Any HR experts for advise?

[springbreak22]

Looking for some help...

If a person receives an employment contract and the wrong pay amount is stated on the contract does the company have to honour that amount?

Not necessarily

why don’t you query it? The job I’m in now my contract came through with what I thought was the wrong salary. Turns out my boss had decided to up my salary and was impressed at my integrity for pointing it out

Were you verbabally offered a different salary and did you know that the salary stated in the contract was wrong. If its a genuine mistake and they have not tried to deceive etc, then they do not have to owner it.

A few years ago I accepted a role with a significant pay rise from what I had been getting. I had also requested that I work just 4 days per week, fully expecting my new salary to be pro-rata'd with the adjusted hours.
If wasnt though & my new boss was happy to retain me on that basis. Win-win!!

Do check though, it could reflect poorly on your professionalism not to read your contract & then not query any issues or possible mistakes. 🙂

I would go back and correct it. Chances are they fill in the same form for new starters and change details each time. You'll start off on a bad note if you come across dishonest with something like this. Not saying you are of course, just that it might look a bit dodge is all

No, worst case for them they serve notice and change it but it depends on the specifics of the situation

Thanks for the reply's. Interesting.

It was myself that issued the contract with an incorrect calculation on it. The person is now claiming the company owe them what was stated on the paperwork issued over a year ago.

Your organisation needs to get legal advice on the specifics. If the contract has existed without being corrected for a year there may be an entitlement.

I second the poster who said you should get advice.
How different are the salaries? If a person was supposed to be earning £25k and the contract accidentally said £125k or £250k and they'd only been receiving 1/12 of £25k for the last year then for the person to come forward now and say that you haven't been paying them enough seems wrong. If, though, you'd offered £43k and mid-read your writing as £48k, had put that in the contract and then, as well as tax, there had been other things on the pay slip like any car alllowance, bonus, student loan deduction etc, it might not have been so obvious to them until now, a year in, that they had only been paid 1/12 of £43k rather than the 1/12 of £48k that they had been expecting.

The person is not an employee but a casual worker, does this make a difference?

No. Have they worked continuously all that time?

Shouldn’t think so. It sounds like there is an agreed amount in a contract that has gone unquestioned for a year. I would certainly think there is a fair possibility you would need to pay up, but you can of course then terminate the contract. Why haven’t they queries it so far?

They have only recently discovered that the wrong amount was detailed on the paperwork (not a contract as casual worker) This is dating back from 2019

@Dannexe - they have worked since 2019 but not continuously, they work in blocks of 10 months however has worked every year since 2019

@spiderontheceiling - waiting to hear back from HR, it wasn't an error on the actual hourly rate but an error on the percentage of what they get added onto hourly rate.

I can’t make much sense if the legal situation. You refer to what is on the paperwork but then you say there is no contract. There is always a contract even if it is unwritten, but in this case it is written anyway. Also can you explain what you mean by non continuously, is it one contract that allows for breaks or have they left and started a new employment three times. Also what do you mean by “% of what they get added onto hourly rate”? Do you mean for weekend work or bank holidays or similar? Also how big is the error?

id rely on course of dealing - they’ve been paid the offer rate and accepted it without query for a year. Doctrine of mistake also, depending on how howling the error is.

Also the worker in question might want to consider how they approach this if they still want to be engaged next year

@Aprilx -
They are issued with a letter for each period of work, which states on it rate of pay and dates. They only work 8/9 months of the year so the letter will state 1st Jan 2022 to 30th Sep 2022, then if working for us again they will be issued with a new letter with the new dates eg 1st Jan 2023 to 30th Sep 2023. I have no idea if they find other work when they are not working with us. They are paid an hourly rate then on top of that they are paid a percentage of the hourly rate for 'other duties'

Two separate issues.

For the new contract from 1 January 2023 state the correct salary. Cover letter explaining rate has changed. They either take 5he job on the new rate or not.

Overpayment for 2019, 2020 and 2022.- what £ figure is involved e.g. £5k, £20k? Get legal advice but if it’s £5k or less I would seriously consider writing it off but that depends on your business.