Casual/Dashboard Staff Guidance Notes

Traditionally, staff have been employed on a casual basis to complete short-term pieces of work or projects, or to cover the absence of permanent staff. This document is designed to provide guidance on how to ensure that this legislation is adhered to when employing staff on a casual basis.

This document is for guidance only. If you have any questions or are unsure of what action to take, please contact your HR representative.

It is essential that Departments follow the procedures in setting up workers in advance on the Dashboard system, before permitting them to work.

Director of service and Dean responsibilities

It is the responsibility of the Dean or the Director of Service to:

• Ensure the procedures outlined in this document are followed correctly.
• Ensure that the Recruitment and Selection guidance is followed when recruiting casual staff for work which will last longer than 8 weeks. i.e.a contract is in place. 
  
• Ensure that pre-approved and checked casual employees are used for all and any casual work. When a worker is registered on the Dashboard system, this indicated they have been approved to work.
• Review the Dashboard expenditure reports to ensure that the Departments budget is being utilized effectively. The Dean/Director of Service can nominate an individual with the correct signing authority to sign the claim forms. However, it is important to note that ultimate responsibility for the budget lies with the Director of Service/Dean.
• Nominate individuals to act as Department contacts for the casual worker procedure.

Managers/supervisor responsibility

It is the responsibility of the Manager/Supervisor of the casual employee to

• Follow University procedures and guidelines when recruiting casual staff.
• Ensure that the casual work is planned in advance via the Dashboard system.
• Ensure that the individual is paid the appropriate hourly rate in alignment to Loughborough University’s pay spine.
• Ensure that the individual has claimed accurately for the hours worked and in a timely manner via the timesheet functionality on the Dashboard system.

Department contacts responsibility

It is the responsibility of the Department Contact to

• Check that timesheets on the Dashboard system have been completed correctly and process them in a timely manner.  (i.e. No more than 3 months after the work).
• Ensure that the casual work is booked via the Dashboard system in advance of the work taking place, and due care is taken with visa limited workers i.e. Tier 4 students’ hours restrictions and Tier 2/Skilled Worker/Tier 5 work restrictions.
• Allocate each booking with an appropriate job type and act as a point of contact for Payroll for timesheet queries .
• Casual staff employed for less than eight weeks do not require a contract unless they are to be paid at a rate higher than the base of the grade for the work, are carrying out duties as a medical practitioner, or you require them to be included on your departmental mailing lists. 
  
• If the individual works for longer than eight weeks, then Operations Committee approval of the position is necessary. If you require access to iTrent to raise a casual contract request or manage the salaried contract procedures, please visit the iTrent page on this website to complete the authorisation form.

N.B. Once a casual contract has been raised and accepted by the new worker, Dashboard must be used to offer the work out and to authorise timesheets. More detail can be found in the Dashboard department admin guidance.

The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act (2006) and Immigration Act 2016 requires all employers in the UK to make basic document checks on every person they intend to employ before that individual commences work. The necessary checks are carried out within HR for casual staff before they issue a contract or verify an ad-hoc casual worker. Before this happens, a worker will not appear on the Dashboard system to be booked for work.

The Fixed Term Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations (2002) covers some "casual" staff and further advice should be sought from your HR contact.

It is also worth noting that records on all casual staff currently have to be reported to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

It is the Departments responsibility to recruit and select casual members of staff. If an appointment is to last for longer than four weeks, the University’s recruitment & selection administration guidance must be adhered to.

Please note that it is University policy that posts lasting less than nine months need not be advertised, but if an extension is anticipated the post should be advertised from the outset. 

If a casual worker is needed, please follow this procedure to ensure they can be allocated work in the Dashboard system – All casual workers (with exception to external examiners, one-off guest lecturers and casual Tier 4 University teachers) must be registered in this way before they are given work.

Send them a link to the relevant portal (which you can find on page 4 of the department guidance for Dashboard) or begin the casual contract process in iTrent (which is detailed in the Casual recruitment guidance for departments).

• A ‘terms of engagement’ letter is given automatically to ‘casual register’ workers when they apply through the portal/s;
• A casual contract is given ‘post-Right to Work check’ to contracted workers. The ‘Casual contract' map is linked below.

