Access to a payslip

uriel · 13-10-2020 8:17pm #1

I wonder if anyone on here can answer a query in relation to the availability of and access to a payslip.
Under employment law - must each employee be given a payslip?

Assuming that the answer to this is yes, under GDPR/DPA rules, can an employer insist that the payslip must be sent to an employee on that employee's own personal e-mail. I have been asked this question by a friend. He works for a private company (large company). His employer used to provide payslips on a central system (where each employee logged on using their own log on so it the privacy of the payslip was ensured). However, this system has now been withdrawn and the employer is insisting that the only way they can issue a payslip is if the employee provides the employer with their personal e-mail address. This chap does not want to share his private e-mail with his employer and has requested that the payslip is sent to him by post - the employer has refused to do this. The reason he does not want to share his personal e-mail address is that there has been an incident in the last 12 months where this employees personal data was breached and was sent to an external party, without his consent. So can the employer refuse to post the payslip, refuse to accept that the mailing preference of this employee is by post. Surely there is no legal requirement for the employer to be provided with a personal e-mail address if the employee does not want to share it. Many thanks in advance

Timberrrrrrrr · 13-10-2020 8:18pm

Could he not set up a separate Gmail account specifically for his pay slips?

wally1990 · 13-10-2020 8:21pm

uriel wrote: »

I wonder if anyone on here can answer a query in relation to the availability of and access to a payslip.
Under employment law - must each employee be given a payslip?

Assuming that the answer to this is yes, under GDPR/DPA rules, can an employer insist that the payslip must be sent to an employee on that employee's own personal e-mail. I have been asked this question by a friend. He works for a private company (large company). His employer used to provide payslips on a central system (where each employee logged on using their own log on so it the privacy of the payslip was ensured). However, this system has now been withdrawn and the employer is insisting that the only way they can issue a payslip is if the employee provides the employer with their personal e-mail address. This chap does not want to share his private e-mail with his employer and has requested that the payslip is sent to him by post - the employer has refused to do this. The reason he does not want to share his personal e-mail address is that there has been an incident in the last 12 months where this employees personal data was breached and was sent to an external party, without his consent. So can the employer refuse to post the payslip, refuse to accept that the mailing preference of this employee is by post. Surely there is no legal requirement for the employer to be provided with a personal e-mail address if the employee does not want to share it. Many thanks in advance

First off , I was in the opposite position before and took issue .

my payslips were going to my work address and I didn't like that because IT have access to every single program, file , email , teams messages, passwords etc I send and i felt my pay was private to myself and thus requested to stop sending it to my work address and instead got it sent to my personal email

Maybe your friend should consider that as a security issue if it goes to his work address and maybe he isn't comfortable with that

I'd rather it go to my own address as opposed to a work address that the employer / company owns

Seve OB · 13-10-2020 8:22pm

Does he have a work email account?
I had a few guys who refused to give me their email and they only had a central Work email account. We could send them there as the payslips were password protected.
We actually just sent them to their own line manager who printed them out and gave them to the employees.
Anyone new on the door is asked for their email account and nobody has ever refused to give it

bikeman1 · 13-10-2020 8:26pm

An employer simply has to provide a payslip. The means of the delivery of that are entirely at the discretion of the employer.

Some print and leave in a pigeon hole, some post, some provide online access and some email.

Why any employer would agree to the posting out of a payslip because of the reason highlighted.

Just create a new email address and bingo the problem is sorted.

13-10-2020 8:26pm

Set up a <company name>payslip@gmail.com account. Only use it for that. The payslip should be password protected (I imagine all software providers provide this facility).

I introduced electronic payslips in my current work. A few have held out and insist on a paper payslip - that's fine, but anyone new signs up with an employee starter form that gives an email address for their payslip.

Heart Break Kid · 13-10-2020 8:37pm

You have a legal right to a pay slip which can be electronic or hard copy. Read the legislation yourself but on a quick read, it does not specifically detail the exact way this should be given to the employee but from the language used, the onus seems to be on the employer.

Could you just not use your work email or request a work email address. Being honest it sounds like you’re being difficult. If you find them in breach of GDPR report them to the ombudsman.

