Lezé Felton
Welcome to Paymaster’s March Newsletter!
Designed by Lezé
31 March 2022
Wellness in the workplace – create a healthy, happy work environment.
Navigating the changing world with all its stressors affects your employees’ health…and your bottom line. Poor emotional and physical health can lead to depression, illness or burnout. And the resulting absenteeism. So it’s essential to consider a wellness program that will encourage resilience and connectedness in your workplace.
CREATING A WELLNESS PROGRAM
This could be any initiative that promotes physical and emotional health in your company. The idea is to avoid bad habits, and encourage healthy eating and exercise, leading to happy, healthy, employees. The first step is to persuade everyone (top-down), to buy into the value of employee wellness. Establish a Wellness committee responsible for implementing the program in the workplace. Continuous evaluations and improvements are essential. Regular feedback from the workers will keep it relevant and effective.
Make sure this Wellness program becomes part of company culture, so that everyone sees that the organization practices what it preaches.
10 Ideas For Employee Wellness Programs
- Rewards
Employees are most likely to repeat behaviour they are recognised for. So be creative in how you incentivize your people by linking rewards to wellness platforms. For example, points earned when fitness goals are achieved can be redeemed in the marketplace. This way, you motivate them to adopt healthy habits at work and home.
- Combat burnout
This has become a chronic problem in today’s uncertain world”, and fighting it should be a priority. Anonymous surveys are helpful for finding out what factors are contributing to this in your company. Uncomfortable truths, perhaps revealing overwork, lack of support, or unfair treatment, could be revealed. But this information is essential to find effective ways to fight burnout. Transparent communication between workers and management will help minimize the effects of this problem. And encouraging a good work-life balance will also create a healthy atmosphere in the workplace.
- Flexibility and time off
Remote work options have made employee flexibility much easier. This empowers them to find work solutions that suits them best, and has huge wellness benefits. Allowing them the freedom to choose what, and how they will handle necessary tasks allows for variety that energises and adds spice to work life. Adequate time off to recharge will also promote a better work-life balance, and prevent burnout. So encourage workers to make use of this to balance their workloads and prioritize their wellness.
- Encourage mindfulness
Self-awareness helps combat daily stresses, so encourage employees to regularly get in touch with how they’re feeling. This self-knowledge helps them respond to stressors in a considered, constructive way. Resources that encourage training on emotional intelligence (how a person empathizes with others), will be a great benefit to the workplace. Managers, especially, need this to connect to their team members in a healthy way.
- Fitness
A healthy lifestyle, including regular exercise, benefits a person in every part of their life. Therefore, consider ways to promote fitness that fits into your organization’s budget. One idea is a fitness club that everyone can be part of. Or consider paying for gym membership as an investment in your employees.
- Health services
Full-time workers often struggle to find time to access medical services. To facilitate this, make it more accessible to them. For example, provide health risk assessments, or office flu jab drives. This shows your workers the company cares for them and leads to a healthier, happier workplace.
- Education
Knowing what constitutes healthy habits is key to a healthy lifestyle. Understanding preventative care and combating misinformation (eg. around vaccination) are examples of this. Webinars, blogs and newsletters are great resources for this.
- Promote healthy eating
Unhealthy food saps energy and leads to lethargy and disinterest among your workforce. So explore ways to make eating healthy, fun and easy. Consider ordering in tasty, wholesome lunches or snacks, for example. You can also educate on healthy food options, and maybe find restaurants with healthy food choices in your area.
- Stop-smoking programs
Smoking is still one of the leading health hazards today. This includes second-hand smoke. But instead of creating guilt in smoking employees, offer incentives and resources to help them quit. This could include support groups or paying for completing a quitting program, successfully.
- Transport
Transport to and from work is often a huge source of stress for workers, and this can affect their health. Encourage them to consider car-sharing, cycling or public transport. Or perhaps the company budget can afford to provide staff transport. Some of these can foster camaraderie, improve fitness, and are good for the environment. A way to encourage this can include covering the cost of equipment (eg, bikes) or reimbursing public transport costs.
