My employee's Work Pattern has changed. What do I need to update?

Updated: October 2024

The employee's work pattern tells the system what a week looks like for this employee, and also the size of each work day. Here is a useful article explaining more about the employee work pattern.

An employee's work pattern can change in three ways:

The size of their work week can change (e.g. going from a 5-day to a 4-day week) - which directly impacts their week-based calculations such as annual leave.
The size of individual days can change (e.g. going from 4 hours to 8 hours on a day) - which directly impacts day-based calculations such as sick leave, but can also impact accrued annual leave if the total number of hours per week changes.
The otherwise working days can change (e.g. dropping a Monday, or taking up a Saturday) - which impacts entitlements such as Public Holidays.

Each of these changes will impact the employee's timesheet calculations in different ways, here's what to look out for and what to communicate with your employee when planning a work pattern change.

Key things to be aware of:

When work pattern changes occur, the impact is from that point forward.
The employee should understand that their annual leave entitlement remains at 4 weeks, but could look different when their working week changes, eg. 5-day week previously (20 days) to 3-day week, will mean 12 days being 4 weeks.
If reducing hours, the longer an employee waits to take their leave the less they will be paid for it.
- The value of the day will reduce each pay to reflect the new work pattern and pay rate. Annual Leave is paid at the greater of AWE or OWP.

If you are using the Payroll Portal and have to update an employee's work pattern, this work pattern is updated in Thankyou Payroll.
*Please contact our Customer Team to make sure the updates pull through to the Portal correctly.

In this article:

Updating work pattern changes in the system:
What calculations are impacted by work pattern changes?

Updating Work Pattern Changes in the Thankyou Payroll System

If you have timesheets already loaded on the dashboard and wish to use the new settings. Open the timesheets and change the 'Standard Pay (-1)' to 'Standard Pay' and save .This will ensure the timesheet is updated with the latest Employee Settings.

ALSO check the Timesheet Costing Screen after making any changes to ensure that the update is applied correctly.

Employee on an Hourly Rate - Example:

There are TWO places work pattern changes must be updated in the Employee Profile. They are:

The Standard Pay Tab AND	The Leave Settings Tab

If the work week hours or individual day size has changed, update the hours and check the following:
In the Standard Pay Tab: Update the default entries for the standard pay row (DW) to reflect the new work-week days. Save your changes.	In the Leave Tab: Check that the 'same as Default Week' button is selected (dark green). Selecting this will bring up the next two blocks. Check that the number of days in the week (1L) has been updated to the new setting (DW). Check that the hours in a typical week (2L) have updated to the new hours (DW). This number is in hours/minutes, so 37.5 will show as 37:30 Save your changes.
If the employee's Number of Working Days has changed, update and check the following:
In the Standard Pay Tab: Update the default entries for the standard pay row (DW) to reflect the new work week. (Add or Delete the hours from the day/s that have changed.) Save your changes.	In the Leave Tab: Check that the 'same as Default Week' button is selected (dark green). Selecting this will bring up the next two blocks. Check that the number of days in the week has been updated to the new setting. Save your changes. Adjust any Allocated leave balances to reflect the New working week.

Employee on a Salary Example:

If a salaried employee changes their days to a variable work pattern , we strongly recommended you change them to an hourly rate so their leave will record correctly.

If the employee is simply adding/removing a day to their work week , make that adjustment in the Default Week settings as below. There is no need to change their salary setting.

There are TWO places where work pattern changes must be monitored and updated in the Employee Profile. They are:

The Standard Pay Tab AND	The Leave Settings Tab

If the employee's work week size, individual day size or working days have changed, update and check the following:
In the Standard Pay Tab: Update the default entries for the standard pay row to reflect the new work-week days and hours. Update the 'Days to complete a week' if needed to match the default week Save your changes.	In the Leave Tab: Check that the 'same as Default Week' button is selected (dark green). Check that the number of days in the week has been updated automatically. Check that the hours in a typical week have updated to the new hours if this has changed. Note that this number is in hours/minutes, so 37.5 will show as 37:30 Save your changes.
If the number of days per week have change you now need to Adjust the Allocated Leave balance

Employee on a Monthly Salary Example:

If the employee's day size has changed and you want to record hours (where before you used the '1' setting to indicate a day), you can update the employee profile as shown above.

What if the work pattern changes during the pay cycle?

The standard pay would be correct. Any leave loaded in the monthly timesheet will be paid at the new settings. Double-check the costing screen to ensure that the amount paid and deducted from their leave balance is correct.

When updating a work pattern within a pay cycle, remember the following order:

Load pay (and leave) on the old setting | Save timesheet | Update Employee Profile to new work pattern | Open timesheet and add the remainder of the month on the new work pattern | Save timesheet.

*What you will see is Standard Pay (-1) for the old work pattern setting and Standard Pay for the new work pattern. The timesheet should calculate leave correctly.

Calculations Impacted by Work Pattern Changes

Impact on Leave Calculations

If the day count changes, the system will not automatically adjust allocated to correctly reflect the changes. This needs to be adjusted Manually.
- How to adjust an Allocated leave balance
If the day count changes, the next leave anniversary will see a change in the number of days allocated leave given. The accrued leave balance will remain unchanged at 8% of Gross.

- e.g. if the employee goes from a 5-day to a 4-day work week, the new allocation will be calculated as 4 weeks x days per week (4) = 16 days new allocation (where last allocation was 4 weeks x days per week (5) = 20 days)

Our system allocates annual leave in days, so if the days per week changes, then any allocated leave won't reflect the current work week and will require adjusting to reflect the new work week.
Our system does not update the balance retrospectively, you have to do this manually so please contact our Support Team should you need help with this.

If the number of hours in a workweek changes, the allocated annual leave will remain the same if the number of work days remains constant. But the accrued leave may be impacted either up or down.
Annual Leave is calculated when taken and paid at the greater of AWE or OWP. So the dollar value of the leave will be impacted when taken. This means that the closer the leave is taken to the work pattern change, the closer in dollar value this leave will be to the value before the change.

Changes to Otherwise Working Days

Otherwise Working Days determine the employee's entitlement to a public holiday, an alternative holiday, sick leave, bereavement leave and family violence leave on a given day. Be aware that this entitlement will change if a workday change occurs, e.g. if the employee drops Mondays, any public holiday occurring on a Monday will no longer count as falling on their Otherwise Working Day so entitlements will not apply.

Impact when doing Correction Pays

Please note: Any correction pays done after a change to work patterns would impact the leave settings. As the employee was paid under the old setting, the correction therefore needs to be made under the old setting (entitlement & rates). Correction pays use current settings for calculations, so special care needs to be taken here.

If there is a marked change in the work pattern, please contact our Customer Team before doing the correction pay as the old settings may need to be reinstated for this correction and then updated again afterwards.