1. Right to Work checks are done centrally (HR for Loughborough campus, London will take copies and send to Loughborough via scan). Only after this check is satisfied can a person start working. The portal route will need them to book a date/time for coming to a RTW check and the casual contract route will ask the person to come in for a check as soon as possible. A previous RTW check will be reused where possible.
2. The person is given a casual position on iTrent once they’ve accepted a contract or had a RTW check completed; these casuals, and subwardens + casual UTs (with Tier 4 visas) will have an account registered for them on Dashboard.
3. An Lboro account is made overnight (or an existing account is found) which gives them access to my.HR and Dashboard. To retrieve your new account details, contact IT Services. My.HR is limited to updating personal information and retrieving payslips.
4. Work can be offered to pre-registered casuals in Dashboard in advance; working hours compliance is dealt with by the system. Approve/decline timesheets in Dashboard.
5. Leavers are made on iTrent (P45 etc.) if ‘casual register’ employees do no work for 6 months – casual contract terms override this and they will remain open for the duration of the contract. It will be queried if they have an indefinite casual contract but there is a spell of no work for 6 months.

The Service Level Agreement on turnaround depends on the individual’s engagement with the procedure – generally if they register via the portal route and book onto a Right to Work check appointment in a timely manner, they will be able to start being offered work on Dashboard 3 working days after registering*. If they are in need of a casual contract, please allow 5 working days from requesting the contract to the person’s record appearing on Dashboard; again, this will rely on the individual’s engagement with attending a Right to Work check and accepting their casual contract.

*A person may have a salaried contract open during their casual registration process – whilst there is no issue with this, please bear in mind that there may be a delay in them appearing on Dashboard during the middle of the month as Payroll lock existing contracts for a short period. Any concerns regarding urgent cases can be flagged to Claims Support. 

N.B. A Loughborough username and password will be generated for the new worker if they do not have a Loughborough account already (as a student, employee, or other casual work). This account must be used by the worker to log into the Dashboard system and my.HR. If they would prefer emailed work offers from Dashboard to be sent to their personal email, they can set this as their ‘secondary email’ address and change their correspondence preference to ‘Secondary’ on their Dashboard profile.

Staff employed on a casual basis must be paid the appropriate rate for the work they are undertaking to ensure that the University complies with Equal Pay legislation and other legislation protecting the rights of staff who work on a part time basis and on a fixed term basis. The following guide has been produced to assist departments in determining the appropriate rate of pay for the many different types of casual work undertaken in the University. The Dashboard system is set up to help you in paying the appropriate rate for types of casual work and will assume a payment at the base rate of the relevant grade. It will show the pay before holiday pay and London weighting (if the work is completed in London) is added. Certain job types have been evaluated to include an enhancement such as a market supplement.

Below is a list which has been designed to assist in deciding which grade the work is matched to. A spine point at any point in the grade may be used and factors such as previous experience and qualifications should be considered when deciding which point to select. A casual contract will be needed if the rate is to be enhanced above the base of the grade to align with the salaried contract procedure; job offers at spinal points above the base of the grade are checked by the HR Partner. The Dashboard system will otherwise assume the base rate of the grade for a piece of work if a contract is not in place.

If the duties do not adequately describe the duties required of a casual member of staff, further analysis using the job families should be carried out. Please contact your HR representative for assistance or visit the Job Families page for further information

Grade 1

• Assisting with bulk mailings (filling envelopes, bulk photocopying)
• Student Ambassadors and Open Day Helpers
• Catering and Hospitality roles
• Cleaning roles
• Class Test invigilation

Grade 2

• Routine typing or data entry
• Receiving, sorting and delivering mail
• Making routine arrangements and bookings
• Preparing of straightforward materials
• Lifeguard
• Customer Services Assistant
• Security Operative
• Exam Invigilator
• Making telephone calls for fundraising/admissions initiatives 

Grade 3

• Making and receiving telephone calls for fundraising/admissions initiatives and dealing with queries as they arise
• Creating documents from a clear brief
• Updating databases
• General clerical and administrative duties
• Reception work
• Senior Customer Services Assistant
• Senior Exam Invigilator
• Fitness Instructor
• IT Service desk Assistant

