Wage payment delayed (3rd occurence)

Dermighty

Hi all,

I work in hospitality and for the third time this year our wages are delayed when a bank holiday occurs. I (and everyone else) normally get paid on a Friday night (i.e. 9:30pm Friday at the earliest). For the last 3 bank holidays the wages have been paid on the Tuesday morning, this is without any warning/prior notice.

The last time this happened I sent a text to one of the directors of my workplace to let him know that the wages didn't come through, he got back to me saying that other people had noticed the same and that it was most likely a delay with the bank.

This weekend it happened again and we got an email Saturday morning (4am) saying the following:

Dermightys General Manager wrote:

Howdy,

Wages are probably going to be delayed by a day or two due to the bank holiday. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this as there is due to internal delays in the bank.

Appologies for any inconvienience caused

*General Managers name* (08X-XXXXXXX)

I read the email, scanned the addresses it was sent to then pressed reply all as the names on the list were all staff who were due to get paid and were people affected by the issue.

My email went as follows:

Dermighty wrote:

Hi *General Managers Name*,

I'd like to give some feedback about the issue.

For me this is the third time this has happened. While I understand it is because of a delay with the bank I feel that as it is a known, recurring issue that the management should work to ensure that the staff are not put this position again as it's really inconvenient and for some of us it puts us in a difficult position(myself included).

Regardless of who the responsibility lies with I feel that getting my wages 4 days late is no longer acceptable especially when it's a known, recurring issue.

As there's realistically no way of knowing whether there will be a delay until the Saturday morning I would suggest that we get paid Thursday night before a bank holiday.

Thanks,
Dermighty

I got a phone call from the manager saying that I had sent it to every person working in the company (not strictly true) and that there was no need to do that and that while it wasn't strictly unprofessional he would have preffered if I had approached them directly. The conversation ended with the GM saying that next time I want to email everyone in the company to leave them out of it.


Whilst I can see that by emailing 70 people as well as the GM may seem contentious I do feel that the GM took it personally rather than looking at it objectively. I have a problem with delayed wages (which has occured 3 times), I am getting paid 4 days late for work I already did and it is avoidable if the management pay us on a Thursday night instead of the Friday (only for bank holidays). I feel that the wording in my email is clearly polite and respectful and that I wasn't in any shape or form trying to embarrass the GM or put them in a difficult position.

TL;DR Emailed general manager and affected staff about my issue with repeated delayed wage payments (banks fault) as it is essentially an avoidable issue.

toadfly

I work in payroll and when this situation occurs, we pay a day early. It's completely avoidable and unfair. I don't blame you for being pissed off.

tenifan

Two issues.

First: you were paid late.

You might be moaning that you are paid 4 days late: in fact, you were paid one business day late. You could get some sort of overdraft or savings behind you to ensure the issue does not affect you should it occur.

If it's really important to you that it should not happen again, you should have asked your staff representative (or if you are the rep, do it yourself) to meet with managers to outline what happened and what steps they'll take to ensure it doesn't happen again. The rep can then ask for permission to use the email system to distribute feedback to other employees.

Second: your unprofessional email to over 70 staff in response to a general courtesy email

This is a much more serious issue and if you can't see what you did was wrong there isn't much hope for you. Your email was strictly unprofessional (both the medium you used to communicate, plus the fact you cc'd so many people), the wording was not particularly polite or respectful, and yes, it does put the GM in a difficult position (who the heck wants to be drawn into a group conversation with 70+ people)

Not what you want to hear but you approached it all wrong.

chris85

tenifan wrote: »

Two issues.

First: you were paid late.

You might be moaning that you are paid 4 days late: in fact, you were paid one business day late. You could get some sort of overdraft or savings behind you to ensure the issue does not affect you should it occur.

If it's really important to you that it should not happen again, you should have asked your staff representative (or if you are the rep, do it yourself) to meet with managers to outline what happened and what steps they'll take to ensure it doesn't happen again. The rep can then ask for permission to use the email system to distribute feedback to other employees.

Second: your unprofessional email to over 70 staff in response to a general courtesy email

This is a much more serious issue and if you can't see what you did was wrong there isn't much hope for you. Your email was strictly unprofessional (both the medium you used to communicate, plus the fact you cc'd so many people), the wording was not particularly polite or respectful, and yes, it does put the GM in a difficult position (who the heck wants to be drawn into a group conversation with 70+ people)

Not what you want to hear but you approached it all wrong.

+1

Calling out the general manager by copying all from original email was definitely unnecessary. A suggestion to email back to the manager directly would be could they pay wagers a day early or can a different solution be found would be helpful. The way you have done this and seemingly as if you are representing the rest in the mail is not going to help. Of course the GM is going to take slightly personally, you have unnecessarily copied every on an email calling him out on something which he may or may not have much control of. Personally if I was one of the people copied I would think whoever sent it was just trying to cause trouble rather than solve the issue.

Dermighty

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate the criticism believe it or not!

I genuinely didn't think the wording wasn't polite or respectful. How else can I say it?

Excepting the fact that I emailed the staff also I don't see why email isn't an acceptable form of communication to give feedback, especially in a work environment that has staff working different hours and days.

The downside of my email is that the phone call I got from the gm is the end of the matter as far as the gm is concerned and I now have to raise the issue again with someone else.

Doom

I think your right to cc all, why not...he could have blind copied all...

Magenta

I don't see any problem with your wording or the fact that you used email- it's the medium that they chose to communicate with you. It's not like you were breaking up with someone!

However I do agree that it would have been better to be sent just to the manager.

nuckeythompson

To email so many people on such an issue is bang out of order. I really think you should thread carefully in future as your MD , directors etc will consider you to be trouble. As a previous manager I would consider the sender of such an email as trouble. You could have sent an email directly to him? Why cc 70 other people??

The fact you are being paid late is also bang out of order. My guess is that its either laziness on the payroll staff or possibly cash flow reasons. The latter is fairly common believe it or not.

Im sure their is a procedure in place for you to correctly escalate such issues. As posted above you were actually paid a day late. You can only speak for your self and you should also investigate if other staff who use a different bank than yourself are also in the same position.
You are also not a spokesman for your staff. One piece of advise - in the near future if you find yourself in fromt of HR for something trivial such as being late or similar its time to find another job. At that stage your death warrant is already signed
Another is take some advice from your manager - he CALLED you in response to the email. Thats why he is a manager and your not. He didnt put anything in writing , you did. Maybe a call might suffice in future. Email is DEADLY, seriously I have seen so many people get sacked because of emails