Lesson 2 — The 85% is a percentage of wages, not of workers
This is the central idea of the course. If you take one thing away, take this one.
Article 2(1). An establishment is deemed compliant with its wage payment obligations where, no later than the due date, it transfers no less than 85% of the total wages due to its workers. The unit of measurement is money. It is not headcount, and the gap between the two is where establishments get caught. Source: MR 340/2026 Art. 2(1).
The module states it in the plainest terms available. The ratio is wages transferred by the due date over total wages due, and it is a monetary ratio: "ninety per cent of your workers paid on time is not ninety per cent compliance — if the unpaid tenth is your most expensive people, you can be badly in breach while almost everyone was paid."
The worked example. Take an establishment with 10 workers and a monthly wage bill of AED 250,000.
| Role | Workers | Wage each | Total wage due |
|---|---|---|---|
| General manager | 1 | AED 60,000 | AED 60,000 |
| Operations manager | 1 | AED 40,000 | AED 40,000 |
| Technicians | 8 | AED 18,750 | AED 150,000 |
| Total | 10 | AED 250,000 |
Now pay 9 of the 10 on time and miss one. Headcount compliance is 90% in both of the cases below. Monetary compliance is not.
| Who was missed | Wages transferred | Article 2(1) ratio | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| One technician | AED 231,250 | 92.5% | Compliant |
| General manager | AED 190,000 | 76.0% | Non-compliant |
Same number of workers paid, same payroll, a swing of 16.5 percentage points in the only ratio the resolution measures — decided entirely by whose wage was missed. Nothing in the establishment changed except the identity of one unpaid person.
The practical consequence. When cash is short and payments have to be sequenced, the order that protects your compliance ratio is not the order that protects the largest number of people, and you should know which one you are choosing. This course does not tell you to prefer the ratio: Article 2 opens "without prejudice to the workers' right to their full entitled wages", and every worker is owed all of it. It tells you not to make that choice by accident.
In Odoone. The company carries two thresholds, both defaulting to the statutory 85% and both configurable. They are two different tests that happen to share a figure — the establishment ratio in this lesson, and the per-worker test in Lesson 3. Changing one does not change the other.
The failure mode. A payroll dashboard reporting "9 of 10 paid" is answering a question the resolution never asked. Before you report compliance to a board, a lender or an auditor, confirm that the number you are quoting is a money ratio and not a headcount.