Council traces problem to technical issue with HR system
The Tauranga City Council has failed to give proper pay entitlements to over 90 employees following a technical issue over its new HR system, according to reports.
Alastair McNeil, council general manager of corporate services, confirmed to Local Democracy Reporting that 93 employees may not have received their overtime, on-call allowances, or additional public holiday entitlements.
This includes 30 people who weren't pay properly for working on public holidays, according to the official.
"All affected employees and their people leaders were personally communicated with on Wednesday," McNeil told Local Democracy Reporting last week.
According to the official, they are currently communicating directly with affected staff on when they would be paid correctly.
McNeil said they were able to trace the problem to their new Human Resource Information System that was implemented in November.
He said the problem has been "fixed," so the error does not happen again.
Staff frustrations with lack of payments
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The confirmation from McNeil comes as staff came forward over the new year claiming that they weren't paid overtime nor were given extra pay for working on a public holiday.
One employee who raised the matter to Local Democracy Reporting said they weren't paid on January 1 and 2, while others weren't paid for working on Christmas and Boxing Day.
Employees in New Zealand may receive paid time and a half for working on a public holiday, or they may opt to get another day off, according to Employment NZ.
The staff who came forward also called out the council's HR department, slamming the communication as "dreadful."
"We just get automated emails back, saying people are on holiday or an email back, saying that we're looking into it, but no definite of we'll be paid by this date," the staff member told Local Democracy Reporting.
The news outlet, citing a viewed email from council payroll employee, has since reported that the unpaid employees would be receiving the missing portion of their pay in the next pay run.
The news comes in the heels of retail firm Woolworths disclosing that it may have also underpaid thousands of its employees in the last seven years.