Make wellness a way of life. Find online resources to help boost wellness at your organization, and motivate employees with incentives and rewards. The result will be a healthy, happy and productive workforce.
– Provided by Ian Hurst –
Helpdesk Tips
H
ow
to add an employee on Paymaster
New employees who join the company must be loaded onto the payroll in the current processing period to receive payment. Employees can be uploaded in bulk or loaded individually. This document focuses on adding an individual employee record. Click below to download the directions.
How to Terminate, Reinstate and Transfer an employee on Paymaster.
When an employee resigns from the company, a termination needs to be captured during the employee’s final pay run. Terminations are processed on the Tax Profile Screen.
Download the directions document at the end of this article.
An employee may have been incorrectly terminated or may have decided to return to the company to continue employment.
In these scenarios, the employee’s record needs to be reinstated. Reinstating an employee is also processed on the Tax Profile Screen.
Where more than one company and/or frequency have been registered on the system, a need may arise for an employee to transfer from one entity to another. This document below clarifies how to transfer an employee.
– Provided by Ammaarah Teladia –
Staff Bio
Meet Lenita Davidson
The wonderful, authentic and spirit of long endurance, Lenita Davidson is a payroll administrator for Paymaster for 13 years already and reports to the newly appointed manager Nafeesa. Her track record is a short, but devoted one in that Paymaster was the second company she ever worked for. She started her career life straight after school at a security company. Lenita completed a Microsoft office course on Microsoft Word and Excel at In Tuition college in 2005. She started as a protection officer and worked her way up in the control room, gaming floor, and a key custodian in Grand West casino. Lenita’s payroll experience started after she was employed in the admin office and was trained on the VIP payroll software. To explore other means of payroll and to get out of the security industry, she started working for Paymaster in September 2009. She acquired more VIP training, working with Beverly and Sheila in the then small Paymaster. While working for Paymaster, she got engaged, married and started a family of three.
In addition to being a payroll administrator, Lenita’s positive and chirpy personality contribute to the office culture. She is very family orientated and involved in charity schemes through her church, helping the needy and frail in any means possible.
New product features
Have you heard … WhatsaApp for Paymaster!
Opening a run post the 7th of a month
To date, customers have been restricted on the system to open their closed runs after the 7th of each month. The reason for this is that SARS payments are due on the 7th, and therefore changes to your payroll should no longer be made against the previous run. This control was put in place to ensure customers did not inadvertently change any figures that had already been declared to SARS. It became evident that there are valid reasons for a customer wanting to open a previous run.
From now on, customers can open their previous run during any time of the month without the need to contact support. The Payslip Pay Dates run screen has been enhanced to allow users to open a run in a closed state, after the 7th of a month. A new warning message will display on-screen to remind the user of the risk of the action being undertaken: “Please note that opening previously closed run could affect changes to your payroll data, are you sure you want to continue?”
Partnerships
Paymaster is excited to announce that we have partnered with earned wage access provider Floatpays! Our partnership with Floatpays is another way that Paymaster endeavors to deliver greater value to our clients.
As a Paymaster partner, Floatpays is already integrated into the Paymaster payroll system so set-up is quick and painless! Employers can manage wage access rules through the Employer Portal. Through our mobile app or USSD, your employees can easily and affordably access a portion of their earnings whenever they need it during a pay cycle and not have to wait until payday.
At Floatpays we strive to add value to our clients and prospective clients – whether that be through features on our platform, customer service or by providing you with insight into your workforce.
Floatpays is in the business of supporting employers to help their staff build financial wellness. One of the key dimensions of financial wellness is the reduction of financial stress.
Beyond the impact of financial stress on individuals, there is an impact on businesses – we know the common phrase “stress is the silent killer” but did you know it could be the silent killer of your business too?
In our latest blog post, we look at the ‘brain on debt’ and unpack the very real consequences of a financially stressed workforce on employers.
You can read all about it here: https://www.floatpays.co.za/post/money-on-their-minds-why-your-employees-cant-focus-and-how-you-can-help
Enjoy the read!
Monthly newsletter curated by Lezé Felton
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