New appointments for new and existing staff (not for online applicants) - Pre-appointing guidance

Where an individual's application to work beyond their 'Employer Justified Retirement Age' (EJRA) is approved, the individual must be appointed into a new, fixed-term appointment in PeopleXD. Follow the appointing steps in this guide.

Details of the request and the approval must be recorded in the EJRA UDF.

The previous appointment must be ended - follow the guidance on ending appointments.

Before commencing the engagement, please familiarise yourself with guidance on PSCs on the Payroll webpages. Where appropriate, PSC contractors should be paid via University's payroll, and have a non-employee record created in PeopleXD.

There are three groups of Marie Curie staff:

1. Marie Curie Fellows (MCF):
   • Post-docs paid against a spot salary, on grade MCF
   • Employed for a minimum of three, maximum of 24 months.
2. Marie Curie Researchers (MCR): 
   • Early career researchers, post-graduate without a DPhil
   • Paid against a spot salary, on grade MCR
   • Employed for a minimum of three, maximum of 36 months.
3. Marie Curie Students (MCS early career researcher/student):
   • Normally, three-year studentships with worker status.
   • Non-employees, but have some employment rights.
   • Receive a Student Living Allowance and possibly, other Marie Curie allowances.
   • To request a post for them, do not use the staff request process. Instead, email HR Systems with the required details and they will create the post for you:
     • Expected Start Date
     • Expected End Date
     • Department and Pay Administered by (usually the department)
     • Location
     • Default cost centre for the department (cost allocations can be added later)
     • Hours to be worked
     • Whether a vacancy is required

Approvals may need to be sought before agreeing overseas working arrangements with the individual. Read the University’s overseas working policy for full details.

Details of any approved overseas working arrangements must be recorded in the Overseas working UDF, in PeopleXD.

Secondments within the University

• Always set up secondments as an additional appointment, keeping the original appointment active. Both the 'seconding' and original departments need to take action in the system.
• If the secondment is in a different department, HR Administrators from both departments should finalise details off-system before updating in People Management.
• If the individual has Manager Self-Service access, remove it during the secondment; raise a Service Request for this and reinstate upon their return.
• If a secondment becomes permanent, this will need to be represented as a 'transfer' or a 'contract replacement' (within the same department) in the system. Follow the steps in this guide.

System guidance:

1. To create a new secondment appointment, refer to 'Create additional appointment' section in this guide and follow the steps from that point onward.

2. To amend the previous appointment, follow the guidance here.

Secondments outside the University

• For secondments to external organisations, amend their current appointment, following the guidance here.

Appointing someone as an 'underfill'

In certain circumstances new starters (in grades 1-10) may be appointed on one grade lower than the substantive post grade. Check the HR Support website for guidance on this.

IMPORTANT - Once you have the candidate who is to be appointed at the lower grade, email the Reward Team with a request to update the planned appointment to the lower grade. You will be notified by email when it is done, and you can proceed with appointing at the new lower grade. Ensure that the contract of employment issued to the employee states the correct grade.

Follow this appointing guide carefully, which includes notes specific to underfills.

Promoting to substantive grade

Once the employee can be ‘promoted’ to the substantive grade, raise a staff request to set up a new planned appointment at the higher grade. Follow the Create and approve staff request guide. Then proceed to appoint the employee into a new appointment following the replace an existing appointment part of this guide.

When an application for a regrade is submitted to the Reward team, this must be accompanied by a staff request being raised. Once an employee’s grade of the post has been reviewed and regraded, a new appointment must be set up. 

System Guidance: To create the new appointment, refer to 'Replace existing appointment in a department you can access' section in this guide and follow the steps from that point onward. The start date should always be the first day of the month in which the regrading application was received by the Reward team. 

NB: Where appropriate, departments may make a non-pensionable lump sum payment to compensate staff for working at a higher grade. This lump sum can equate to the value of the difference in salary for up to 12 months. Please communicate this to Payroll via the Salary Comments field. This will show on your payroll costing report against the pay element ‘regrading’.