Grade 4

• Conducting straightforward experiments, recording test results and reporting findings, analyzing data and producing summaries and reports
  Higher level administrative duties
• Disability Mentor
• Note-taking
• Assistant Sports Coach
• Duty Manager
• Recreational Activity Instructor (+ market supplement)

Grade 5

• Research Assistant activities –
  • Assisting with the activities of a particular research project, such as conducting experiments and fieldwork
  • Conducting literature and database searches
  • Producing complex statistical and financial analysis
• Maintaining departmental information and documentation
• Maintaining website
• Sports Massage Therapist
• Sports Coach
• Specialist Sports Development Centre roles (Workshop delivery, Performance Lifestyle advisor, Swimming instructor)

Grade 6

• Research Associate activities –
  • Operating specialist equipment
  • Preparing project specifications
  • Developing research proposals
  • Writing up research for publication
• Providing and disseminating specialist knowledge and advice
• Develop processes, procedures or systems
• Senior Sports Coach
• Counsellor

When employing staff, whether short or long term, it is important to consider the additional costs involved.

The additional annual leave costs for very short term or casual contracts can be found within the casual pay scales.

Casual employees will not be automatically entered into a pension scheme unless they trigger auto-enrolment. However, employees can request to join. If an employee is entered into the Pension scheme, the Department will incur an additional cost. This is dependent on the scheme/grade.

• Grades 1 – 5 (LGPS) - 22.4%
• Grades 6 and above (USS) - 21.4%  

NI is not calculated cumulatively, so each pay period stands in isolation.
This means that NI will be deducted on any payment above the NI primary threshold in a particular month, regardless of whether the casual employee’s pay to date is within the tax-free allowance. You can view the current year NI thresholds. It is therefore important that timesheets on Dashboard are submitted regularly and no later than 3 months following the work.

Immigration checks must be completed prior to a casual worker being asked to work; casual workers will be asked to attend a Right to Work check appointment with HR before a casual contract is issued and before an ad-hoc worker is verified to use Dashboard. The Dean or nominee is responsible for ensuring that the necessary process is followed BEFORE they undertake any work at the University. It is the duty of the Dashboard department administrators to ensure a worker with restrictions on the work they can carry out is not confirmed for work they cannot do. E.g. A Tier 2 sponsored worker can’t work more than 20 hours in addition to their sponsored post, and some Tier 5 workers can only do work of the same level or higher than their sponsored post.

HR will retain a copy of their valid documentation for the duration of their employment (casual or otherwise) and for a period of 2 years after they leave. 

IMPORTANT: Students on a Tier 4 student visa can only work a maximum of 20 hours in a single week, i.e Monday to Sunday, across all departments, including voluntary work. Any breach of this limit will affect their right to study in the UK and the visa could be at risk and revoked by the Home Office.

Further details regarding Tier 4 status can be found below. 

Please note that the Home Office can undertake an audit at any time without notice and we could therefore be asked to produce this documentation as evidence that the University is complying with Home Office regulations.  Non-compliance with these immigration regulations could result in severe penalties to the University as an employer.

If further advice is required please contact the HR Immigration Team who will assist in checking eligibility to work. 

A list of acceptable documents for the ‘Right to Work’ check “Immigration checklist” can be located in the sidebar. Further information on immigration can also be obtained from your HR representative

To have timesheets on the system, you will first have had an offer booked and confirmed. These offers are sent via email (to your @lboro.ac.uk account by default) or text (if you provided your mobile number on your registration form). Some departments choose to use email or text offers and some send offers direct via the system where you can accept/decline the work offers.

All the relevant guidance on using the system from a worker perspective can be found below. 

In order to be paid for the jobs you have worked, you will need to submit timesheets. These will automatically appear after the start of your accepted shift/event, for each shift/event. You can change your start and end times and break times, but do bear in mind that if you are on a Tier 4 student visa that any potential breach to your working hours per week will prevent you from being able to submit your timesheets and HR Immigration monitor these on a weekly basis.

