Paying your employees on a weekly basis can be hugely beneficial, particularly if you have many shift workers or temporary staff. It can help your teams manage their finances more effectively and provide them with a sense of stability in their income.
But understanding weekly pay involves more than just processing paychecks every seven days. It includes familiarising yourself with various calculations, and making sure you comply with National Minimum Wage requirements, HMRC reporting guidelines and more.
To help you wrap your head around how to calculate weekly pay in the UK, we’ll look at what weekly pay entails, the benefits for both you and your employees, and the different methods to calculate it.
What is weekly pay?
Weekly pay is a pay structure where employees are paid every seven days. It’s commonly used for businesses with part-time or hourly workers who have varying schedules.
The plus side is that weekly payroll can give employees a feeling of financial stability since they receive payslips more often. But it’s not without its pitfalls—handling weekly payroll could cause administrative issues because of the increased need for processing and reporting.
How to calculate weekly pay in the UK
There are 2 different methods you can choose from when it comes to calculating weekly pay in the UK:
Converting annual salary to weekly pay
To determine the weekly pay for salaried employees with a fixed annual salary, simply divide their annual wage by 52, the number of weeks in a year.
For example, if your employee earns £40,000 annually, their weekly wage would be approximately £769.00. (40000/52= 769.23)
Calculating weekly pay based on hourly rate or shifts
- For hourly employees, you can calculate their weekly pay by multiplying their hourly rate by the total hours worked in the week.
- For shift/rota workers, you must consider the total hours worked each week.
For example: a receptionist working 4 twelve-hour shifts one week and 5 the next, at £12 per hour, will earn £576.00 (the first week) then £720.00 (the second week)
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The benefits of weekly pay
Here are some of the key benefits of weekly pay for you and your employees:
Better budget management
Weekly pay empowers your employees to structure their budgets consistently around a predictable weekly income. This stability is especially helpful for people who live paycheck to paycheck or find too much of the month left when they’ve spent their pay.
Faster correction of mistakes
When you process payroll weekly, you’ll be able to rectify any overpayments or underpayments faster than you could with monthly payroll. That means your errors won’t be dragging over month to month, but week to week, making your payroll mistakes easier to rectify.
Boosts employee satisfaction
For many employees, being paid weekly instead of biweekly or monthly makes them happier because they get their money sooner. Happier employees are more likely to be committed, productive, and stay with your company for longer.
What are the disadvantages of weekly pay?
Some of the main disadvantages of weekly pay are:
- Increased administrative work due to more frequent calculations and payments.
- Higher processing costs.
Payroll that caters to all working patterns
If your team is paid on a weekly basis, let us help streamline your payroll process. Don’t miss out and book a personalised demo today to witness Cintra in action. Together we can take the hassle out of payroll management!
Payroll Compliance Checklist
All the topics you need to keep your payroll compliant, providing you an overview of each and finishing with a practical checklist!
