PATERNITY LEAVE

Some companies have decided to create a paid paternity leave benefit for their employees, seeing it as a good investment in the workforce. “It helps with retention and to build loyalty to the firm,” says Maryella Gockel, flexibility strategy leader at accounting and advisory firm Ernst & Young.

Ernst recently boosted its paid paternity leave from two weeks to six. “Some men take two weeks when the baby is born, then another four weeks when mom goes back to work,” says Gockel.

Another Big Four firm, KPMG, offers two weeks of paid leave to fathers of new children. “We’ve had an incredible take-up on this benefit,” says Barbara Wankoff, national director of workplace solutions. “Eighty-five percent of eligible dads take paternity leave; the rate was 30 percent in the program’s first year,” which was 2002.

Paid Leave Doesn’t Always Equal a Free Lunch

So how does the work get done when fathers go on leave? When employees are exempt from overtime pay, companies are less likely to hire temporary replacements. “We had four dads in the same office all expecting, and they covered for each other,” Wankoff says.

And many white-collar workers can’t or don’t entirely let go of their professional responsibilities when they’re home rocking the baby to sleep and changing diapers. Whether and how much working fathers continue to labor while on leave “varies per person and according to circumstances,” says Gockel. “If you’re in the middle of a big (business) deal, the transition to leave may take longer.”

Why are Salaries treated like state secrets?

It’s a golden rule in most Kenyan businesses that salaries must be kept secret. Except for a few heretics it is almost universally accepted that mayhem would ensue in the workplace if people knew what their co-workers, their managers or – gasp – the CEO was making.

Making salaries open inside a company instead seems like a wild idea sure, but it makes a lot of sense and
brings advantages for both the workplace and for its people. Read on to see why.

The case against secret salaries

There are three major reasons why secret salaries are silly:

• It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) can’t be addressed directly.
• They’re not secret anyway. People talk, you know.
• It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization

Let’s look at each of these.

If Kimani over in Accounting is making twice a month than I am and the CEO is making 22 times what I’m making, then hopefully there’s a good reason for it – one that I as an employee am entitled to know and capable of understanding. So why are salaries treated as state secrets?

The main reason may precisely be that they’re not currently fair and therefore making them open seems dangerous to many workplaces. Maybe Kimani is making more than me, not because he does a better job, but because he drives a harder bargain when it comes time to negotiate salaries. Or sucks up to the boss. Or has some pictures from the last christmas office party showing the Director of Finance and an intern in… never mind. That doesn’t seem fair, does it? We can all agree, I think, that it makes much more sense to determine salaries based on people’s value to the company.

I have worked at two different companies where salaries were secret and guess what: They weren’t. Most people knew what most others were getting. In one company I consulted for, the IT department had even found the Excel spreadsheets HR kept the salaries in. They knew what everyone was getting.

And here’s the problem: If Kimani’s salary is (unfairly) higher than mine, and secret, I can’t complain to my manager about it because I can’t admit that I know about it. When a company sets up a situation where people can see the unfairness but can’t address it directly, or even discuss it openly, they’re rigging the system for maximum frustration.

Companies must attempt to pay their people as fairly as possible. You might think a company should try to pay people as little as possible, but companies who subscribe to that philosophy must be prepared to steadily lose all their good employees to competitors willing to pay people what they’re worth. A company must attempt to pay each employee a fair salary, ie. one that matches the employee’s skills, the market average and other employees inside the company. In other words, the company itself has a vested interest in keeping salaries fair, and keeping salaries secret makes that nearly impossible.

The case for open salaries

I believe on a very fundamental level that openness is better than secrecy, in life and in business. I’m not naïve enough to share all information all the time, but my chosen approach is “Let’s make everything open by default and only make those things secret that absolutely need to be”.

KRA Returns And Your Salary

KRA Returns And Your Salary.

Kenya Revenue Authority issues guideline on this years filing tax returns.

You don't need to file your tax returns if your only source of income is your salary and if you are certain that your employer has been remitting the correct taxes to the Revenue authority.

KRA however says those earning an income other than from employment, holding more than one job, or seeking refund of taxes must file their returns.

Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta had recommended that employers file tax returns on behalf of their workers to avoid duplication.

Fringe Benefit Tax

Aren Payroll automatically calculates the Fringe Benefit Tax in cases of loans given to employees which are below the market interest rate. The user is required to post the market interest rate, which is published in the press every quarter by the Kenya Revenue Authority, and the software uses this rate to calculate the amount of tax owed. The user is thus presented with a report showing the opening balance of the loan, the fringe benefit value and the eventual tax.

New Release of Aren Payroll

Aren Software Ltd has just released the new version of the payroll program. The new version, 5.0, has additional features such as:
1. Payslip Messages: this feature allows the user to put up a message for a particular group of employees e.g. Happy New Year, Merry Christmas etc.
2. Employee Photos: employees can now have their photos uploaded onto the payroll file and this makes it easier for the user to identify the employees easily.
3. Next of Kin/Dependants: the employer can now have a record of the employees' next of kin and dependants details which are most useful in cases of emergency.

These are just a few of the wonderful features included in the new program. We are currently gearing up to upgrade our long-term clients to the new program as well as installing it for our new clients.

Deadline for Submission of Annual Returns

The deadline for the filing of annual returns (Forms P10, P10A, P9A, P10B, P11) has been extended to 31 March 2011. This was announced in the press (Standard newspaper 24/2/2011) and employers are to file their returns at the station where their PIN base is domiciled. Do make sure that you are on time!

Have you submitted your Annual Returns

Have you filed your Annual Returns? If you haven't then you better start moving. As the deadline for the annual returns draws nearer you may be telling yourself that you will do it on the last day. Monday the 28th is the last day for submitting the P10 otherwise known as the Employer's certificate. This should be submitted together with the P10A (the PAYE supporting list) as well as the P9As (The Income Tax Deduction card) for each of the employees. Remember that these returns are all for the year 2010. You will also need to make copies of all the P11 (Credit Slips) for each month of the Year 2010 and attach these to the P10. All these must be submitted before 28th February 2011. Good luck and do not procrastinate.