HR Email...

[YouBetterWerk]

Name changed in case I out myself!
I was going to post this in AIBU but thought FC was actually more fitting.

I have recently been made permanent at my job and received this Email from HR when I got in this morning:

^Please can you see * in Finance and confirm your marital status to her. I understand your title is Miss but we are not to presume this means you are single. This is needed for payroll.^

I know the Ms/Mrs/Miss has been done to death but really??
And the 'not to presume you are single' line irked me slightly too. Or am I over thinking it?

I responded with a confused email saying 'Perhaps just Ms then?'

I am really struggling though, and feel like I want to say more but don't know what.
The sender isn't in work today so I am hoping someone can tell me if I'm being oversensitive or if anything else should be said?

we do ask clients when we're dealing with tax stuff, but there are direct implications there. Not for payroll though.

Of course. Just not in England and Wales yet and if anybody's MP hasn't yet shown support for the Early Day motion you still can: www.parliament.uk/edm/2014-15/27

I got mine to sign. Just email them the link and ask them to support it.

Scottish MPs can join in too :)

Are they very old or blind Blistory? Or their spouse might be I suppose...

If information regarding martial status were to be needed for IHT and CGT purposes HMRC would require the details at the point of death or sale of asset only. They wouldn't need to be collected in advance just in case. Not least because these things change and not everyone gets paid via PAYE.

I'm self-employed and HMRC have never asked about my marital status because it makes no difference to my tax or NI payments.

its a required field in our hcm and payroll software.

we cant win, assume and i get a shitty email asking why their profile states them as a ms when they are mrs. ask and it sounds like some are offended

I think Yonic nailed it earlier - they need (or collect, at least) marital status. The whole "we're not allowed to assume" thing is to head off snotty responses from the kind of woman who will get her surname and title changed with HR between the ceremony and the reception. I think the "computer says no" response is just jobsworthiness - which might be worth investigating for data protection reasons, but I see as a separate issue.

I'm taking your male colleague's recollection with a pinch of salt. I have precisely zero recollection of what goes on forms within five minutes, unless it's piqued me in some way. I totally believe that two of them didn't remember.

Let's just say it was and still is a May to December relationship. And a very lovely one at that. It's the May part that works for us and it was her and her very long experience of payroll that told me of the box on our software.

I agree that there is probably less need for a lot of the information that employers collect as there is a lot more onus on individuals to advise HMRC directly. Like you I'm curious as to whether there is actually an obligation to update HMRC with your marital status or whether it's simply an expectation. I know there's no facility under RTI to report a change in personal details although I'm fairly certain address and name changes go through.

I don't see why martial status has any relevance for PAYE.

And even if it did - married / not married - then why on earth would they ask for divorced / separated etc. Surely it would just be married or civil partnership = one option, other option = not married or in civil partnership.

I can't see that any of the other stuff has anything to do with PAYE.

Pension beneficiaries etc is a different field altogether. Ditto next of kin if anything happens and they need a contact etc etc. That sort of thing is usually addressed directly and in a straightforward way. We need X for Y type thing.

My was for blistory and the May to December relationship.

Aw and there I thought my post was exciting and fun enough to make someone ...

Thanks for the EDM link.

Any excuse to give it a plug!

I can see that HMRC might need to know marital status (and parent status, now child benefit and so on is dependent on income). But it doesn't need to be tied to title at all (speaking as someone who prefers not to use a title at all). And I'm not sure whether HR would need to know. They might need to know for death in benefit forms, but that's not a compulsory form, I don't think.

I have no idea which of our HR systems are international (certainly parts of Peoplesoft are, but I don't know if all of it is) and which are country-specific. I know some countries have extra/different leave request processes (we have about 4 different systems to complete to request leave; it's incredibly inefficient.) I know one of my German colleagues said that tax breaks were one of the reasons why he got married, rather than just live together, but whether that would still be the same case 18 or so years on, I don't know.

We do have information we can complete ourselves, such as emergency contacts. Once a year or so, we get a mail to review it and update it. (I always feel a bit pathetic, as I don't know who to put. I haven't updated my will for similar reasons.)

A couple of years back, we had someone change sex at work. The most difficult bit was getting the HR systems to cope with it. They could manage name changes (after all, women get married...) but it just hadn't been programmed to cope with going from M to F (nor, I assume, vice versa.)

Our HR director agrees with me that titles aren't necessary (I quizzed him after we had a diversity talk.) That doesn't mean they aren't used in the systems.