Employer not paying wage early this December -mean or not?

[Startingagainandagain]

I work for a charity, so most of the staff are on low-medium wages with no perks or bonuses and under stressful conditions.

The organisation for the past few years has paid the December wage about a week early so people can plan better and use the money for their Christmas meal/gifts.

We have just been told that this is no longer the case and people will be paid on 24th December.

AIBU to think that this is rather mean and should have been discussed with staff earlier on?

When I did payroll for 100 I actually asked staff who didn't want to be paid pre Xmas and around 15 said yes.

So I set up 2 payment runs. (All approved and sent to bank pre Xmas break)

Now I never needed to be paid early but it's probably better to be paid earlier if payroll staff may not be there to fix issues between Xmas sn new year.

But yes, I gave people the option. But I could have just done them all at end of month as that's what contract said.

Yes, this really messes families around financially, they end up getting 2 lots of wages in 1 reporting period.

Exactly- we are getting paid on 23rd (NHS). It is 5 full weeks to January payday, which is tricky for a lot of people managing on lower wages, especially at the most expensive time of year.

24th is still early. I used to work for a company who paid you on the last working day of every month including 31st December. Was a bummer that my friends birthday was 30th December!

Another employer paid a week early attending January too to help balance things out.

i don’t touch my December wage until my normal paydate. It goes into a separate account till then so I’m not tempted. Then I transfer it back on 28th December (or whatever my payday would be). I’ve seen too many people spend it before January wages hit.

That shouldn't happen. HMRC tell you not to do that but to use your usual reporting date regardless of when the money actually goes in.

Did they why it had changed? If the custom for a long time, then not unreasonable to wonder and yes would have been useful to make people aware of this earlier.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't pay before Christmas and have introduced payroll mid month to a couple of places I've worked. Solves the Christmas/January issue entirely and generally a popular change.

I loathe firms that do this, makes January so long.

Always hated it, January lasted forever.

Better to put a little aside each month for December.

They are paying you before Christmas, just not paying you early.
If they paid you any earlier there would be a lot of January until payday.

one reason might have been those with top up style benefits would be messed about with payment date changing. Best kept to the standard in my view

Same

Last time I checked payroll functions weren’t run as a democracy.

I also worked for a charity that did this. I hated it because you effectively got 3weeks money to last 5weeks at the most expensive time of the year.

I do think they should have asked for feedback ahead of time so people can plan but that said I would absolutely have wanted the change.

my sister on benefits had a problem when it was deemed shehad been pai too much for one month (early xmas wage) so they stoppe her benefit ompletely its ridiulous but these goodwill early wages really dont help

I haven't been paid early in December since I worked for a bank in the 1980's. All subsequent employers have paid on the usual date, or the day before if it happens to be a bank holiday.

Well said.

Christmas is not a surprise. People should be budgeting the other 51 weeks of the year and tucking a few pounds away periodically.

Also in my observation the ones who squander their early paycheques then spend the next five weeks moaning about how long it is till the next one.

YANBU. Many responses are talking about their own situation, which might be interesting and help you understand, but don't answer your question.

Regardless of anything else, if you've been used to being paid in a certain way then a good employer would at last inform their staff as soon as possible that things were changing. I'm sure they don't have to but it would have been courteous.

I used to work for a charity that made a big thing of early wage payments for Christmas. I hated it as it made January harder to bidget for. Also TBH they only did it because our normal pay date was 30/31 of the month and the office was closed between Xmas and New Year.

So, OP gets Oct pay and Nov and then the next one after she was expecting it. That's not a huge amount of notice.

In fairness, I gave my staff a vote on this. But the vast majority voted against early payments anyway, so consulting staff might not have resulted in the outcome that the OP wanted in any case.

Is it not an option to use an overdraft or interest free credit card for a week?

Organisations only pay it early so they have a few working days contingency if something goes wrong with payroll. They don’t do it so you can budget for Christmas!

We get a choice where I work. I never opt to be paid early in December as it makes for a very long January!

It would be nice if they did but when I first started reading I expected you to say it was due later than the 24th.

I remember one year being due to get paid 28th and they paid it the 24th instead.

Just means being more organised.

Also - it’s October. This is them discussing it early.