Minimum wage

Mar

2021

Sleep-in shifts: No longer a nightmare

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling that employers are only required to pay night-time carers minimum wage rates for the hours that they are active, rather than the entirety of a sleep-in shift, will doubtless have caused a big sigh of relief in the care sector – not least because it has removed the prospect of huge back payments.

Calculating carers’ sleep-in pay just got more complicated

The subject of sleep-in pay has been ping-ponging around the courts since 2014. But although an overarching principle has finally been established, the devil is always in the detail – and employers are still left with a range of complicated options when it comes to paying carers for sleep-ins.

Rota software that handles the difficult calculations for you

Through long experience with clients in the supported living and residential care sectors, easyLog has developed functionally-rich rota software that takes the hard work out of paying staff at both single and hourly payment rates, even within an individual overnight shift.

The software supports pay schemes where carers are paid at different rates for working with more challenging service users and for working in more remote locations. And it’s all instantly calculated, clearly presented and exportable into a wide range of third party payroll software products, such as Sage and Xero.

Find out more

Please contact us if you'd like more information on easyLog's software for care providers or visit our dedicated web pages for supported living and care home operators.

Mar

2020

Coronavirus disruption: stay on top of attendance and pay wherever your staff are working

These are unprecedented times where things are changing rapidly and businesses are having to deal with the unexpected every day. So if your staff need to self-isolate or you close your offices and ask them to work from home, how do you still operate a time and attendance system?

At the very least, you need a solution that is flexible, verifies the employee’s attendance wherever they are and can be implemented rapidly.

easyLog’s simple timesheet management system can be up and running within a day and can be accessed on any device with a web browser and an internet connection. It operates with a variety of easy-to-use attendance recording options, from an app on the employee’s phone or logging in on a website to calling an 0800 number.

So, with the support of easyLog behind you, whatever the coronavirus crisis throws at your business you can rest assured that your staff will be paid correctly and on time. And prices start from just £20 plus VAT a month, which might be the most pleasant shock your business has over the coming weeks and months.

You can find out more about our browser-based timesheet software and attendance recording systems on our website. Alternatively, contact one of our team for individual advice on the most suitable option for your business.

Aug

2017

Sleep-in shifts: Still not put to bed?

Since 2014 the payment of sleep-in shifts at an hourly rate rather than in a single agreed payment has been an ongoing and unresolved issue despite the ruling of an Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) in that year. The tribunal found in favour of at least National Minimum Wage hourly payments by deeming that the care worker was required to be at a place of work at certain hours and was at the disposal of the employer during that period. Furthermore the employee would be subject to disciplinary action if they failed to arrive on time for their shift.

How do you calculate hours when a carer sleeps on shift?

In 2015 it seemed further clarity was provided through guidelines issued by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. These stated that “A worker who is found to be working, even though they are asleep, is entitled to the national minimum or NLW [National Living Wage] for the entire time they are at work.” But this apparent confirmation must be contrasted with National Minimum Wage legislation published in the same year, which said a worker can only be considered to be “available” when “awake for the purposes of working”.

In another tribunal as recently as this May, involving a carer working for the charity Mencap, the EAT decided in favour of hourly payments for an employee on a sleep-in shift caring for two vulnerable adults. However, ambiguity was given a further lifeline by the judge, who declined to provide a general rule but instead emphasised that each case should be determined on its own facts and considered in relation to different workers’ circumstances.

Care software that handles every sleep-in payment option

Sleep-in shifts are most commonly worked by staff in the learning difficulties care sector and, as a supplier of market leading employee scheduling, attendance recording and care management software, easyLog has many clients operating in this area. Irrespective of the cost implications of any definitive future sleep-in shifts ruling, easyLog clients know that they have at their disposal a functionally-rich solution that enables them to pay their staff efficiently and accurately at both single and hourly payment rates even within a single overnight shift.

What’s more the software can embrace pay schemes where carers are paid at different rates for working with more behaviourally-challenged service users and be paid at higher rates for working in more remote locations. All instantly calculated, clearly presented and exportable into a wide range of third party payroll software products such as Sage and Northgate.

Please contact us if you’d like more information on how easyLog’s software can future-proof your business.

Oct

2016

Clocks going back – will your software pay your night staff correctly?

That’s an interesting point given that British Summertime officially ends this Sunday at 2am with the clocks going back by one hour.

So if you pay night staff by the hour will you be paying one hour more for anyone working the night shift starting this Saturday? And correspondingly of course do you pay one less hour when the clocks go forward in March and British Summertime starts?

Some organisations appear to rely on the supposition that an employee working on the night shift when Summertime ends will also be working on the night shift when Summertime starts and therefore a natural order and balance to these things exists. But that is rather wishful thinking to my mind. Across those two days within any year an employee could be on a different shift, be off sick, have left or be on holiday. And if they’re on holiday and you pay that by the hour then what calculation do you use then to ensure the correct remuneration?

Surprisingly I find some organisations blissfully unaware of the point I am making; and when I bring it to their attention there seems to be an immediate fallback position of the ‘natural balance’ rule I mentioned earlier!

Aware of this conundrum or not, it really doesn’t matter if you are an easyLog customer using our staff scheduling software as you can resolve the issue either way. A simple tick box parameter allows you to specify if you wish to pay to the exact hours worked or to the normal scheduled shift. And that will take care of any holiday hours calculations and payments as well.

If you are a current customer that would like some help with implementing this feature please call our support desk on 0333 343 1004. If you don’t currently use our scheduling software but this article has got you interested in exploring what other clever and efficient things it could do for your organisation then call us on 01892 834406 and speak to one of our team.

Jun

2016

Mike Ashley’s Parliamentary embarrassment – easyLog to the rescue!

When Sports Direct’s boss Mike Ashley was recently grilled for three hours by MPs about his company’s employment practices, it emerged that staff were automatically (and “unfairly”) deducted fifteen minutes of pay if they were even a minute late. More crucially, Ashley also had to admit that some employees at his Shirebrook warehouse were, in effect, being paid less than the statutory minimum wage.

Forgive a little smugness on easyLog’s behalf when we read reports of Mike Ashley’s embarrassment in front of the Parliamentary committee. But had Sports Direct been using easyLog’s +S staff scheduling software, these errant practices would have been prevented by some standard features in our rota module. For example, a Shift Analysis report automatically calculates the average pay per hour of any employee across any period, which would have highlighted the shortfall on payment of the Minimum Wage rate. Many easyLog clients also use this report to remunerate holiday accrued payments correctly to their casual and bank staff based on the average hourly rate of the hours worked at the applicable pay rate on the days they worked.

Additionally, our +S software allows lateness to be handled with practicality and a degree of subtlety perhaps unfamiliar to Sports Direct management. Any incident of lateness is highlighted in an Authorisation screen allowing a manager to decide on a case-by-case basis if an individual employee should be penalised and, if so, by how many minutes.

Unlike Mike Ashley, we’re sure that you’re not planning to have to answer to a Parliamentary committee about your employment practices. But having the peace of mind that your staff are being paid for their work and holiday leave correctly, and that this is being achieved with a minimum of manual intervention, are surely important issues for your business. If you’d like to understand a little more about how easyLog’s staff scheduling software could help with calculating your pay analysis and monitoring your employees’ timekeeping, please call us on 01892 834406, request a callback or send us an e-mail. Mike Ashley we await your call…!

Phone us now on 01892 834406 or request a callback