“4.—(1) An employer shall give or cause to be given to an employee a statement in writing specifying clearly the gross amount of the wages payable to the employee and the nature and amount of any deduction therefrom and the employer shall take such reasonable steps as are necessary to ensure that both the matter to which the statement relates and the statement are treated confidentially by the employer and his agents and by any other employees.“

uriel · 14-10-2020 8:22pm

Many thanks to you all for your responses - on the face of it, it would appear that the simplest remedy would be to set up a new separate and specific e-mail address to be used for this purpose alone. There does not appear to be any functionality for the employees in this business to have specific and individual work e-mail addresses.
I think his reticence to comply with the employers request to receive his payslip via e-mail stems from the data breach that he has already experienced. One for further consideration and I appreciate your responses.

dartboardio · 14-10-2020 8:24pm

Not everyone has an email address or access to the Internet so surely its fine to post it. The employer or hr can just print and post

Hibernicis · 14-10-2020 8:34pm

uriel wrote: »

I think his reticence to comply with the employers request to receive his payslip via e-mail stems from the data breach that he has already experienced. One for further consideration and I appreciate your responses.

I dealt with this on a number of occasions when switching employees from paper to electronic payslips in the past, in particular where people's personal e-mail account was shared (with a spouse or other family members etc). As was already pointed out, the e-mailed payslips should be password protected, and should use a password specific/unique to the employee. If this is the case then your friend should be OK to use his personal e-mail address as the payslip password will offer an additional layer of protection in the event of someone accessing his e-mail account.

14-10-2020 11:25pm

dartboardio wrote: »

Not everyone has an email address or access to the Internet so surely its fine to post it. The employer or hr can just print and post

Who that's out in the work force doesn't have access to the internet either at home or at work? I don't doubt they exist, but must be statistically immaterial.

listermint · 14-10-2020 11:28pm

dartboardio wrote: »

Not everyone has an email address or access to the Internet so surely its fine to post it. The employer or hr can just print and post

Balls they don't. Everyone has a smartphone ergo everyone has email.

Seve OB · 14-10-2020 11:36pm

listermint wrote: »

Balls they don't. Everyone has a smartphone ergo everyone has email.

I don’t have a smartphone and know plenty of others who don’t.

15-10-2020 9:01am

Seve OB wrote: »

I don’t have a smartphone and know plenty of others who don’t.

I'm guessing you've SOME access to the internet though

893bet · 15-10-2020 9:03am

My pay slip comes to my email. Payslip is password protected.

dennyk · 15-10-2020 11:54am

Sounds like the issue here is that the OP's "friend" has an email account, but doesn't want to share it with their employer because of concerns that their employer will not respect boundaries and will either start contacting them after hours using said email or will give out said email to a customer or other third party; that's certainly a reasonable concern. The simple solution, though, would be to set up a new free email account just for their payslips and only check it on pay day (and ignore all other messages sent to it except their pay information).

meeeeh · 15-10-2020 5:55pm

I don't know how legal it is but I stopped printing payslips. There are two employees who refuse to provide an email and I refuse to print them unless they specifically ask me and collect them. We used to print payslips but then they were not collected and left lying around. I'm not going to risk personal data and wage shared around because they don't like emails.

Your friend should set up an email for payslips. It's safer for him and the employer.

schmoo2k · 15-10-2020 6:02pm

listermint wrote: »

Balls they don't. Everyone has a smartphone ergo everyone has email.

At home he might only have a shared computer / email with wife / kids etc,

meeeeh · 15-10-2020 6:04pm

schmoo2k wrote: »

At home he might only have a shared computer / email with wife / kids etc,

So what. Any half decent wage programme allows password protected emails.

Tork · 17-10-2020 10:58am

schmoo2k wrote: »

At home he might only have a shared computer / email with wife / kids etc,

How would that stop him from accessing his payslips?

schmoo2k · 17-10-2020 11:27am

Tork wrote: »

How would that stop him from accessing his payslips?

I was thinking more that the OP might not want them to see the payslips.

dennyk · 17-10-2020 11:32am

schmoo2k wrote: »

I was thinking more that the OP might not want them to see the payslips.

Even if his employer doesn't password protect them (as they should, if they're sending them to outside email accounts), OP could always set up a new email account somewhere and just not save the password for it on their home computer.

Tork · 17-10-2020 11:33am

I was thinking more that the OP might not want them to see the payslips.

