Just came back from my orientation on my new job. Seems OK but they informed me we get paid twice a month. Like the 15th and 30th (or something similar)
What is the deal with this? It must make calculating overtime hard. I have done payroll in hotels before but I’ve never seen hourly employees paid like this. Salaried yes but not hourly.
Why make it complicated like this?
It must have the company money somehow right?
Sure it saves money. They only have to do payroll twice a month. Makes it easier for them.
The company also earns interest income on the cash they invest by paying you every 15 to 17 days as opposed to every 14.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
I was thinking in terms of like overtime calculation it will be messy. My boss asked me (before he hired me) if I minded overtime as about 2 to 7 hours a week overtime. He explained it wasn’t required (I love OT especially when I’m paid for it)
I guess I’m thinking if the work week runs Sun-Sat. I get paid on like the 17th for the period ending the 15th. What if the 15th is Tuesday. Since I only get OT after 40 hours it seems to make for a pretty messy payroll since the implication is there is always OT if you want it.
Sorry, Markxxx, they’re gonna screw you on this one, too. And you’re right, it’s messy.
In all likelihood, you’ll be paid for overtime earned before some date, which date will be before your normal pay period ends. Most likely for the second full week completed before your pay period ends.
That didn’t come out right. Let’s assume that you start on Sunday, March 1. Your first paycheck will be for the normal hours worked from March 1 to March 15. In addition to your normal hours, you worked 4 OT hours during the first week, 5 hours during the second week, and 3 hours on the 15th. Your paycheck will likely reflect only the 4 hours worked in the first week.
You get your second paycheck for the 16th through the 31st, inclusive. During the third week of March, you worked 6 hours of overtime in addition to the 3 hours on the 15th for a total of 9 OT hours during the third week. During the fourth week, you work 7 OT hours, and during the stub period of the 28th to the 31st, you work 2 OT hours. In addition to your regular pay, you will get OT pay for the 5 hours of the second week and the 9 hours of the third week. The OT for your fourth week and the stub period won’t show up till April 15.
It’s a little complicated, but nothing a payroll computer can’t handle. And the company makes a ton of money by holding on to your OT pay for so long.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Maybe your place will work differently. I hope so.
Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
We get paid on the 1st and 15th where I work. I like it, especially the last pay period. Some months have 31 days, (as you well know :)), and I make more money then.
Overtime isn’t an issue where I work so that makes a big difference. We don’t go by how many hours we work a week, we go by how much we made in services and retail that pay period. We don’t get paid $x.xx per hour (although we are guaranteed a wage during the slow times), we get commission, so we don’t keep track of our hours every week. We do keep track for the whole pay period, but that is for vacation purposes, proof of how many hours you have worked so you can get different licenses if you so desire to be a manager or the like in the future, or to see if our commission = more or less than the guaranteed wage.
MaryAnn
Sometimes life is so great you just gotta muss up your hair and quack like a duck!
Every hourly job I’ve had has had 2-week pay periods. Chuck and Manhattan have it right.
Two more things to watch though:
Illegal as hell, but you’d be suprised how often it happens.
OK if you get 40 hrs every week, but if you’re under, you lose OT pay.
moral: keep track of your hours and keep the labor board/Union on speed dial.
I have never dealt with semi-monthly payments for hourly employees, but I know the main reason the employer does it that way: it avoids the troubles of trying to divide 52 weeks into even numbers of payperiods per quarter.
I only get paid once a month, so its a bit of a stretch sometimes.
Someone posted something earlier about digital time, although I couldn’t find the thread. But the message about timeclocks above reminded me that a lot of businesses, especially ones that use timeclocks, count time digitally by hours. In other words, they don’t pay attention to minutes, they count how many 40-second intervals you worked that day. Makes it simpler to compute hourly wages. At my last job, I had to remind myself that if my timecard said I worked 6:50, it meant six and 1/2 hours, not six hours fifty minutes.
Duh, I think that should read 36-second intervals. Same principle.
At my new job, I get two checks per month, but there are only 12 pay periods per year.
See, the final day of the month is when I get the “normal” check, from which are deducted our montly income tax and insurance premiums and all that stuff. But I also get an “advance” check on the 15th, which is equal to 50% of my salary, ignoring deductions.
Thus I get a big check in the middle of the month, and a small one at the end. I think I like it this way, because the larger amount comes in just before all my bills are usually due.
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
I definitely like the semi-monthly scheme because it simplifies automatic payments. I know that money will be there by a certain date, so I can just let fixed payments (like rent) go out without me doing anything.
I think I’ve got it best. I’m an salaried employee, but I get a check every week.
I am salaried and get a weekly check, also…but they are switching that to be bi-weekly now…so it is every other friday…26 payperiods not 24 like bi-monthly, so there will be two months where we get 3 checks…dont know why they have switched to this…seems odd
I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here.
I used to work a part-time job that paid bi-monthly. OT wasn’t a problem, though, since none of us ever put in that much time.
Here’s a couple WAGs on how it could be done fairly.
When calculating the pay, the payroll clerk checks to see how many hours in that particular pay period would be regular time. For instance, 10/1 through 10/15 this year has 11 weekdays. That would translate to 88 regular time hours. If you put in 90 hours in that period, 2 hours are OT.
OT might be calculated on a daily basis. You’re scheduled to work an 8 hour day. You put in 10 hours, and you get 2 hours OT. This works in a similar way to the previous guess, but would probably be easier to figure out.
At my husband’s place of employment, they add even more confusion. Not only do they pay hourly employees on the 15th and the last day of the month, they pay in advance. In other words, when my husband submits his time sheet for the paycheck he receives on the 15th, it covers the hours he will work for the next two weeks. This makes things extremely confusing when someone has to work unexpected overtime because it has to go on the NEXT check.
Born O.K. the first time…
I have always gotten paid every other Friday and I love it!
I can’t imagine waiting an entire month between paychecks.
>^,^<
KITTEN
Coffee, chocolate, men . . . Some things are just better rich.