Man charged S$300 for requesting payslips from former job

SINGAPORE: A Reddit user was surprised after he was made to pay for the past payslips he had requested from the Human Resources department at his former job, and he wondered if this is standard practice.

“Hi everyone, wondering if anyone here from HR could advise me on this,” wrote u/leuteriop on r/askSingapore on Friday (Sept 22). “Is it common for HR to charge $50 per month to process your past payslips? e.g records from Jan 2023 onwards. I was just shocked that in order to get my payslips for my BTO HFE application, I have to pay a total of $300.”

He went on to explain that he had only requested a PDF copy and admitted that the amount he was being charged was high for him. “Could it be because I have already left the company, hence the fee?”

At another firm where he used to work, he was told that he needed to wait at least two weeks for the payslips because preparing them was not a priority.

“They also made remarks via email about how I have the responsibility to get my pay lips while I was still with them – and not after the months have lapsed,” he added.

He went on to ask if former employees are not allowed to request their payslips after they leave a company and if doing so is merely a “favour” to them.

I am really confused because I need the payslips for legitimate reasons but I’m faced with such challenges.”

He added that the part-time positions he took on while he was still studying did not issue payslips to part-timers. At the time, he had no intention of applying for BTO; otherwise, he would have already asked for the payslips back then.

“By right they should provide you the payslip every single month without fail via email. And if they don’t you should have requested for your payslip while you’re still employed,” a Reddit user told him.

A commenter who used to work in HR wrote, “Under the Employment act, employee must issue payslips to all employees within 3 days of salary. If there is evidence this wasn’t done (e.g. No emails, you cannot access system etc) tell them that you will report them to MOM that they have violated the act.”

She added, “If they dare to charge you $50 per pay slip, have the guts to threaten reporting them to MOM… Your request is completely doable and will take less than five minutes to generate unless they don’t own computers or never prep your payslip in the first place).”

Another provided a link to the Ministry of Manpower website that the post author would find helpful.

Moreover, one commenter told him that charging S$50 per payslip is not a common practice. /TISG

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