November 2023 bulletin

December Main Payroll deadline – Monday 4th

The December payroll deadlines will be as follows:

  • Casual payroll deadline: Friday 1st December
  • Main payroll deadline: Monday 4th December
  • Payday: Wednesday 20th December

All pay-related updates must be input and approved by the above deadlines. In December, the Payroll team cannot accommodate late requests due to the shorter processing period.  

Visit the Payroll deadlines and cycles page for information about the monthly payroll cycle, and all the upcoming payroll deadlines.

Visit the Payroll website 
 

 

News and updates

HR Systems, including Support, will close from 16:00 on Wednesday 20 December 2023 to 08:30 on Tuesday 2 January 2024, aligning with the UAS fixed-closure dates. 

Vacancy closing dates: Avoid closing vacancies between Thursday 21 December 2023 and Monday 1 January 2024, inclusive. If unavoidable, ensure your departmental contact details are clearly stated on the job advert and/or the job description, to assist applicants with any queries. 

Staff Requests: For pre-Christmas authorisation, submit roles requiring evaluation by Monday 11 December, and roles not requiring evaluation by Friday 15 December. Role evaluations will pause from Thursday 21 December 2023 and resume on Tuesday 2 January 2024, with a reduced service until Monday 8 January.

As you familiarise yourself with 'Onboarding', we'd like to remind you about the support sessions running until Christmas, to help with the transition and address any questions.

Since the launch, we've identified common queries and some issues:

Rehires: HR Self-Service accounts become immediately available to rehires (with prior access since summer 2018) upon their PeopleXD appointment commencement. Staff can log in once their SSO is active. Note that a 'Welcome' email may not always be sent in such cases. To ensure a smooth start, please inform your rehires about this in your new starter communications. We're reviewing our processes for improvements.

Academic teaching qualifications: All staff with teaching responsibilities have been presented with the 'Academic teaching qualification' task. We've added a message on the HR Self-Service login page to inform staff.

New appointments before 1 November 2023: A system bug is causing the checklist to appear for some staff with new appointments before 1 November. We have reported this to our supplier for investigation. If you encounter this and have already collected new starter details, you can mark the checklist as ‘completed’ on their behalf. This will prevent staff from receiving weekly auto-generated email reminders to complete their details. 

Reports: We continue to work with our supplier to resolve the issue with the missing data in the PERINS0 Completed checklists reports. Further updates will follow as progress is made.

Onboarding launch and paper payslip withdrawal for casual staff have highlighted data feed issues between the Card Office, IT and PeopleXD systems, causing HR Self-Service account creation delays.

This issue is particularly common with existing students who already have a University card and SSO. As such, there is no liaison with the Card Office when they're appointed in PeopleXD. Discussions with our colleagues in the Card Office and IT Services are ongoing to identify improvements. In the interim, when appointing existing University students, please contact hr.systems@admin.ox.ac.uk to request an HR Self-Service account. 

For all other staff groups, please allow approximately one working week for HR Self-Service account creation from their start date.

A revised PERDEP01 Home address and contact details report, with an extra column indicating whether an HR Self-Service account exists will be released in the week of 4 December.

We’re happy to share that a new online shortlisting and interview panel feature is undergoing a small-scale pilot. This feature allows interview panels to efficiently shortlist candidates online, and self-serve shortlisting documents, removing the need for off-system file sharing, including the generation of shortlisting packs.

All Recruitment Administrators will notice new Applicant Status options: 

  • ‘Sent to Shortlisting Panel’ - helps HR teams track applicants sent to panels for shortlisting. For those outside the pilot, the use of this status is optional.
  • ‘HR to reject after shortlisting’ - for interview panellists to instruct HR on next steps. Please ignore this if you're not in the pilot.
  • ‘HR to reject after interview’ – for interview panellists to instruct HR on next steps. Please ignore this if you're not in the pilot.

Additionally, a new ‘Interviews’ widget will appear in HR Self-Service, (under the Vacancies tab). This enables staff to access interview information, whether as a candidate or interview panel member.

  • Staff Requests pre-Christmas authorisation submission deadlines:
    • Roles requiring evaluation: Monday 11 December 2023
    • Roles not requiring evaluation: Friday 15 December 2023
  • Christmas closure for HR Systems Support: Thursday 21 December 2023 - Monday 1 January 2023, inclusive
  • HR Systems briefing: Thursday 25 January 2024

Reminders

HR Self-Service accounts are normally created within the new starter's first week. In some cases, SSO and email details do not synch to PeopleXD from the Card Office/IT systems, resulting in missed or delayed accounts. To help with the timely set up of HR Self-Service, run the PERDEP01 Home Address and Contact Details report at least monthly. This identifies those with missing SSO details, and therefore likely to be missing HR Self-Service accounts. Allow at least one week after the new starter's start date for them to appear on the report.

