Payroll error affects 55,000 EY US staff

Sky high inflation in the US and Europe is significantly affecting employees. Wages are not increasing at the same rate as inflation, and workers are struggling to afford even the most basic, essential goods.

Unfortunately, in this context, employers seem to be grappling with payroll challenges.

Last week, it emerged that a payroll error at UK supermarket chain Asda impacted more than 5,000 workers.

The issues saw these workers lose £500 from their wages, thereby forcing employees to rely on food banks and seek out payday loans to pay their bills.

The error has also impacted employees’ access to their benefits.

Asda shared in a statement: “It is imperative that our colleagues are paid correctly and on time and we are sorry this has not been the case for some of them.

“As soon as we were aware of this issue, we took action to ensure that nobody was left out of pocket. We are working closely with our payroll partner and have provided additional support to stores to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Inside payroll errors at EY US

But it isn’t just frontline workers that are being affected by payroll errors. Professional services giant Ernst & Young (EY) in the US experienced an issue where 55,000 employees found wages that were paid last week had disappeared from their bank accounts.

The error has been attributed to ADP, EY’s payroll provider. Talking about the issue, EY told the Financial Times that ADP “erroneously reversed EY’s 15 July payroll impacting our US employees”; the employer added that it was working with ADP to reverse the issue.

The main concern for employees was that they had incurred overdraft and other charges as a result of moving their wages out of their accounts between Friday (when they were paid) and Tuesday (when the money was revoked).

EY told the Financial Times: “Late fees, penalties or other charges [staff] may have incurred as a result of this error will be covered.”

ADP shared with UNLEASH that yesterday the error was resolved and “processing with our banking partners” was completed.

UNLEASH has reached out to EY US, but is yet to receive a response.

It is unclear why payroll issues are occurring at this point in time, but given the squeeze of the cost of living crisis, the errors couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Let’s hope that EY US and ADP can sort out these errors quickly; for other employers, now is the time to sure up your payroll process and avoid similar issues at your organization.

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