The National Minimum Wage is increasing on April 1st, 2023
Starting April 1st 2023 the National Minimum Wage will increase following Government legislation changes and it’s every business’s responsibility to ensure that all their minimum wage workers are being paid the newly increased rates, otherwise, they could be liable and fined up to £20,000 per worker.
For more information regarding the National Minimum Wage increase, please visit the UK Government website here.
How to prepare your Engage portal for the minimum wage increase
This article will guide you through our recommended steps to successfully handle the transition to the new minimum wage increase. It will teach you:
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How to gain visibility of your minimum wage workforce
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How to manage those worker placements effectively and on time for April 1st, and finally,
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How to update any affected Positions and Vacancies that already exist.
Please Note!
If you’re working with an MSP please check with them before making any changes, as they may be able to take care of this update for you.
Gaining visibility of your minimum wage workforce
The first thing you’ll need to do is gain visibility of your active workers earning minimum wage, as well as any Positions and Vacancies that might be affected. The simplest way to do this is by downloading all your active placements using the Engage Placements Report.
To download your active placements:
Step 1. Log in to the Engage Platform
Step 2. Navigate to Jobs, then Placements
Step 3. Select Active from the Status filter, this will filter through all your upcoming placements that are Pending and those that are In Progress, while ignoring old Placements that have been Completed or Abandoned.
Step 4. Select the 3-line menu
Step 5. Select Download Placements Report
Once you’ve downloaded the report, search for the Pay Rate column, which outlines the wages paid to your workers, then filter through these wages to find those under the new minimum wage. Use this information to cross-reference the IDs of the worker placements you’ll need to update, as well as any Positions and Vacancies that are using the old wages and will need updating. You can also download all Inactive placements to ensure a complete audit of your positions, as some might be inactive and under the new minimum wage.
This list will be your guide and serve as a checklist to ensure you make all the necessary updates to all worker Placements, Positions, and Vacancies.
Managing the placements of your minimum wage workforce
The minimum wage change will take place on Saturday April 1st, meaning that the pay rate needs to change while the timesheet period hasn’t been completed. This poses a special challenge as any changes done to a rate midweek will end up affecting the entire week, which is not the desired effect. In order to successfully handle this situation you’ll need to terminate all affected Placements on March 31st and recreate the exact same placements with a Start Date of April 1st, and the increased pay rates. This thorough process will give you and your team as much time as possible to prepare ahead of time and ensures the smoothest transition, with accurate timesheets being created and the correct pay rates being paid and invoiced.
To update the Finish Date of a placement:
Step 1. Log in to the Engage Platform
Step 2. Navigate to Jobs, then Placements
Step 3. Select the placement that you wish to edit
Step 4. From the 3-line menu select 'Edit Placement'
Tip
For an even faster process, you can also press the letter E on your keyboard to quick-launch Edit Mode. This handy tip will save you lots of time when editing the rest of the Positions, Vacancies, and Placements.
Step 5. Once you’re in Edit Mode, scroll to the New Dates field
Step 6. Select the Finish Date
Step 7. The calendar date picker will appear, use the arrows to navigate to March and select the 31st
Step 8. Once this is done, scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save to save the Placement
The worker will now be able to submit timesheets using the old pay rate up until the 31st of March.
Next, you will need to recreate this exact same Placement for this worker with a couple adjustments.
To recreate the Placement:
Step 1. Navigate to Jobs, then Placements
Step 2. Select the New Placement button in the top right hand corner
Step 3. Complete the form with the exact same worker and job specifications. The only adjustments you will need to do is to make sure that the new Start Date is April 1st and increase the pay rates that were pulled from the Position to the new minimum wage requirements
Step 4. Once this is done, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save to save your placement.
This new placement will remain in a Pending status and you’ll need to Start it on the 1st of April. Your worker will then be able to submit timesheets at the new increased pay rate for the last two remaining days of that week and for the remainder of the placement.
Tip
If you’re not planning on using any minimum wage Positions to create new Vacancies until after the 1st of April we suggest that you start by updating all those Positions before updating minimum wage Placements so that when you re-create all the affected Placements the newly increased pay rates will automatically pull through. Only do this if you’re sure that these positions won’t be used to create new Vacancies or Placements from today until the 1st of April, or you might end up paying increased wages to those workers.
Once you’ve taken care of your current active Placements, the last thing you will need to worry about is updating any existing Positions and Vacancies that might be affected by this.
Updating existing Positions & Vacancies
Important!
Please note that any updates you make to a Position will not update any existing Vacancies or Placements. Similarly, any updates you make to a Vacancy will not update any existing Placements.
To update an existing position:
Step 1. Log into the Engage Platform
Step 2. Navigate to Jobs, then Positions
Step 3. Select the position you wish to update
Step 4. Press the letter E on your keyboard to quick-launch Edit Mode
Step 5. Once you're in Edit Mode, scroll down to Rates and click on the pencil button to edit the rates you need to adjust to meet the new minimum wage requirements
Step 6. Once you have made the necessary edits, select the Update Position button to save your changes
Step 7. Repeat these steps on all positions that need to meet the new minimum wage requirements
Once you’re done updating all the necessary positions, you can move on to existing vacancies. Moving forward, any Vacancies or Placements that use this position will carry forward the newly updated pay rates.
To update an existing vacancy:
Step 1. Navigate to Vacancies
Step 2. Select the vacancy you wish to update
Step 3. Press the letter E on your keyboard to quick-launch Edit Mode
Step 4. Scroll down to Rates and click on the pencil button to edit the rates you need to adjust to meet the new minimum wage requirements
Step 5. Once you have made the necessary updates, select the Update Vacancy button to save your changes
Step 6. Repeat these steps on all vacancies that need to meet the new minimum wage requirements
Once you’re done updating all the necessary vacancies, you can move on to existing placements.
Once all these changes have been made, they will automatically be pulled through when creating new Vacancies and Placements, ensuring correct worker payments as they submit timesheets and will automatically create correct invoices.