Salary/contract help, please

[Judystilldreamsofhorses]

Can anyone help, please?

I have worked for my employer for 11 years, and this month moved from working full time to four days a week. We get paid 12 equal payments, covering 365 days, so each month averages 30.4 days.

My new contract started on 4 February. My salary this month was short by about £200, which I queried. I was told that my old full time salary had been paid for 1st - 3rd February, then a day rate for my new salary had been applied for the rest of the month, because the new contract didn’t start on the 1st. The dayrate covers 25 days, because February is a short month. So I have been paid 2.4 days less than every other month, and less than every other February. If I started the new contract on 4th March, i would have been paid 28 days on the dayrate, meaning I came out .6 of a day over, because it’s a 31 day month.

This all sounds off to me. I obviously knew my salary would drop by 1/5 by dropping a day, and we have adjusted the household budget to factor that in, but I hadn’t any idea the fact my new contract didn’t start on the 1st meant the dayrate or anything like that. The 4th was the date I was given based on being the first Monday of the month when the change was discussed with my manager.

Does anyone know about payroll - is what they’ve done correct? THank you for reading if you got this far!

[SnuggleSnuggleBlanket]

It seems confusing how they’ve calculated it (or maybe how you’ve written it )

Couple of things:

In theory though, if you’re doing 80% of your job, then your salary should be 80% x f/t salary = [y] then divide by 12 for monthly payments.

Normally, a day rate is calculated as Salary divided by 260 days. 260 days is the number of normal working days in a year. You tend to use this if deducting sickness days, or calculating holiday pay to be paid when people leave. So it’s a normal calculation used in payroll. Example is, £20k salary, would be £76.92 per day.

To calculate the day rate the way they have doesn’t make sense eg. using all days in the month, as they’re not all working days. For example, February has 20 working days this month if working Mon to Fri.

There second part that they’re starting new salary from 4th of the month seems right, so they’re right to commence new lower pay from the 4th day but I’m confused how they’ve worked out the deduction.

Can you use actual figures?

[AKAanothername]

It's really shit because it's February and February only has 28 days. What would have been a better option would have been to pay you your new monthly salary (80% of old salary) and the adjusted up for the few days at 100%.

Strictly speaking, they've not done anything wrong, it's just because it's February.

[Judystilldreamsofhorses]

Thanks for your reply. The old salary was just over £40,000 (like £15 over) so now approximately £32,000 for 4/5. We are paid for 365 days, which possibly confuses the issue. Or just how I wrote it!

So I was paid :
3 days x old salary
25 days x new salary
= 28 days

If the contract had started on 1 February, I would have been paid
30.4 days x new salary, based on 365/12. That comes out more, which doesn’t seem right at all. They have confirmed my gross pay next month will be new salary/12 - no dayrates.

[Espoleta]

This sounds right to me. They have done
Full salary/2601
0.8salary/26019

This is the problem with February from a pay point of view. Never start finish or change your contact in feb.

So sorry this should have been made clearer to you.

[topcat2014]

I would have calculated the daily rate, and multiplied it by the number of days worked in the whole of February.

Then, from March onwards paid at 4/5 the salary.

That presumes that your full time equivalent salary remained the same.

[Espoleta]

Why do you believe you’re paid for 365 days rather than 260?is it not a Monday-Friday job?

[Angeladelight]

This is how I would calc a reduction of hours and think this is pretty standard. Very unfortunate to do so in February, and even harder when the change to contract doesn’t begin from first of the month.

[topcat2014]

@Espoleta - I bet it is the public sector, they always do weird shit like that.

[topcat2014]

Hence, public sector (HMRC) staff always resign on a Sunday.

[SnuggleSnuggleBlanket]

Hence, public sector (HMRC) staff always resign on a Sunday

I never knew this!

[leghairdontcare]

Based on a salary of 40k your day rate is £109. If you drop to a 0.8 contract then your day rate is still £109 because the calculation the should be doing is 32000 (0.8x40,000) divided by 292 (0.8x365).

[Judystilldreamsofhorses]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I just have to suck it up!

I’m a lecturer, and the 4th of February was the first day of our new teaching semester, hence the contract starting on that date instead of the 1st. We are definitely paid for 365 days.

[AKAanothername]

@Judystilldreamsofhorses sorry, really late back to this but if you are paid 1/12 of new salary each month from now on then you won't have been paid for 365 days (or part-time equivalent).

They've paid you a daily rate for the shortest month and then a monthly rate for the rest of the year. Some months have 31 days - I don't suppose they're planning on paying extra in those months.

You could argue this quite legitimately, but you'll need a spreadsheet!