If your labour turnover rate is high, it’s a red flag that can indicate an unhappy workforce.  This means tracking your labour turnover rate can be essential to your business’ wellbeing.  But it doesn’t stop there. You need to understand the why behind your labour turnover rate; you must get effective feedback as well as make accurate calculations.   Consider this article a fast-track guide to collecting both.  First, what is the labour turnover rate?  The labour turnover rate is a percentage figure. It shows the frequency at which people have exited your business ..read more

Annual leave – also referred to as holiday entitlement or statutory leave entitlement – is a specific period of paid time off granted to employees. However, leave entitlement can vary based on organisation, industry and job type. Calculating allowances can get tricky for certain types of workers, especially those on flexible working conditions or part-time. In the UK, annual leave is a legal requirement, and a worker’s entitlement is calculated on a pro-rata basis. This means employees who work part time, start or leave a job during the year will receive the same rate of annual leave as full-t ..read more

All employees including part-time workers are entitled to annual leave, and the amount they can take often comes down to their employment contract. Annual leave gives employees time off work and is a vital element in a healthy work environment. For companies across the UK, there is also a legal obligation to offer a minimum of 20 days to workers. Many choose to offer more and the companies that value the importance of annual leave often benefit from a happier, more productive, and more engaged workforce. This article will explore the intricacies of annual leave for part-time workers and how y ..read more

Between June to December of 2022, 61 companies across the UK trialled the four-day working week. As a result, 92% of the employers that took part decided to continue the arrangement, leaving only five companies reverting to the five-day week. With such high success rates, many businesses across the UK have the bug to introduce the four-day workweek for employees. Before your business reviews the adoption of a four-day working week, there are a few things you need to know. What is the four-day working week? As a concept, it’s self-explanatory; businesses shift their operations from five days to ..read more

As of April 2025, if not sooner, certain areas of the UK will be seeing the Neonatal Care Leave Act taking effect. It aims to offer parents of sick or premature newborns extra support and time with their child instead of heading to work. Both sets of parents could receive up to 12 weeks of additional leave to care for and visit their newborn baby. This could hugely impact fathers too who normally receive two weeks of paid paternity leave. However, this bill will also affect employers. With changes likely in April 2025, businesses will need to ensure they are well-equipped to embrace this new L ..read more

When it comes to cloud-powered HR, payroll and bureau software, making the right choice is everything. Many are making this decision right now – perhaps because they hear 4 in every 5 HR teams have saved money using cloud tech, and nearly 9 in 10 think such software delivers greater control. But, despite the hype, you can still choose the wrong cloud software for your business. Picking the wrong software can be a costly mistake if it needs replacing, inefficient if it’s clunky and risky if it doesn’t link to other solutions. That’s why IRIS has Staffology: an efficient, cloud-native platform t ..read more

Fran Williams, Senior Product Director at IRIS, is on a mission. He and his team are taking the company’s four decades of payroll success and channelling it into the latest apps and services. This is no small task! When Fran joined IRIS, he was given oversight of 25 different software and service lines, ranging from 40-year-old heritage products to present-day solutions. With its acquisition announced at the beginning of 2021, it was decided Staffology Payroll would take the lead in this consolidation project. By then, Staffology Payroll had already established itself as the first cloud payrol ..read more

If you walk through any IRIS office, you soon spot those taking their first step on the career ladder, complemented by a host of entrepreneurs, innovators and creatives. The latter bring decades of market-tested innovation and industry insight – some were even personalities in their own right before becoming part of IRIS. Duane Jackson is one of these people. He was a Twitter “blue tick” long before you could buy one. The serial entrepreneur first became a major name in financial software after making KashFlow, the first Software as a Service (SaaS) accounting solution in the UK, which he late ..read more

On payslips, P45s, P60s and in payroll software, there is a row with YTD on. If you’re unfamiliar with payroll, then you might be wondering what YTD means, and how you use it? Year-to-date is commonly used to report and measure a total across a year. It can be used for analysing total spends or particular business trends, which can be helpful when comparing figures with competitors. Likewise, it can be an effective tool for measuring earnings. What does YTD mean in payroll? YTD stands for Year-To-Date. It’s the total paid to an employee, often broken down into basic pay, plus any benefits or p ..read more

A staff handbook should define an employer’s policies and procedures, what is expected of their employees, and what they expect of their employer. Staff handbooks are not a legal requirement in the UK, but they can be efficient tools. Companies may write staff handbooks when they have scaled in size and want their policies and codes of conduct to be fully visible for all employees. Doing so can help streamline the onboarding process of new employees and protect a business in the aftermath of an employment claim. Along with a contract of employment, it is recommended that all new staff members ..read more