1. Once your timesheet has been submitted, the approver will need to action it before the payroll deadlines in order for it to be paid that month.
2. Expenses will not be accepted through this system – to submit expenses for travel/accommodation if your employing School/Professional Services have agreed to cover these, follow the link below. 
3. Timesheets will be split into 4 categories –
   • To Submit: Timesheets that the worker needs to submit for approval. You will need to click on the ‘To submit’ section to amend/submit your timesheets.
   • Submitted: Timesheets that the worker has submitted but have not been approved yet.
   • Disputed: Timesheets where the worker and the event/shift organiser have disagreed. The worker has two options; the first is to agree to the change. If you do this, the timesheet will be put back into the normal timesheet process and go on to be paid. The second option is for the timesheet to be sent to the system administrator so that the dispute can be settled.
   • Approved: Timesheets that have been submitted by the worker and approved. These will go to the next available payroll

If you did not work an event but you do have a timesheet, you or your department administrator/event organiser will need to delete the timesheet.

N.B. You will receive a notification if your timesheet is disputed, but not if it’s been approved.

Each Department will have nominated individuals who are responsible for checking timesheets. If you are unsure who these people are, please speak to the Departmental Administrator.

Payments will be made on the last working day of each month provided the timesheets were submitted and approved before 5pm on the 5 of the current month. Cut off dates and pay dates can be found below.

General

- There are different procedures for appointing a University Teacher. Please read and follow the University Teacher policy and procedure guidance

- Anyone undertaking work for the University (regardless of duration) must confirm they have the right to work in the UK before they start the work. See the Immigration checklist in the sidebar for more information.

 - All casual workers are entitled to holiday pay. Payroll will ensure that the correct annual leave entitlement is paid in addition to the basic hourly rate.  These rates are based on the annual leave entitlement for staff employed on a full-time permanent contract within the University and includes an allowance for bank holidays. This entitlement requires the employee to take annual leave when they are not required to work for the University. The rates of pay and holiday rates can be found on the HR Website.

- It is important that casual work is monitored as regular periods of working or a pattern of working can result in the worker gaining certain rights over time. The Employment Rights Act (1996) stipulates that there is a statutory presumption of continuous service unless the employer can prove otherwise. Therefore, regular hours and / or a regular working pattern over a substantial period of time are not appropriate for a casual contract.

- With the exception of University Teachers, the University uses a system called Dashboard for assigning work to casual workers and payment for completed assignments. 

Casual work for up to four weeks

If the work requirement is for less than 8 weeks, a contract is not normally required. To ensure that equal pay legislation is adhered to, the worker’s hourly rate will be based on the University pay scales. When deciding the hourly rate consideration should be given to the duties involved and the worker’s relevant skills and experience for the work required. However if you decide to pay above the minimum rate for the grade, a casual contract will be required from day one. This procedure is managed via the iTrent system using the ‘Recruiting department’ role. If you decide to pay at the minimum of the grade, you can use the portal route (see Dashboard department administrator guidance for portal links and the process).Casual work can thereafter be allocated in Dashboard for up to 4 weeks. 

Appointments of more than four weeks

If someone is engaged on a casual basis and the work will take longer than four weeks to complete, a casual contract must be in place from day one.

A casual appointment letter contains the following information:

1. Start Date
2. Job Title
3. School or Service where the worker will be deployed
4. Grade of work and hourly rate
5. Payment arrangements
6. Basic description of duties
7. Notice requirements
8. Holiday and Sickness Benefit
9. Disciplinary and Grievance procedures
10. Pensions and National Insurance
11. Links to policies - Equal Opportunities, Harassment and Bullying, IT Acceptable Use and Data Protection

A casual contract means there is no mutuality of obligation. This means that the University is not obliged to offer work, and the worker is not obliged to accept work offered to them.

The contract offer procedure is managed via the iTrent system, and you will need the ‘Recruiting department’ role. If the decision is made that the pay rate is the base rate, proceed with the portal route (see Dashboard department administrator guidance for portal links and the process). Casual work should thereafter be managed in Dashboard once a casual contract is accepted.

The offer of appointment must be completed before the worker starts any work; this includes completing the right to work check.

The worker must accept the contract electronically and within 2 working days of acceptance they are given access to Dashboard and can receive casual work offers/bookings.

A timesheet must be submitted and approved via Dashboard for work completed each month. Payroll will also calculate the holiday pay and London allowance (if applicable) each month. Please refer to the Payroll website for cut off dates for payment.

