Beating the Winter Blues

Winter can be a stressful time of year for businesses across all industries.

We know that for farmers, calving is in full swing, which is a very busy time. In other industries like hospitality, this may be a quiet period or a very busy one depending on where you are around the country. Like any period with added stress, the best way to mitigate unwanted pressure and create a great workplace is by getting ahead. PaySauce is here to remove some of the frustrations that can come with timesheets, leave requests, and payroll - helping you to get ahead in your admin to focus on the things that matter.

We want this blog to lay out a few things to keep in mind, like how to look after your staff during winter, minimum wage top-ups and what that’s all about, rostering tips, and managing leave for staff.

Be a better boss - Look after your staff!

At PaySauce, we’re all about encouraging employers to be a great boss. Good bosses attract even greater employees, and this is true for all businesses in any industry. It is important, especially at this time of year, that you have a great team behind you who work with you to achieve all of your seasonal goals.

Here are some key things to help build and maintain your dream team!

• Get your team involved
  Your staff should know what you want to achieve this season and how you want to achieve it. Share your business goals and what you’re planning. Staff can help you identify potential risks or challenges, and with their perspective, you may uncover new solutions.
• Discuss and plan for any upskilling needed for new staff
  Every operation varies slightly from place to place. You can’t expect even the most seasoned of workers to read your mind if they are a new employee! Set time aside to run them through how you want things done and explain your individual systems and processes. This will make everything super efficient.
• Make sure you have your health and safety sorted.
  Getting the right tools for the job does wonders for your business. Make sure you’ve sorted them out with all of the PPE required, and have working tools and equipment on hand. It will not only make things more efficient in the long run, but it can also help prevent the risk of injury which, at a busy time of year, can cause a heap of stress on everyone involved. Get your employee’s input on health and safety too - they can help you with identifying problems you might not have considered as well as ways to eliminate or mitigate the risks.
• Hold regular meetings - even 5 minutes will do the trick!
  There’s no need for weather-waffle here, just a simple catch up daily does wonders for your team. Create a safe space to address any frustrations, and give your staff an opportunity to provide feedback so things can be dealt with as they happen. This small catch-up also means you can give your staff direction on the tasks you want ticked off for that day or that week. Get two birds one stone - include health & safety in these. Even just a simple ‘any health and safety matters to raise, team?’ will make sure everyone’s wellbeing remains front of mind.
• Look out for your team
  We know you’re not mum or dad to your employees, nor should you expect to be. Unless you really are their mum or dad, in which case… carry on. That said, your team’s wellbeing is super important to how your business can operate. Less stress and sickness means less unexpected time off right when you need them. Most advice around wellbeing revolves around some pretty achievable core things: rest, good sleep and good food. You might not be able to make sure your team is sleeping well at night, but there definitely are things in your control which can contribute to their overall wellbeing. Employers can contribute by making sure people are getting the breaks they need to have meals and the gear they need to be comfortable, including being warm in the winter. Create an achievable roster which allows staff to take breaks, and rest where required. Watch for signs of stress and fatigue, (that includes yourself, boss!) and be proactive in dealing with it.
• Put yourself in the shoes of your staff and lead by example
  Keep coaching, encouraging and talking to your staff. Provide feedback where needed in a positive way. And… celebrate success! Your staff want to know when they are doing an awesome job. It makes all the difference when an employee knows that their contributions are valued by the other staff and their employers. Whether it's a fistbump at the end of a busy day or a packet of biscuits on the break-room table, celebrate and encourage your staff to do their best.

There are heaps of free resources available for you to access with regard to workplace wellbeing. There are blogs, webinars, e-learning opportunities or printable documents that you can check out for yourself, or that you can pass on to your employees. For some of these, have a look at the business.govt.nz website, First Steps Aotearoa, or the Mental Health Foundation NZ.

Minimum Wage Top Ups: How PaySauce helps

In industries such as farming and agriculture, employees may be paid by piecemeal rates rather than hours worked. Most businesses only keep hours for staff on wages, but on the farm, you need to track timesheets for both salaried and contract rate staff. Minimum wage top ups ensure employees are paid at least the minimum rate for every hour worked, keeping the company compliant with the Minimum Wage Act 1983.

It sounds like a lot of brain power and time on the calculator, but not to worry! With the help of PaySauce, we make it super simple. If your team has the PaySauce mobile app, staff can record their own hours easily, which saves you time and trouble. You can still review, edit, and approve timesheets. Having everything digital means there is no cryptic handwriting to decipher (is that a 1 or a 7?!) or loose papers waiting to be lost.

If staff drop below minimum wage for a period during peak work periods based on the hours recorded, PaySauce will automatically apply a top-up to their earnings, so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Easy as!

If you want to learn more about how minimum wage top ups work, visit this article on our Knowledge Base: Minimum Rate Paycard Topup.

Rostering Tips

Here are just a few ways to create effective rosters to suit your operation:

• Set achievable rosters
  If there’s an ability to plan ahead for late starts or early finishes, this can help your team manage their work-life balance.. Be realistic about the workload that your staff take on daily, and check in with them to see if there is any feedback on their roster that they can offer.
• Chat with your team
  Without having too many cooks in the kitchen, you can still check in with your team and create a plan which can meet both your own and your employees needs. It is super important to consider the minimum number of people you need to be rostered on for day-to-day work to be achievable, and your staff are the best way to gauge this! This can be really difficult if you’re in an industry dealing with staff shortages. Just keep an open line of communication with your team about what’s going on - we can’t expect perfection all the time, but it is easier to deal with chaos or stress when we have heard directly from our employer about what’s going on.
• Plan ahead
  Make sure you plan ahead for statutory holidays or planned leave, and keep these dates handy so you don’t forget. If you can, avoid scheduling too many days with minimal team members rostered on, as this can make your operation less productive and increase the levels of stress and fatigue in your staff. This means they may be less able to respond to problems as they arise, causing you greater problems in the long run.

Lucky for you, PaySauce has a handy roster feature in our app! You can decide how to build and share your rosters. You can add notes to customise shifts and choose how your team receives their roster info. Your team’s approved and pending leave will display in the calendar view when you’re building your roster, so you know exactly who’s available for the shifts you need to cover. It links directly with payroll info so you can use existing work patterns to build your roster faster. How awesome is that!

For more information and a how-to video about how PaySauce can keep roster creation easy-as, visit www.paysauce.com/app/rosters/

Managing Leave

There are many different types of leave that employees are legally entitled to, and different calculation and payment methods to stay on top of. By managing this correctly you’re not only taking care of your compliance obligations - you’ll also be ensuring a positive workplace environment. If you need to brush up on the types of leave staff are entitled to take, and the regulations around these, visit the Employment New Zealand Website.

Once again, planning ahead and having flexibility is the best way to manage leave. You can plan for public holidays and annual leave with your employees, but sickness, injury, or personal matters can crop up unexpectedly. If you haven’t kept these unexpected cases in mind, this can cause a lot of stress both on employers and employees.

With PaySauce, the app will take the headache out of calculating leave balances. It makes sure staff accrue correctly and get the right pay when they take leave. Leave balances are also displayed on our app so staff can keep an eye on their own entitlements and don’t need you to fill them in. All the leave shows on the Leave Calendar in the employer's web view. It's easy to see which leave has been approved and if any leave days overlap for the team, and you can approve and decline leave right from the calendar too. If you're using the phone app to run your pays, you'll see all the approved leave requests in a list, then the leave can be managed for each employee separately.

If you have any questions about how this all works, sign up for a demo today or flick us an email.

So chuck these few reminders in your toolbox, and take them forward to have an awesome season!