Is it unheard nowadays of to only offer paystubs (info on your weekly hours worked, hourly pay rate, withholding, etc.) only electronically and only through a system that can only be accessed at work?
No paper paystubs, no e-mailed paystubs, just the ability to look up the info through a system at work (not accessible through the internet).
Is that a thing? It seems wrong. Do you lose access to your pay history, etc., if you stop working there? (Paper W-2s are mailed, of course.)
The employer is a large, reputable food store chain. The source of this info (my daughter) has some information processing difficulties, so it is entirely possible that she misunderstood what she was told or did a poor job of communicating her question, but before I encourage her to get a better explanation, I want to make sure that the explanation that she got is not, in fact, likely to be correct.
It is somewhat common. You may be able to opt into paper but it’s not advertised. They email to tell me when my stub is ready but do not attach it to email. My W-2 is also completely electronic but I opted in. I can access from home though.
I am reasonably certain that I could keep access if I left this job. They don’t recycle employee ID numbers as far as I know.
I would still recommend backing up the PDFs. I don’t think there is any legal requirement to do this, YMMV.
I think this may be becoming the norm in larger companies. My largish hospital does this. However, employees made an issue of not being able to view this from home and the hospital made them available via the employee portal. It is usually available through the same pathway that you would see your work email from home. It is possible that she cannot access this. Perhaps she should spend 15 minutes on the clock checking that the company has entered her hours and pay correctly.
Just to comment on this side issue. I only get an electronic stub here in Norway. I do lose access to my pay history if I quit, but if I cared about that I could just download the information each month and store it somewhere convenient.
Underline added. Most of the posters are addressing internet-accessible information. What you describe is IME unusual. I’m not sure how common it is too need this information though.
It is normal where i work
All electronic, and all on intranet only, if you leave you lose access to pay history.
They also pay via direct deposit only, no pay cards and no checks, if you have no bank account i guess you dont get hired
My last job sent paystubs every payday to my house. This one just saves them in the Deltek Vision software that does literally everything else, too. I’m not sure which I prefer. It’s less clutter at my house, and I’ve never needed each pay stub. I do check them occasionally for accuracy and to make sure I understand what I’m getting paid and withholding, but I don’t see a need to do that every week. One day, it might matter to me that I can’t access them at home, but it hasn’t yet.
If it’s a large change, it probably uses another payroll company like ADP for everything. I can still go on ADP and pull up all my old paystubs/W2s/etc. for old jobs that also used them.
I work for a large company (and I’m in Illinois, FWIW), and they do use ADP. When I started with the company, and the HR person was running us through the electronic pay system, she noted that, if any of us had been using ADP with a previous employer, when we went to sign up on ADP, we might well already have an account there.
My medium-sized law firm employer does the same. I’ve never asked what would happen if I left, or tried to access a pay stub remotely, but it’s easy enough for me to email them to myself.