It is important to note, that Payroll will not be able to authorise payment for a worker who has submitted two timesheets from the same Department within the previous three months, without a contract being accepted by the worker.

Fixed hours and fixed term contracts

If there are fixed hours of work available for a fixed term, a Fixed Term salaried contract is recommended as a casual contract is defined as a ‘zero hours’ contract with no fixed hours or working pattern. In addition, any salaried position lasting longer than 9 months must be advertised. Please check with your HR team if you are unsure what type of contract to use for your situation.

For department users, please complete this authorisation form and send to Claims Support copying in your Line manager.

If you need iTrent access to progress casual contract requests, please visit the iTrent webpage on this HR website.

As the Dashboard system is straightforward to use, there is an expectation that departmental users leaving posts and conducting handovers pass the information onto new users of the system. If there are ad-hoc queries please check the FAQs below or contact Claims Support. 

Registering for worker access

All casual workers (with exception to external examiners and one-off guest lecturers) need to have registered their information in iTrent in one way or another:

• UT process continues as is – their details will be drawn across to Dashboard automatically if they are Tier 4 students.
• Subwarden process continues as is – their details will be drawn across to Dashboard once there’s a person record on iTrent, and the wardens can set up schedules on Dashboard.
• Casual workers –The casual workers can submit details through either the worker or student portals (students only through the student portal) if they don’t need a contract. They can submit their application details through a requisition on iTrent if they will need a contract. This must be done in order for their information to appear in Dashboard at a later point. The ‘Casual register vs contract diagram’ gives advice on whether a contract is needed or not – written advice on what type of contract is available in the Section ‘Contractual Requirements’ on this page. Once their contract is in place and accepted, use Dashboard to set up the weeks/dates expected to work.

Logging in – how do they do it, and what happens if they have issues?

• Workers can log into Dashboard using the button ‘Sign in with University account’ – the link to the Dashboard system can be shared by admins and managers with their workers (noting they will not be able to use it until they have successfully registered through iTrent and had a Right to Work check verified.) It must use their @lboro account (they need to use a username and password). Workers are able to register themselves on Dashboard, but this is not the intended route for registration because we don’t capture bank details and HESA data etc. on Dashboard.
• If they have technical issues, it will usually be due to the registration process or Right to Work check not being completed. Queries about registration progress can be directed to Claims Support. 
  

Offering shifts/events

• Go to the ‘Bookings’ tab on Dashboard and decide on the route of offering work.
  • Bulk upload – if you have a lot of bookings to create (especially repeating detail or shifts). Once you’ve loaded the bookings, go to them on the system and offer them out to workers.
  • Draw down – if you just need to mark out a set amount of hours per week for a person(s). e.g. university teaching, subwardens, people with guaranteed casual contracted hours that they need to claim.
  • Setting up events on the calendar - select your location (for where the event/shift will take place) and click on the date you need to set it up from. Proceed from there with the Dashboard manual for departments. The ‘Post job’ option gives you the flexibility to accept or decline interest from workers so do remember to confirm interested workers before the event/shift takes place.
• N.B. You cannot offer work retrospectively without the ‘After the Event’ role; if details such as the start/end times need amending for a booking that’s already been set up, this can be done on the timesheet when it’s produced.
• N.B. All job offers whether they are ‘Direct’, ‘First come-first served’, or ‘Post job’ need to be sent to relevant, available workers.
• You can save bookings as templates so the next time you want to set up a similar event, you can just use what you made before.
• The current functionality only allows repeat events/dates to be accepted or rejected in full; accepting part of a repeat event is not possible. The advice therefore is to split repeat bookings into single events if you don’t need the same person to do all required dates/times.

Adding workers to your pool

• Provided you have the ‘dept administrator’ or ‘Assign Depts’ roles, you can add workers to your pool. If you do not have this access, please ask the person/people in your area who do have it to add the new person to the pool or contact Claims Support with an updated authorization form.

