I recently shared the information with LMT on several HR-related actions and I want to bring library employees up-to-speed on these items. The following information is meant to provide a summary description. Feel free to ask for additional clarification (AgnewL@missouri.edu). I’ll be happy to gather these into a follow-up Q&A document.
Continuing appointments for graduating student assistants: There is an additional step to the process of keeping student assistants who just graduated and it is due to the hiring freeze – we need to secure Jesse Hall approval. Why? Well, we have been required to convert these students into a staff title each of the past few summers by HR since they no longer qualify to be in the student title. The wrinkle now is, whatever title we use is a classified staff title, thus requiring Jesse Hall approval since their view is that we are ‘establishing’ a position, even though it is very temporary.
What is the library’s process for requesting Jesse Hall approval? My advice is to check within your division for information on your internal approval process. Ultimately, what I need is confirmation that Jim has seen and approved the request before I submit it to Jesse Hall. Besides that, I’ll need a brief description of duties and why it’s essential they continue to be performed, i.e., complete a project, the FTE, hourly rate, and anticipated duration of the continued appointment.
Seasonal Leave: MU has a seasonal leave policy on the books and has used it for some time to provide affected employees with continued access to benefits and time served for retirement calculations. Affected employees typically work in units that experience reduced workloads during the summer, such as food services, residential life. Those employees return to work in the fall. Effective now, the seasonal leave policy has been extended to all campus to provide the same provisions for an affected employee.
The MU Libraries is not expecting to make use of this policy, but those departments who do can place employees on seasonal leave without the employees losing access to benefits or time served for retirement calculations.
I’ll go ahead and use this opportunity to remind staff that the library has an internal process for voluntarily requesting a temporary reduction in FTE. The policy can be accessed at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/staff/policies/Reduction_of_Hours_memo_2000.htm.
Time and Labor: This is an online payroll system that increases the efficiency of reporting time to Payroll by eliminating the need for individuals, like those in Sheena’s position, to enter the information.
• Who does this affect? All hourly-paid employees, staff and students, will enter time online. Monthly-paid employees will report absences via the online system.
• Can paper copies still be submitted for payment? No.
• When will this start? We are scheduled to ‘go live’ mid-July.
• When will we be trained? Library Administration staff will conduct training for supervisors in June. Non-supervisor employees will be trained after that. Dates/times for both training sessions are to be determined.
• Does this differ much from using the current online Excel-based form? Not really. Employees will enter time In/Out of the office, and will distinguish between work hours and paid leave, and will be able to record release time, e.g., funeral leave, jury duty. The screen looks different and there are few extra bells and whistles, e.g., access to paid leave information, but the process for tracking time is not all that different. My working assumption is that individuals who use the current online form will have little trouble learning the new format.
• How does it work, process-wise? In a nutshell…Employees complete the online form. Supervisors review the information online and make corrections online, if necessary. Once approved, supervisors ‘release’ the time sheet and Sheena reviews it on behalf of Admin. She ‘releases’ it to Payroll who takes it from there.
• Will we adhere to the current timelines for forwarding these new e-timesheets and e-monthly absence forms to library Admin? Yes.
• Is there a users’ guide or such? Yes. There is an online tutorial which can be accessed at https://doit.missouri.edu/training/peoplesoft/HR/timelabor.html.
What other benefits will be realized by this new system?
1) Accuracy will be improved since there is no need to data enter hours/leave information a second time, i.e., in Admin.
2) The system will provide a link to current leave balances that is viewable by both employees and supervisors.
3) The system will not allow an employee to go into negative paid leave balances, thus eliminating the need to calculate repayment made by the employee or salary deduction in the next pay check.
CAPS Center
Since 2003, campus HR, with the support of campus administrators, has organized a handful of Core Administrative Processing Support centers (CAPS centers) which consolidate all PAF processing and related transactions to a central location for a specified grouping of departments/divisions. The MU Libraries will enter into a CAPS Center with Law, Engineering, and Journalism. Starting later this summer, this Center will complete all faculty, staff, and student PAFs for us and these other units.
Recently, UM President Forsee endorsed the centralization of services on each campus, where feasible. Moving to a CAPS Center puts us in-line with that directive.
Why is this advantageous? For 2008, these four units collectively processed 5,701 PAF’s, which HR computed to be equivalent to 1.98 FTE. Library Administration processed 870 PAF’s by itself (.29 FTE). What are the advantages?
• Allows individual departments to concentrate efforts on other mission essential activities.
• Allows for the training of a concentrated group of subject matter experts, i.e., the individuals working in the CAPS Center on our behalf.
• Increases accuracy and efficiency by utilizing subject matter experts.
• Alleviates the need to train at the department level.
• All related new hire/rehire paperwork will be completed at the CAPS Center, e.g., I-9, E-Verify.
Does this mean the HR Assistant position is being eliminated? No. It means we are transferring PAF processing to a CAPS Center. Sheena will stay busy, e.g., serving as our point person for Time and Labor questions and training.
Is there a cost to us? Yes. The CAPS Center will employ two full-time individuals. Our share of that cost is $9,700, prorated based upon our PAF load. In contrast, two units with a higher PAF volume are paying $25,500 each.
Does the library have a voice in the hiring process? Yes. I will be co-interviewing with representatives from the other departments.
Where will this CAPS Center be housed? Engineering has volunteered to house the Center.
How will our employees access the Center? New or rehired employees will visit the CAPS Center prior to their start date to complete the paperwork. While this is a change for individuals hired to work in Ellis, other library employees have had to walk to Ellis to complete their paperwork.
When will the CAPS Center be functional? We hope to hire the two positions this summer and hope to have them on board prior to the fall semester. These individuals could be new to the university or could be transfer employees, possibly from units seeking to downsize.
Again, feel free to ask for clarification on this information. I’ll do my best to answer any and all questions.
Leo