Unless they're standing looking over his shoulder at the time, I don't see the issue. All he has to do is make sure he doesn't download them locally or stay signed into the email account. The simplest way to deal is to bring up the private tab on his browser when accessing the webmail. Once he closes that, he won't be signed into anything.

How long does anybody spend looking at their payslips anyway? My employer uses a Web based service and I log in once a fortnight just to quickly check that everything is OK.

blindsider · 17-10-2020 11:38am

Electronic payslips are (always?) password protected. To open the attachment containing the payslip, you need to enter a PIN. If the employee doesn't give the PIN to anyone, then no-one can view it.

Seems to me like the employee has internet access, they're reluctant to give their current email address. The solution, as has been suggested, is to create e.g.

seanomurchupayslip@gmail.com

It's then only used for payslips.

Jim2007 · 17-10-2020 12:16pm

The reason he does not want to share his personal e-mail address is that there has been an incident in the last 12 months where this employees personal data was breached and was sent to an external party, without his consent.

So he is concerned about his email address, but not the rest of his data......

In bad economic times being awkward about these kinds of think is how people nominate themselves for the redundancy list.

dennyk · 17-10-2020 2:06pm

Jim2007 wrote: »

So he is concerned about his email address, but not the rest of his data......

I'm betting the "breach" in question was his manager or some other employee giving out his personal info to an angry and/or needy customer (in which case he'd certainly be right to be angry, and right to be wary about trusting his employer with his personal info going forward...).

Dial Hard · 17-10-2020 2:14pm

I will never understand why people insist on needlessly complicating things for themselves just for the sake of making some kind of point the person they're trying to make it to likely won't even notice.

Just tell him to give them an email address. As many others have pointed out, it doesn't have to be the one he uses for everything else.

For those saying it's as easy for an employer to print payslips as it is to email them, it's really not. To do it properly you need specialist printers and paper that seal the payslips as they're printed so nobody can just randomly pick one up off the printer and have a good goo.

Seve OB · 17-10-2020 3:40pm

Dial Hard wrote: »

I will never understand why people insist on needlessly complicating things for themselves just for the sake of making some kind of point the person they're trying to make it to likely won't even notice.

Just tell him to give them an email address. As many others have pointed out, it doesn't have to be the one he uses for everything else.

For those saying it's as easy for an employer to print payslips as it is to email them, it's really not. To do it properly you need specialist printers and paper that seal the payslips as they're printed so nobody can just randomly pick one up off the printer and have a good goo.

Not necessarily. We used to use laser payslips, but then you had to split them, box off the employer copy, then stuff the rest in envelopes. If we had the correct window envelopes it was grand, but if not, then we had to write the names in them.
PITA.

Email so handy. Though still get regular requests for copy payslips because they “never got the one for week 29 in 2019” So I must never have sent their one but everyone else got theirs!
It’s actually not as easy to email older payslips from Sage.

Strumms · 17-10-2020 10:27pm

In my last job after about 9 years payroll was outsourced. We originally when ‘in house ‘ got hardcopy payslips with loads of details...every deduction broken down , every bonus and OT broken down...a new boss took over and changed things to make savings and we only got an electronic payslip via an outsourced payroll company via email with about 30 % of the info...
Example ,...

Name : James Coleman
Dept : IT
Position : IT Monkey
Employee ID : AV316B

Gross Pay : 2900
Net Pay : 2400
Deductions : 500

No overtime breakdown to check if you’d been paid accurately, no columns giving a breakdown of deductions to ensure they were accurate. Payroll under this manager had begun to be erratic in its accuracy people were finding one month in three that there were errors in their pay but having to invest time and effort, not work time even though work was fûcking up, to ensure they got paid correctly... again managing your managers, laughable.

Should be law that hard copy detailed payslips with certain info are issued x days in advance of pay date.

Seve OB · 17-10-2020 10:41pm

Strumms wrote: »

In my last job after about 9 years payroll was outsourced. We originally when ‘in house ‘ got hardcopy payslips with loads of details...every deduction broken down , every bonus and OT broken down...a new boss took over and changed things to make savings and we only got an electronic payslip via an outsourced payroll company via email with about 30 % of the info...
Example ,...

