If an employee is no longer working at your school, you may want to remove them from payroll in addition to inactivating their Playground account. Removing an employee from payroll means that they will no longer show in the payroll approval flow. You can still run off-cycle payrolls for inactive employees.

💡 A deactivated employee who has received pay will retain login access to the Playground's web platform. However, their access will be restricted to the payroll tab only. Additionally, clock-in hours for deactivated employees will not appear in the Payroll tab during payroll processing, potentially leading to missed payments for worked hours.

Deactivate an Employee from Payroll

If an employee is no longer receiving pay but needs to remain on Playground, you may want to deactivate them from payroll. If the employee is no longer working for you and should no longer have access to your school in Playground, please follow these steps instead. When deactivating, avoid deactivating their payroll status unless necessary to ensure any clock-in hours for their worked time are properly processed.

🚨 Employees removed from payroll will not show in your regularly scheduled pay runs. However, you can still run payroll for deactivated employees by creating an off-cycle payroll. It is important to verify that any clock-in hours for deactivated employees are accounted for before removing them, as these hours will not appear automatically in the payroll tab.

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to My School and then Staff.
Click on the employee you want to remove from payroll.
Click on the Settings tab of their employee profile and scroll down to the Staff Management section.
Click Deactivate Payroll, to remove the employee from payroll. Before proceeding, double-check the Payroll tab to ensure all clock-in hours for the employee have been accounted for, as these will not automatically appear after deactivation.

Terminate an Employee in Playground

When terminating an employee, we recommend disabling their account so they can no longer access your student data.

💡 Disabled employees will still be able to log into Playground to view their payroll information (historic paystubs and W2s) only.

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to My School and then Staff.
Click on the employee you want to remove from payroll.
Click on the Settings tab of their employee profile and scroll down to the Staff Management section.
Click Disable Staff next to Disable Staff Member and the Disable Staff window will appear.
Select the checkbox next to Deactivate Payroll for this Employee and then click Disable. The employee will no longer have access to your school's information in Playground, and they will be removed from your payroll flow. You can also choose to remove the from any group chats and archive any 1:1 chats they are in.
1. You can still pay this employee a termination payroll by processing an off-cycle payroll.

Set a Termination Date for an Employee

If you've terminated an employee or an employee has resigned, you may want to add their termination date to Playground for documentation.

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to My School and then Staff.
Click on the employee you want to remove from payroll.
Click on the Settings tab of their employee profile and scroll down to the Staff Management section.
Click Set Date next to Termination Date, and the Set Termination Date window will appear.
Select the employee's termination date and then click Save.

Accessing W-2 Forms for Terminated Employees

W-2 forms are generated for all staff each year and remain available in Playground, even if an employee has been disabled or terminated. You may need to access a copy for your records or provide one to a current or former staff member upon request. The steps below outline how to locate and download these tax documents.

Download W-2 Forms in Bulk

Admins can download all generated W-2 forms for a selected year in a single PDF file. This includes W-2s for all staff, whether they are active, disabled, or terminated. There are two ways to access W-2 forms.

Option 1: From Provider Paperwork

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Paperwork and then Provider Paperwork.
Click the Payroll tab.
Under Tax Documents, locate Form W-2 Copy D for the applicable year.
Click the three dots on the right side of the row.
Select View to download the file.

Option 2: From the Payroll Tab

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Payroll.
Click the Tax sub-tab.
Under Tax Documents, locate Form W-2 Copy D for the applicable year.
Click the three dots on the right side of the row.
Select View to download the file.

The downloaded file is a single PDF that includes all W-2s for that year in one document. Before sharing or distributing W-2s, review the file carefully. The forms are not separated by employee. If you need to send individual copies, you will need to split the PDF using a document editor, print and or screenshot specific pages, or otherwise separate the forms before issuing them.

Download a W-2 from an Individual Staff Profile

If you need to download a W-2 for a specific employee, you can access it directly from their staff profile.

From your Admin Dashboard, navigate to My School and then Staff.
Click on the staff member’s name to open their profile.
Click the Payroll tab.
Select the Tax documents sub-tab.
Locate the applicable Federal W-2 for the correct year.
Click the three dots on the right side of the row.
Select View to download the file.

This will download the individual W-2 for that specific staff member.

How Terminated Employees Receive Their W-2

W-2 forms are generated for eligible staff each year, including employees who have been terminated. If an employee has been terminated at the time W-2s are issued, their W-2 will be mailed to the address on file by default. If a staff member’s account has been disabled and or they have been deactivated from payroll, they can still log in to Playground to access their tax documents. Access is available only on the web platform.

To download their W-2, the staff member must:

Log in at app.tryplayground.com using a web browser.
1. If the staff's account is disabled, they will see a banner indicating that their account is restricted and that they should contact their administrator. This is normal and they will still be able to access their payroll information.
Navigate to the Payroll tab.
Go to the Tax documents tab.
Click the three dots next to the applicable Federal W-2.
Click the W-2 to download a digital copy.