Government of the Northwest Territories’ staff are paid on a biweekly schedule.
Several types of employees are paid through the PeopleSoft HRIS and are categorized into three main groups: casual employees, permanent employees, and teachers.
Casual Employees: employees hired for short periods of time-not in positions, recipients of Contract/Honoraria payments, pages for the Legislative Assembly, and substitute teachers, to name a few examples, are paid on a one week delay in pay.
Permanent employees: employees hired into term and indeterminate positions are paid on a one week delay in pay.
Teachers: indeterminate and term teachers are paid on a one week delay in pay, with the pay for the school year spread across a full year (August to July). For a detailed explanation of how teachers’ salaries are calculated:
Frequently used documents, including payroll calendars, forms, and HRIS information can be found on the Department of Finance website.
The Pay Cycle
The GNWT runs payroll every two weeks. Employees are paid every second Friday. You can see a calendar of pay dates and pay periods on the GNWT Pay Schedule located at MY HR; https://my.hr.gov.nt.ca/employees/pay
Pay is produced with a one-week delay, which allows for your time and leave entries to be made before pay is produced.
Employees enter their hours on time sheet in HRIS. Time-approvers will verify and approve the hours. See the Time Entry/Approval cut-off schedule located at MY HR https://my.hr.gov.nt.ca/employees/pay
Employees can view their pay slips online through HRIS Self-Service on the Tuesday morning prior to Friday pay days. (This day shifts if there is an early cut off).
Your Role in the Pay Cycle
- Employees must ensure they enter their time prior to the cut off posted for Time Entry.
- Time Approvers must ensure they review the time being entered and approve the appropriate entries prior to the cut off times posted for Approval Cut offs.
Best practice is to enter time throughout the pay-period, it does not have to wait until cut-off day. Time Approver should review and approve entries daily. This practice will reduce the number of entries needed to review on cut-off day and assist with accurate pay cheques.
Exception Time Reporter versus Positive Time Reporter
There are two different types of time reporters: Exception Time Reporters and Positive Time Reporters.
Exception Time Reporter: an employee who has a set schedule already assigned in the system. The system will generate their regular hours every two weeks. The only time reported are exceptions to the regular hours worked or replacement of regular hours – such as overtime, sick leave, annual leave, lieu time, or regular time worked on a partial day.
Positive Time Reporter: an employee that has no set schedule, or has no schedule assigned to them in the system. All time must be reported, including regular time, overtime and leave. This includes most shift workers and relief workers.
Visit https://my.hr.gov.nt.ca/employee-services - HRIS User Manuals for information on how to make entries/approvals on the timesheet and more.
What to do if your pay looks wrong?
- Check your time sheet:
- Did you entered all your hours to be paid, or exceptions to your scheduled hours?
- Did you enter your hours prior to the posted cut-off time?
- Did you have hours from a previous pay period? Time entered/approved after the posted cut off will process through to the next pay run. These hours will add to the current hours and display together in the Earnings section of the pay slip.
- Are all your hours approved?
- Did your time approver complete the approvals prior to the cut-off? On timesheet, you can view the approval time by clicking on the Reported Status in the lower section of the time sheet. Each time entry will be listed and will have a Reported Status next to it.
Time that is entered/approved after the posted cut-off times will be picked up and processed in the next pay run.
If after reviewing your time sheet and pay cheque, you still have questions please send an email to the HR Help Desk at hrhelpdesk@gov.nt.ca outlining your issues. In your email, ensure the subject line is clear – such as “Pay cheque questions”. Include your name, Employee ID and the questions you would like answered. Payroll will work to get a solution to you as quickly as possible.