October 2024 bulletin

News and updates

Details of upcoming Main and Casual payroll deadlines can be found on the Payroll website.   

Visit the Payroll deadlines and cycles page to learn more about the monthly payroll cycle, including the key monthly payroll dates for People Management users. 

Visit the Payroll website

Please click the links below to download the invites as a calendar reminder for the upcoming payroll deadlines and ‘no user input’ days:

We’re pleased to announce that the team successfully met the first HESA staff return submission milestone. The improvements made in our data quality this year enabled us to meet this deadline a day ahead of schedule. 

After completing a period of data assurance, the second milestone was also achieved two days ahead of the deadline. The team is now focused on meeting the final deadline in November.

We would like to thank colleagues in departments who helped us achieve this with their much improved data quality and timely responses to our recent queries.

Following this month's HR Policy Newsletter on the legislative changes to holiday pay for casual teachers and student ambassadors, please refer to the updated PeopleXD guidance in the Create a new casual appointment guide. A new allowance for rolled-up holiday pay has been created in PeopleXD, which must be added to all appointments where the Letter of Engagement/Teaching Contract for Services was issued on or after 1 June 2024. Any hours processed from November payroll onwards will have rolled-up holiday pay processed for those with the allowance added. This allowance ensures rolled-up holiday pay is paid automatically and is displayed as a separate line on payslips.

  • 24 October 10:00-11:00 - HR Systems briefing (invite sent)
  • 18 November - VC sign-off for HESA staff return 2024 submission

Reminders

As communicated on 11 September 2024, a new Researcher Pay Scale was introduced in PeopleXD at the end of September. Existing employees on Standard University Grades 6-10, whose roles are primarily research-focused (ie classified under the 'AR - Research Fellow' and 'AP - Research Staff' sub-categories in PeopleXD), were migrated to the new scale on 27 September. This new pay scale is marked with 'RS' after the grade (eg 06RS).

It is essential that all research staff in this category are assigned the corresponding researcher grade and not the standard grade (eg 06S). Currently, 150 appointments that should be on the researcher grade are incorrectly assigned the standard grade. Please note that you do not need to raise a new staff request to change the grade; this can be processed as a correction directly on the appointment.

We have now released the 2024-25 versions of the HRINFO data quality reports. Please run these suites of reports monthly and clear any errors in a timely manner to ensure robust data quality and avoid the need for any backdated data cleansing exercises.

For guidance on clearing errors visit our Data quality clearing errors page

It’s been a year since we transitioned to online-only payslips for casual staff. We want to remind you that the 'Online Payslip Exception UDF' should only be used in rare cases, primarily for staff who are unable to access HR Self-Service. 

Note: We've seen an increase in requests for staff who already have HR Self-Service access. Before creating the 'Online Payslip Exception UDF', please check that the staff member doesn't already have an account, or SSO (as it's often assumed casual staff don't have SSOs and therefore can't be set up with an account). You can verify this by running the PERDEP01 Home address and contact details report. 

Project updates

The Career Development for Researchers project team will engage with departments during Michaelmas Term 2024, to discuss the rollout of Career Development Reviews (CDRs) and Professional Development Time logging functionality within PeopleXD, developed with support from the Researcher Hub. The new feature, called ‘My Development’, will allow researchers to log their CDRs and Professional Development in Employee Self-Service. 

The rollout will happen in waves across the University throughout this academic year. For further details please visit our new overview webpage outlining the project scope, key activities and FAQs, at HR Systems Programme projects | HR Systems (ox.ac.uk)

The project team are also developing training, guidance and communication toolkits and engaging with representative departmental contacts to prepare departments for implementation.  

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 updated regularly.

HR Systems Programme projects

Updated user guides

Guide Update
New and updated guides for rolled-up holiday pay (see above):
Casual workers, teachers and examiners Guidance added for new allowance for rolled-up holiday pay
People Profile Matrix Casual teacher contract length updated to 11 months
Manage timesheets (for HR Administrators) Workforce Management (participating departments only)
Casual - Submit a timesheet or claim holiday hours
Managers – Approve or submit a timesheet and holiday claims 
Approve timesheet as a Delegate 
New and updated guides for Workforce Management – Leave and Absence (participating departments only):
Assign a pay code access group Moved to web format and additional information added
Assign a work schedule
Managing Balances  Replaces previous version of ‘Assign a balance’ and ‘make balance adjustment’.  One guide now provides comprehensive details of balances, including:
Record annual leave, sickness and other absence Moved to web format and additional information added
End Appointments Optional additional steps added to advise on how to reduce the balance according to the appointment end date.
Employee Self-Service Updated guidance includes:
Manager Self-Service Moved to online format and now includes: