Additional annual leave for non smokers

A Japanese company is rewarding its non-smoking employees with an extra six days annual leave a year with pay.

This all came about when an employee from a marketing firm based in Tokyo, used the company's suggestion box to point out that his co-workers who smoked, worked much less than the non-smokers. The employee went on to outline how smokers took time away from their desks while the non-smokers had to hold down the fort.

In a clever twist, instead of punishing the smokers by deducting their pay or insisting that they make up the extra time, the company decided to reward the non-smokers by giving them an extra six days off a year with pay.

Chief Executive Officer Takao Asuka also feels that this might encourage some of the smokers to quit because of the incentive.

The Huffingting Post has reported that 30 of the 120 employees are eligible for the extra six days off, and four employees have already quit smoking since the policy was put in place.

Is this something that you would consider in your workplace?

Posted byNiamh ShortallinAnnual LeavePayroll

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.

Posted byLauren ConwayinAnnual LeaveEmployee HandbookEmployee RecordsEmployee Self Service

Changes to Holiday Pay Calculations

As we enter the summer holiday season employers need to ensure that they are paying their employees correctly during annual leave.

A recent decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will impact how some annual leave pay is calculated.
Do you pay employee’s commission? Is the commission calculated based on the amount of sales made or actual work carried out? If yes, according to the ECJ, holiday pay should include commission pay.

The decision was made in the case of Locke v British Gas Trading and Others. Locke was a Sales Representative whose commission made up approximately 60% of his remuneration. After taking two weeks leave in 2011, Locke suffered financially as he was unable to generate sales for the period he was on annual leave.

The ECJ ruled that the purpose of annual leave is to allow a worker to enjoy a period of rest and relaxation with sufficient pay. By not including commission payments with holiday pay, employees are less likely to take annual leave so as to avoid financial hardship.

It has been left to the national courts to determine how to calculate the commission to which a worker is entitled, however the court did suggest that taking an average amount of commission earned over a certain period, e.g. the previous 12 months.

Employers are advised to review their commission policies to establish which, if any, payments need to be included in annual leave pay.

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Bright Contracts - Employment Contracts and Handbooks

Posted byLaura MurphyinAnnual LeaveContract of employmentEmployment UpdatePay/Wage