Stats NZ have redesigned the way NZ have redesigned the way information is collected for their Quarterly their Quarterly Employment Survey (QES). As such, the previous QES report accessed via Pay Run > Standard Reports is no longer fit for purpose. To help you complete the new Stats complete the new Stats NZ QES, we’ve made we’ve made a Report Builder template - however due to the changes request by Stats NZ you will need to customise the report.
We’ve provided some detailed We’ve provided some detailed information below on what these changes are and changes are and what you need to do.
What is the Stats NZ Quarterly the Stats NZ Quarterly Employment Survey?
The QES is a sample survey of economically The QES is a sample survey of economically significant businesses in New Zealand. It is designed to designed to measure employment levels, the the average pre-tax earnings and the hours and the hours worked by paid employeespaid employees. Results from the survey provide a valuable guide to the labour market and general economic conditions within New Zealand.
How is the data collected?
Each quarter, businesses from a range of industries and locations are industries and locations are surveyed. Each business is Each business is asked to provide details of the number of its full and part-time employees, and the and the hours and earnings of those employees categorised employees categorised by gender. The reference period is the pay period ending pay period ending on or immediately before the 20th of immediately before the 20th of the middle month of each quarter iof each quarter i.e. 20 February, 20 May, 20 August and 20 November.
More information about the Stats NZ QES can be found here.
Items to note
Employment information is collected at payroll or business level, rather than at location level (except for employee counts).
A ‘Payroll’ for a business may be defined as payrolls of different frequencies (or pay groups) within a business. For example, you might have a weekly pay group for waged employees, a fortnightly pay group for office-based salaried employees, and a monthly pay group for salaried management staff. This would be considered as three separate “payrolls”
The good news is that there is flexibility for surveyed businesses to respond in a way that makes the most sense according to how you pay your employees. What is important is that all employees are covered within the overall response.
Information for ordinary earnings should not include, bonuses, commissions or any other payments for the pay period e.g. backpay, redundancy, severance pay, retirement. Instead, there will be separate questions within the QES to record this information for these payments.
Employment information collected for “another gender” - Stats NZ expect this category to be used for persons who do not identify as either male or female and has identified themselves as “Gender Diverse” on DataPay.
What do these changes mean for me?
To help you generate the data required to complete the Stats NZ QES accurately, we’ve created a template QES report using Report Builder.
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The template QES report contains the core information required to help you complete the questionnaire. However, as each company may treat components differently, you will need to customise the report based on the set up of your company. You only need to do this once.
Setting up your customised QES report
Step 1: Open the template QES report in Report Builder. If the If the report is not visible to you, contact the Support Team to get it assigned to your company.
Once assigned to your company, the report will show up in the 'Reports' section instead of 'Templates'.
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The template report should look like this:
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Step 2: Use the ‘Save As’ option under the Reporting tab to Step 2: Use the ‘Save As’ option under the Reporting tab to save the template QES report at company report at company level.
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Step 3: Change the ‘Search Type’ to be ‘By Pay Run’. Select a Pay Group and select the Pay Run period that is required.
Once the Template is completed – moving forward you will just need to select the ‘Pay Run’ and Pay Group that you requiring to report on)
Step 4: Determine if your company has allowances that would be classified as a bonus or a commission. If so under the ‘Entities’, click on ‘Attribute Fields’, search for ‘Group A Allowances’. Drag this field into your ‘Design view as a new column after the ‘Total Earnings column.
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Step 5: : Right click on the newly added column ‘Group A Allowances’, go into Properties and Rename the ‘Display Name’ to ‘Bonus & Commissions’. Right click on this column again, select ‘Attribute properties'. Switch to ‘Specified components’ and select the allowances that need to be included in ‘Bonus and Commissions’.
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Step 6: Repeat steps 3 - 6 for components classified as 'other allowances' e.g., backpay, redundancy, severance pay, and retirement pay. But rename this to ‘Other Payments. It is quicker if you pull over all the allowances in bulk and then moving back the ones that have already been selected in the Bonus and Commission Column:
Click on ‘Specified components’
Highlighting the first allowance, scroll down to the bottom and using ‘Shift/click’ to highlight all the allowances and move them to the right.
Move back the Components to the left-hand side that you had pulled over in Step 3.
Step 7: Add a column after the ‘Other Allowances’, call it ‘Total Gross Earnings'. In the expression: Total Earnings + Bonus and Commissions + Other Allowances. Format to 2 decimal places
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Step 8: Run the report and check it off against the Company Controls Report for that Pay Run to ensure that the figures balance. (Ideally run it for a pay period that has allowances and/or bonus payments) If it does not balance – you will need to investigate to see what components are reporting incorrectly or not picked up. Once report balances – Save the report. The Template process has now been completed.
You now have your your own customised version of the QES report which you can run each time you are required to complete a QES.
Note: you will need to remember to add any new payments e
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you will need to remember to add any new payments e.g. new |
bonuses to the QES |
report in future, where applicable. |
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