Name : James Coleman
Dept : IT
Position : IT Monkey
Employee ID : AV316B

Gross Pay : 2900
Net Pay : 2400
Deductions : 500

No overtime breakdown to check if you’d been paid accurately, no columns giving a breakdown of deductions to ensure they were accurate. Payroll under this manager had begun to be erratic in its accuracy people were finding one month in three that there were errors in their pay but having to invest time and effort, not work time even though work was fûcking up, to ensure they got paid correctly... again managing your managers, laughable.

Should be law that hard copy detailed payslips with certain info are issued x days in advance of pay date.

Hard or electronic wouldn’t make a difference.
Outsourcing the payroll won’t make a difference 3ither, they will do as the company asks them to do.

And I stand to be corrected, but that sounds like the company was no in compliance with their obligations, and in theory, you could Go through to he stages to take them to the WRC

Strumms · 17-10-2020 10:53pm

Seve OB wrote: »

Hard or electronic wouldn’t make a difference.
Outsourcing the payroll won’t make a difference 3ither, they will do as the company asks them to do.

And I stand to be corrected, but that sounds like the company was no in compliance with their obligations, and in theory, you could Go through to he stages to take them to the WRC

Wouldn’t make a difference to me either if we had all the info.

The managers had a hobby of fûcking up the OT, when you got your hard copy slip a week to ten days beforehand you’d simply spot the oversight, a quick call and resolved... eslip arriving 5 days beforehand after the payrun was done, we were being told “ sure we’ll sort it out next month “

Seve OB · 17-10-2020 10:57pm

Strumms wrote: »

Wouldn’t make a difference to me either if we had all the info.

The managers had a hobby of fûcking up the OT, when you got your hard copy slip a week to ten days beforehand you’d simply spot the oversight, a quick call and resolved... eslip arriving 5 days beforehand after the payrun was done, we were being told “ sure we’ll sort it out next month “

In fairness getting your payslip 10 days before you get paid is rather odd.
5 days is Still probably 2-3 days quicker than most people get theirs

Strumms · 17-10-2020 11:04pm

Seve OB wrote: »

In fairness getting your payslip 10 days before you get paid is rather odd.
5 days is Still probably 2-3 days quicker than most people get theirs

We were paid monthly so it had been regular to get em that early.

LegacyUser · 18-10-2020 12:01am

Seve OB wrote: »

I don’t have a smartphone and know plenty of others who don’t.

Why would I put email on my phone.I can afford a pc or a tablet.Not to mind security-a lot asier to lose a phone

Dial Hard · 18-10-2020 11:32am

Strumms wrote: »

We were paid monthly so it had been regular to get em that early.

I've been paid monthly my entire career. Day before payday is the earliest I've ever been given a payslip. Day of far more common.

None of which changes the fact that your employer could easily give you a PDF payslip with all the same information as the old hard copy ones. The format wasn't the issue there.

Shelflife · 18-10-2020 3:54pm

I run a small sized business, employ 12 people. Pay people on a weekly basis.

Originally we gave payslips every week, then we gave them monthly (physical copy) most of the time they were shoved into their locker or binned straight away. Always gave them a payslip on request.

Changed 18mths ago to a basic wages programme and it sends a password protected email to each employee, everyone is happy.

The problem with one person wanting a physical payslip is how do you get it to them ? If the person doing the payroll works a different day to the employee then physically getting it to them is an issue (minor one but still an issue) . You could post it but then thats an extra cost with postage and someone having to go to the post office or post box. You dont want to leave it lying around either. its just a PITA.

OP go with the specific wages email, its the simplest solution.

breezy1985 · 18-10-2020 3:59pm

Hibernicis wrote: »

I dealt with this on a number of occasions when switching employees from paper to electronic payslips in the past, in particular where people's personal e-mail account was shared (with a spouse or other family members etc). As was already pointed out, the e-mailed payslips should be password protected, and should use a password specific/unique to the employee. If this is the case then your friend should be OK to use his personal e-mail address as the payslip password will offer an additional layer of protection in the event of someone accessing his e-mail account.

Do people actually have shared email accounts. What would be the point given that accounts are free

Mrs OBumble · 18-10-2020 4:37pm

breezy1985 wrote: »

Do people actually have shared email accounts. What would be the point given that accounts are free

Unfortunately, yes. It's a bit like shared bank accounts.

breezy1985 · 18-10-2020 5:46pm

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Unfortunately, yes. It's a bit like shared bank accounts.

