COVID-19 Information

UPDATE: Updates for August 2021 Lockdown

The Wage Subsidy August 2021 will cover a two week period at the rate of:

• $600 a week for each full-time employee retained (20 hours a week or more)
• $359 a week for each part-time employee retained (less than 20 hours a week).

A Resurgence Support Payment (RSP) -  available if firms incur a loss of 30 percent of revenue as a result of the Alert Level increase. The RSP is worth up to $1500 plus $400 per full-time equivalent employee, up to a maximum of 50 full-time employees (so up to a total of $21,500). More info on https://www.ird.govt.nz/covid-19/business-and-organisations/employing-staff/financial-support/resurgence-support-payment

The Leave Support Scheme (LSS) - provides a two-week lump sum payment of either $585.80 per week for full-time workers, or $350 per week for part-time workers, who must self-isolate and cannot work from home.
More info on https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/covid-19/leave-support-scheme/who-can-get-it.html

The Short-Term Absence Payment (STAP) - provides a one-off (once per 30 days) $350 payment for workers who must miss work due to a COVID-19 test and cannot work from home.
More info on https://workandincome.govt.nz/covid-19/short-term-absence-payment/index.html

UPDATE: 7th April - Essential Workers Scheme & Public Holidays

In the last week we’ve seen rapid developments in the Government’s response to COVID-19. On Thursday the Government established an Essential Workers Leave Support scheme to ensure that essential workers who must stay at home to comply with public health guidance (and cannot work from home), continue to receive an income.

With Easter set to fall during the current Alert Level 4 lockdown period, the Government has allowed supermarkets to open on Easter Sunday. This is also a timely reminder for employers and employees to understand their obligations and rights when it comes to public holidays.

We’ve outlined below the latest information that employers should consider and what this means in terms of paying employees.

UPDATE: 1st April - Payment Scheme No Longer Available, Replaced with Wage Subsidy

On Friday the Government announced further modifications to the Wage Subsidy scheme to ensure employers retain employees during the national lockdown – you can find more information about how to apply here. The COVID-19 Leave Payment scheme is also no longer available for employers.
We’ve outlined in the attached PDF the changes you need to know about and provided additional information to clarify how to pay your employees.

The original scheme was designed when few people were in self-isolation, however this is no longer fit for purpose in the current Alert Level 4 environment. From 3pm 27 March 2020, the COVID-19 Leave payment is no longer available for employers to apply for – however any applications already submitted will continue to be processed and paid.
If you have received COVID-19 Leave Payments on behalf of your eligible employees, continue to follow the instructions provided in our last communications to you.

At this stage, there is no requirement to specifically record the Wage Subsidy in the payroll system. However, if you do wish to keep a record of this in DataPay, you can use the new COVID-19 components discussed in our previous communications (under the COVID-19 Leave Payment section) to achieve this.

UPDATE: 24th March - Using the Payment Scheme in DataPay + Wage Subsidy Overview

Last Tuesday’s announcement outlining the Government’s economic response package to support businesses and workers from the impact of COVID-19, includes the opportunity for employers to apply for the COVID-19 Leave Payment Scheme and the Wage Subsidy Scheme. This will no doubt be a welcome relief for businesses and employers during a time of rapid change and uncertainty.  

To assist with managing these payments we have created five new components within the payroll system:

• COVID-19 Leave (a paid leave type)
• COVID-19 UNPAID (an unpaid leave type)
• COVID-19 Payment (a taxable allowance)
• Sick Leave Taken - COVID-19 Top Up
• Annual Leave Taken - COVID-19 Top Up
  
  

The two Leave components and the Payment Allowance have been created and automatically added in to your Company Components list. The two Top Up components have been created however have not been added into your Company Components list. If you require the use of either of these you will first need to add them via the drop down menu on the right hand side of the Component Setup button, and clicking on "Select Leave Taken... " In the window that opens, simply move the required Top Up component from the left hand box to the right.

For information on how to correctly use these new components, please refer to the below document.

The information contained in this document is current at time of writing. Given the situation is rapidly evolving, we recommend referring to Business New Zealand so you can stay up to date as new information becomes available.

UPDATE: 24th March - Printed Payslips Service Suspended

Due to the current climate in relation to COVID-19 and New Zealand being placed on Level 4 alert effective tomorrow, we have been advised by our printing partner that payslips will no longer be printed until further notice.

For those of you already using our online and emailed payslip functionality this will have no effect on your operations, but companies who still have payslips printed each pay run will need to arrange alternative methods:

Emailed Payslips via Direct Access

Once enabled, employees would be able to receive a payslip via email, as well as view it online via both Direct Access and our mobile app MyPay.
However, in order to use this functionality you would need to create a User Account for each employee. Each employee is required to set a secure password for their User Account before they can receive emailed or online payslips.
The cost for this service is 75c per employee per month.
If you are interested in switching to emailed payslips, or simply would like more information please feel free to contact the Support Team.

Self Printing

The same Payslip report which is sent to our printing partner is available to be run via the Pay Run screen or included in your Final Distribution.Upon receiving it you would need to print the report and then distribute the Payslips to your employees.
The format will be slightly different, but for companies where online / emailed Payslips are not practical, this may be an option to consider. Please keep in mind however that this option is not as secure as emailed / online payslips as confidential information is being printed on A4 paper, so this will need to be managed accordingly.

UPDATE: 23rd March - Level 3 & 4

We are aware that the Government has announced that New Zealand will move to alert level 4 by midnight Wednesday. This change will not interrupt our service to you as all our people are already working from home. Therefore, please be assured it will be business as usual as we continue to focus on providing a seamless service for our customers.

UPDATE: 20th March - Government Payment Scheme Overview

The New Zealand Government has released a $12.1 billion economic response package to help cushion the global impact of COVID-19 and support the economy during the COVID-19 crisis. We’ve outlined in the below document what we believe are the key elements of the package that employers should know and where you can go for more information. 

Note: The information contained in this document is current at time of writing. Given the situation is rapidly evolving, we recommend referring to Business New Zealand so you can stay up to date as new information becomes available.

If you have applied and have been granted the COVID-19 Leave Payment and/or the Wage Subsidy, you may want to understand how to apply these payments to our payroll system. We will be providing a further update on this shortly.

UPDATE: 13th March - Preparation

With the COVID-19 outbreak at the front of many people’s minds right now, we would like to take the time to reassure you that as a company we are preparing to the best of our ability so as to minimise the impact to any service we provide you should the situation worsen.

Operational Readiness

At the moment, Datacom has seen no direct impact from COVID-19 but we are planning for any eventuality, including where staff are affected directly. We have introduced a pandemic policy and plan that enables us to respond to the outbreak as needed.

The Datacom pandemic policy has clear steps to be followed in the event of an escalation – currently Datacom is at Level 1 which requires us to prepare for impact on business but does not require any evacuation of office space or for staff to work remotely.

As you would expect from a technology company, Datacom is well placed to ensure staff can work remotely. All staff are equipped with laptops and can remotely connect with our servers to ensure continuity of service whether they are working in a Datacom office or remotely.
All Datacom Payroll staff have worked remotely in the last week to test our preparedness.

Visitors

Datacom is rolling out new procedures for visitors to our offices. Those who are visibly unwell will be asked not to enter the building and instead to call in for any meetings. All visitors will be asked about recent international travel and those who have travelled to high-risk countries in the past 14 days will be asked to use alternative methods (video calling etc) for any meetings