Anything I can do?

Liam McPoyle

Hi all.

I recently changed jobs.

My last job was a basic salary and target based commission.

In my last full month in the job I hit all required targets and as I was finishing mid December,it was agreed by my manager to pay me for the sales I'd made up to my finishing day in December.

I got paid December 21st last and it turns out that I wasn't paid even close to what I was entitled to,by my calculations I'm down in the region of €600 or so.

I emailed my team leader that day,and last Thursday as well but have gotten no response.

I also emailed the acting CEO,that I had a good relationship with,yesterday but as yet I've not heard anything from him either.

Basically my question is,what,if any,are my options should this not be resolved amicably?

Obviously I'd much rather come to an agreement to get it sorted but I'm not hopeful given the companies behaviour that I know of from the past however I'm not willing to let this lie and will explore every option possible if needs be.

Any advice?

Gloomtastic!

Email them again and state you will be in the area on x day and will call round to collect your money. Give them a couple of days notice.

On the day, call over and do not leave until you have your cheque. They won't want a fuss and will pay you.

Good luck but don't back down!!!

tatli_lokma

Rather than do what is suggested above, I would start out a bit more diplomatically. You say you have a good relationship with the acting CEO so I don't think it is a good idea to sour this relationship unless absolutely necessary. There is also a possibility that the issue is due to an admin error - such as payroll not being given notice of your commission in time. Or your manager may have passed your email on to payroll and is expecting them to contact you. So, my advice is first off, contact payroll and ask if there was an error on your final payrun or if there is any money still to be paid to you in the next run. BTW - have you actualy seen your payslip for this payment yet? is there any possibility that the nett amount is less than you expected due to tax? or holidays taken which had not yet been accrued and needed to be deducted? If you have not yet seen a payslip, ask payroll to get one to you ASAP and ask them for a breakdown of the payments and deductions over the phone, so that you can be certain that you have indeed been underpaid. If after speaking with payroll it comes about that no commission payment was advised to them and that as far as they are concerned you have been paid in full what you are owed, at that point you can take it further.

So you then send a further email to the effect of:

Good afternoon XXXX

Further to my earlier email, I am now contacting you again requesting an update on my unpaid commission for December. It was agreed with <managers name> that upon completion of my notice period, I would receive payment for all sales made up to that date. I refer you to the attached email which confirms this (Was the agreement from your manager to pay you for sales in writing? if so, include this here, if it was only verbal say instead 'this discussion took place <date> <location>' and hope that your manager backs you up about this).

To date I have not yet received payment as agreed. I have contacted payroll and they have advised that they were not instructed to pay me commission on these sales, so the underpayment does not appear to be due to an error on the part of payroll. Possibly it is due to an oversight regarding sending on notice of my commission. I am sure that it is some due to some small error and can be resolved easily enough.

I calculate the amount owed to me to be in the region of €600 gross (if you can provide detailed calculations here do so - the more factual your information is the better, such as X many sales @ X% commission or whatever).

Whilst I am sure that the underpayment is simply due to an oversight, I must advise you that if payment of my outstanding wages is not resolved by X date (give say 10 working days) I am afraid I will have no option but to make a claim under the provisions of the Payment of Wages Act 1991. To date I have had a very positive experience in working for X company and so I would much prefer not to have to go down this route. However I am sure you can appreciate that an underpayment of €600 is a substantial one and therefore I feel it is not something I can overlook.

I would very much appreciate your assistance in this matter and I look forward to resolving the issue quickly and amicably.

kind regards
Necronos

Send the email to the acting CEO and also HR/payroll (if you don't have their email try to get it).

and then if that doesn't work or you don't get a reply, then we can start thinking about possibly adopting a more heavy handed approach.

Liam McPoyle

That's great,thanks a million.

I spoke with the finance manager the day I got my pay slip and she told me that my then team leader,then the line manager sign off on the commission so it wasn't an error on their,pay rolls,end.

I'm going to do nowt til close of business Friday and if I haven't heard anything I will copy the email above.

Thanks again and I will let ye know how I fare out.