What purpose do they serve?

A shared bank account is for co-owned money but I can't see why anyone needs co personal emails

salamiii · 18-10-2020 5:48pm

he can set up free Gmail email address

ED E · 18-10-2020 6:52pm

wally1990 wrote: »

First off , I was in the opposite position before and took issue .

my payslips were going to my work address and I didn't like that because IT have access to every single program, file , email , teams messages, passwords etc I send and i felt my pay was private to myself and thus requested to stop sending it to my work address and instead got it sent to my personal email

Maybe your friend should consider that as a security issue if it goes to his work address and maybe he isn't comfortable with that

I'd rather it go to my own address as opposed to a work address that the employer / company owns

IT have access to everything per you, but they can't gain access to the payroll file? Your logic doesnt add up Wally.

Idleater · 18-10-2020 8:31pm

breezy1985 wrote: »

What purpose do they serve?

A shared bank account is for co-owned money but I can't see why anyone needs co personal emails

Our house has an email address. It gets all the household bills, car insurance quotes etc.

breezy1985 · 18-10-2020 9:03pm

Idleater wrote: »

Our house has an email address. It gets all the household bills, car insurance quotes etc.

Fair enough but everyone still has individual ones I assume. The earlier post kinda made out that some people would only have shared ones or maybe I picked it up wrong

Strumms · 18-10-2020 11:09pm

Dial Hard wrote: »

I've been paid monthly my entire career. Day before payday is the earliest I've ever been given a payslip. Day of far more common.

None of which changes the fact that your employer could easily give you a PDF payslip with all the same information as the old hard copy ones. The format wasn't the issue there.

Well years of being paid monthly too, but slips in advance.

Better as mistakes can and are made but can be recognized beforehand and slip redone. Our manager had a handy forgetfulness when it came to OT... either underpaying or on the odd time overpaying, it was a lottery.

Dravokivich · 18-10-2020 11:16pm

dennyk wrote: »

Sounds like the issue here is that the OP's "friend" has an email account, but doesn't want to share it with their employer because of concerns that their employer will not respect boundaries and will either start contacting them after hours using said email or will give out said email to a customer or other third party; that's certainly a reasonable concern. The simple solution, though, would be to set up a new free email account just for their payslips and only check it on pay day (and ignore all other messages sent to it except their pay information).

Why would someone go through the trouble of doing that?

I simply setup a rule on outlook, so when the payslip gets e-mailed to my work email address, it forwards the email to my personal e-mail address.

dennyk · 19-10-2020 11:45am

Dravokivich wrote: »

Why would someone go through the trouble of doing that?

Because the OP's friend's employer requires a non-work email address and the OP's friend doesn't want to give their employer their current personal email address. It's hardly any trouble, anyhow; it takes like thirty seconds to set up a brand new GMail account.

Mrs OBumble · 19-10-2020 12:57pm

breezy1985 wrote: »

What purpose do they serve?

A shared bank account is for co-owned money but I can't see why anyone needs co personal emails

They give insecure or abusive people control in the relationship.

Or they can be used when one person in a relationship cannot read. But thats unlikely to apply to anyone who is working.

Tork · 20-10-2020 11:29am

You'll also find some people just have no interest in having an email address and are happy to just use a communal one. One of my cousins was like that for years until she finally got a smartphone.

Anyway, all of this is a fuss over nothing. It isn't difficult to set up a new, free email address with any number of providers. If you're paranoid about other people seeing the payslips or logging into your account, just open up a private/incognito tab on your browser and use that to look at them. Some people just make things hard for themselves at time. It sounds like what a former colleague of mine would have done. And believe me, people quickly got tired of his antics. All his manager would've been saying to him at a time like this is "Jim, just give me an email address (I really don't want to listen to you banging on about your gripe)"

NewbridgeIR · 24-10-2020 12:06pm

Does he not have a work email address?

The payslip should be emailed to that.

Seve OB · 24-10-2020 1:13pm

NewbridgeIR wrote: »

Does he not have a work email address?

The payslip should be emailed to that.

Why?

NewbridgeIR · 24-10-2020 9:26pm

Seve OB wrote: »

Why?

In the absence of an online access facility (now withdrawn according to OP), then this gets round the issue.

Access to a payslip

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