. Employers can also view who has received and viewed these updates and who hasn’t.
Watch our new BrightPay Connect video to see how our online add-on can improve your payroll processing.
Book a BrightPay Connect demo today.
Oct 2017
5
Does your business need BrightPay Connect's Employee Self-Service Portal?
What is BrightPay Connect's Self-Service Portal?
BrightPay Connect offers an employee self-service portal that provides employees with online access to their personal records and payroll details. Employees have secure access to their own personal, password protected, self-service portal from any computer, tablet or smartphone.
BrightPay Connect allows employees to make changes to their own personal contact information including their address, contact phone number, emergency contact details and more. Employees also have the ability to complete administrative tasks, such as applying for leave, viewing leave taken and remaining leave.
Additionally, employees are able to view and retrieve their historic payslips and other payroll documents such as their P60, P45 or P11d, all of which can be exported to PDF and printed. Employers can upload HR documents including an employee handbook, company newsletters and training materials, all of which can be available to employees on the self-service portal.
Benefits of BrightPay Connect
BrightPay Connect offers significant time-saving benefits for employers who want an easy-to-use payroll and HR software package. Benefits of the self-service portal for the employer and employee include:
- Enables employees to complete HR related tasks such as requesting leave or updating their personal contact details. This will reduce the administrative time for the employer and the employee increasing payroll efficiency.
- Employees have full visibility of how much leave has been taken and how much leave is remaining.
- Employers can easily approve or deny annual leave requests directly through their online portal with changes syncing back to BrightPay payroll, simplifying HR processing.
- The employee calendar clearly shows which employees are on annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave, etc. This will allow employers to easily manage staff leave requests and rotas.
- Reduces the distributing time to send paper or email payslips with the accessibility of e-payslips automatically available on BrightPay Connect.
- Employees can access their historic payslips at any time, eliminating employee requests for payslips for mortgage applications or loan approvals.
- Internal company newsletters can be uploaded to the self-service portal, improving internal communication between managers and employees.
Find out more about the Employee Self-Service feature on BrightPay Connect with an online demo.
May 2017
15
Keep your payroll data safe against Ransomware
Ransomware, like the name suggests, is when your files are held for ransom. It is a type of malware that essentially takes over a computer and prevents users from accessing their data until such time as a ransom is paid. The ransomware encrypts data on the computer using an encryption key that only the attacker knows. If you want to decrypt them, you have to pay. If the ransom isn’t paid, the data is often lost forever.
A ransomware attack, also known as WannaCry or WeCrypt, recently spread across the globe and is believed to have affected over 200,000 organisations. The cyber-attack struck banks, hospitals and government agencies in more than 150 countries, exploiting known vulnerabilities in Microsoft operating systems.
How to protect against a ransomware attack?
- Think before you click – It is important to look for malicious email messages that are often concealed as emails from companies or people you regularly interact with online. It is important to avoid clicking on links or opening attachments in those messages, since they could unleash malware. However, unlike many other malicious programs, WannaCry has the ability to move around a network by itself. Once the virus is inside an organisation, it will hunt down vulnerable machines and infect them too.
- Keep software up to date – Users should ensure that security updates are installed on their computer as soon as they are released. Last month, the NSA revealed software vulnerabilities in a Windows Server component which allows files to spread within corporate networks. Since then, Microsoft has released software patches for the security holes. Anyone who applied this patch more than likely was not affected by WannaCry. However, not everyone has installed these updates and so these users are susceptible to an attack. It is also important to note that the vulnerability does not exist within Windows 10, but is present in all versions of Windows prior to that, dating back to Windows XP. Support for Windows XP was discontinued in 2014, and so if you are using XP it is recommended to upgrade to a more secure system. It is important to keep all software packages up to date to maximise protection against attacks.
- Keep backups of data files – Users should regularly back up their data, which will make it possible to restore files without paying a ransom. This can be done by saving files to a USB key, external server or a cloud sharing facility such as Dropbox or Google Drive. Individual software packages may also offer a backup facility, enabling you to automatically back up sensitive data, for example BrightPay Connect allows users to easily backup payroll data.
How can BrightPay Connect help?
BrightPay Connect allows employers to automatically and securely backup payroll data to a highly secure cloud server. Payroll data (including payslips, payroll reports, auto enrolment records etc.) is automatically backed up every 15 minutes ensuring that you will never lose your payroll data if you are the victim of an attack.
You may decide that you only want to use BrightPay Connect for payroll backups, however, the features listed below can also be availed of.
With BrightPay Connect, employers can invite their employees to their own self-service portal. Employees can login to their own personal account, be it on their PC, tablet or smartphone, where they can view payroll documents relevant to them, with a full history of payslips, P60s and auto enrolment documents. Employees can also request annual leave and view annual leave remaining through their portal.
Furthermore, BrightPay Connect provides users with an annual leave management facility and a document upload facility, where all information is stored within the same location. With the document upload, employers can upload employee contracts & staff handbooks, training manuals, employment documents and much more, which can be accessed by employers and employees on any device.
Find out more about BrightPay Connect with an online demo.
