One week delay payroll method

With VIP, biweekly employees will be paid by the method used by the vast majority of organizations (and the method by which the University’s hourly staff are already paid): the “one week delay” method, under which the hours worked during a given pay period are paid one week after the end of that pay period.

Under the current system, biweekly staff are paid using the so-called “to date” method.  With this method, staff receive pay on the last Friday of the pay period, for time worked up to and including that Friday (and also the next two days, Saturday and Sunday.)  The payroll is actually transferred to the bank on the Tuesday before the end of the pay period.  This means that if there are any changes in an employee’s pay that come in after the money has gone to the bank on Tuesday, the adjustments must be made in the following pay period.  The “to date” method means a lot of additional work to make manual revisions to the payroll with each and every pay run.

With the one week delay method, the payroll is run after exceptional hours (such as overtime or unpaid personal leaves) have been reported for the entire pay period, so employees will be paid the correct amount the first time.  Under VIP, the pay period end dates will also change so that units will no longer have to guess what hours an employee will be working on the weekend.  Pay periods for all biweekly and casual staff will end on Fridays.

The first pay that uses the new “one week delay” method will fall on the same payday as before, but will be for one week instead of two.  So that biweekly staff will not be short one week’s worth of pay, the University has offered biweekly employees a one-week pay advance, paid to the employee at the same time as the one week of pay, so that the total for that first pay in VIP will be equivalent to a full pay period.  (There will be a slight difference, however, due to benefit adjustments and the resulting tax implications; depending on exactly where an employee’s earnings fall in the tax tables, their take-home pay will likely be a couple of dollars higher for the pay in which they receive the advance.)  The pay advance will be recovered when the employee leaves the University.

Biweekly employees who are not part of a bargaining unit will probably remember being asked about a year ago to sign a form agreeing to accept the pay advance.  Employees who signed the agreement will receive the same pay on the same dates as they did with the old method.  (Biweekly employees who are not part of a bargaining unit and who joined the University within the last year will be contacted about the offer of a pay advance.)  Employees hired after go-live will automatically be paid with a one-week delay in pay.

If you have any questions about this, please phone your union representative or contact your payroll associate.