When in the report*:

  1. Filter on 'blank' in the Single Sign-On column.
  2. Complete the missing SSO and work email data.
  3. Delete personal and next of kin contact details columns and email the updated report to HR Systems Support.
  4. Upon receipt, we will create accounts for listed individuals, usually within one week.

*NB This report will be updated in the week of 4 December with an extra column indicating whether staff members have an HR Self-Service account. Once published, you'll need to filter on the blanks within the new column, in addition to the SSO one, to identify staff for whom you need to request an account. Only contact us if the following applies:

  • The SSO and HR Self-Service account columns are blank and the individual started more than one week ago. OR
  • The HR Self-Service account column is blank and the individual is not a recent new starter.

This approach eliminates the need for staff or you to follow up on account creation.

Please run the following reports monthly and clear errors as soon as possible:

The following guidance materials may also help you:

For reporting data queries, please email the HRIS Data Quality mailbox. Please include Employee/Applicant Numbers and Appointment/Vacancy Numbers.

Email the Data Quality mailbox

The Staff in Post, Turnover figures, Reasons for leaving and Recognition of Distinction dashboards of the Athena Staff Data workbook now include 2022/23 figures. The Athena SWAN recruitment data Tableau dashboards have also been updated for 2022/23. We are still updating the family leave related dashboards for 2022/23.

Where vacancies resulted in an appointment, only closed vacancies with complete applicant status history are included (ie Applied > Shortlisted > Offer Made – Personnel or Offer Accepted – Personnel). Any vacancies set to 'Appointment Made' where a mandatory stage of applicant status history is missing are not included. 

Continue running and clearing errors in the HRINFO21 report for 2022/23, to enhance data for Athena Swan applications in Tableau, and improve University recruitment monitoring data. This data will be refreshed in early 2024 for 2022/23.

Request access to the Athena Swan data in Tableau via the: User access process

For Athena Swan data queries email the: Athena Swan Staff Data mailbox

Please end casual appointments within the payroll period for the month in which they will last be paid. For example, where a casual worker's last working date was 21 October, process them as a leaver in the November payroll period by the casual payroll deadline, using their actual leaving date of 21 October.

For ending historical casual appointments, you must: 

  • Run the PERDEP50 casual worker last period paid report to check when the staff member was last paid. 
  • Use a leaving date within the financial year (ie 1 August – 31 July) within which they were last paid. For example, if their last payment was July 2022, record a leaving date between 1 August 2021 and 31 July 2022. 

Seek advice from your Payroll officer before ending an appointment with a leaving date that is more than five tax years before the current tax year. 

 

Since October 2023, payslips for casual workers are now issued online-only.

Casual staff with a Single Sign-On (SSO) and a work email will be given access to HR Self-Service. We encourage departments to request University cards (which triggers SSO/email creation) for casual staff expected to work for at least two pay periods. If this is not possible, please record an Online Payslip Exception UDF in PeopleXD, by the supplementary payroll deadline.

Note: casual staff engaged for a single pay period only (ie issued only one payslip) will receive a hard copy of their payslip at their home address. It's therefore crucial to end casual appointments promptly and in line with University guidance, so that Payroll know that the payment is both, first and final, for this individual.

 

Updated guidance

The following guides and reports have been updated: 

Guide/Report

Update 

Ending appointments

Moved to online version  
Create and approve staff requests  Guidance updated for advertising for multiple positions on one vacancy 
PERDEP01 Home address and contact details report Released w/c 4 December: this report will include a new column, indicating whether staff have an existing HR Self-Service account. Enables departments to easily identify when requests for account creation need to be raised to the HR Systems Support team.

 

 

Project updates

Workforce Management (Time Management)

We're pleased to update you that our project has now advanced to the 'definition' stage. This phase is pivotal in gathering the latest information from departments, allowing us to understand the current position, and assess the potential readiness for the adoption of new functionalities.

In the coming weeks, you can anticipate active engagement from our dedicated project team:

  • Anna Carter-Windle, Implementation Officer
  • Holly Kelsey, Business Change Manager
  • Ralph Watson, Business Analyst

We appreciate your support and contribution in these efforts.

Details of current, in-scope projects under the HR Systems Programme can be found on our dedicated webpage. This includes latest updates and timelines, where available. Note: These pages are under development and are updated regularly.

HR Systems Programme projects