Finding workers

• Workers can first be added to your department pool by someone with the access to ‘Assign departments’ or ‘Dept Administrator’ role - this filter of ‘My department pool only’ will be available and can be ticked on the search sidebar of an event/shift when you’re finding workers.
• Workers can update their own availability on their Dashboard calendar, including if they’re working outside the University so they stay within their hours limit per week.
• Workers can set their job preferences so they only get notified about jobs they’re interested in – it is not a guarantee of that work however as some roles require casual contracts to be in place in order to do them, but acts as a way for departments to find workers outside of their usual pool who have expressed an interest in doing that work.
• When workers have set their availability and preferences or are not in your department pool, the system will filter them out initially if those are ticked as filters on your ‘Find workers’ page on the event/booking.

If you want to expand your search to include anyone regardless of availability or their preferences, or to find people outside of your department pool, untick these options on your worker search and select Filter again. If you can’t find who you’re looking for after taking off these filters, they may not have the amount of hours available that week to work (such as Tier 4 visa limits would be breached if they were booked for the work) or they may not have registered fully on iTrent/completed their Right to Work check or their Right to Work documents have expired. If you go to your Worker pool on the left hand side of your department view, and search for them by name you will be able to click on ‘Availability’ to see if they are already busy. If you can see they are available at the time you need them, raise a case with Claims Support. 

Bulk booking upload

• The bulk booking process is outlined in greater detail in the Dashboard manual for departments, but there are general details worth highlighting;
  • It needs to be in csv format.
  • The data under many column headings need to match known information in Dashboard. For example, the job titles, locations, booking type, authorisers, location contacts, budget codes, charge codes. If these details don’t match names of users/job titles/etc. in Dashboard, the load will fail for those rows.
  • The booking dates need to be in advance.
  • The expiry dates of the bookings need to be before the start time of the event/booking on that row (would recommend at least 30 minutes prior to the start time).
  • If you use the ‘Draw down’ Booking mode, the start date must be a Monday of the week the work will be done.

e.g. ‘18/02/2019’ for week commencing 18/02/2019.

• When you’ve created a template you’re happy with, it’s worth saving it for using again – the ‘Import template’ that you can download from Dashboard is filled with dummy data, so having your own copy with the job titles/locations/authorisers etc. that you usually use can help take away repeat work later.
• If you have a lot to load at once, it will be worth ‘chunking’ these into several loads simply because errors peppered throughout the file will mean loading the ‘errored’ rows will be difficult if there’s many to go through e.g. loading 150 rows and 17 throughout the file fail, means separating those 17 out and trying again (as opposed to loading 50 and separating out 5, sense checking the rest of the rows for errors found in the first batch and trying again with the rest).
• Once you’ve uploaded a document, there’s two steps;
  • Confirming the import (once the rows of data are visible on the bulk booking screen)
  • Reading any error messages following the import being confirmed– the rows which fail will be highlighted in red and clicking on the exclamation symbol will show you why they failed. Make the necessary changes and load the failed events again.

What do I do if a worker needs to cancel?

• You might notice Dashboard doesn’t permit the worker to cancel themselves off a booking – this is to prevent last minute cancellations without the administrator or manager being informed.
• The worker will have a contact on the booking – this will be the name and phone number of the nominated contact or person managing the event/booking. They should call this individual or email the appropriate person to advise of their change of circumstances and those with the ‘co-ordinator’ role or ‘dept administrator’ role can go into the booking to the list of confirmed workers and cancel them. They will receive an email notification.

When would I want to delete a timesheet?

• If someone didn’t show up to the booking/shift and you did not cancel them off the booking prior to it starting, the system won’t know that it shouldn’t produce a timesheet. A timesheet will automatically generate, and it’s then possible for the worker or the dept administrator to delete it so it doesn’t get submitted for approval.

What do I do if I need to change the booking?

• You might notice Dashboard locks some parts of the booking when it is accepted by workers; this will be the expiry date and time, start time and end time, type of work, charge codes and quantity. If you need to change the booking you have three options –
  • Delete the booking and create it again – if there’s lots to change or it’s a draw down booking, this might be the best route.
  • Amend the email/text instructions and click Update – if the booking would finish later/start earlier or something to this effect, this would be the easiest option. Then the worker can update their timesheet with the new start/end times.
  • Create a supplementary booking – if the booking will last a good while longer than initially anticipated or you need more people then this would be a straightforward option. Don’t forget there’s the ‘template’ feature so you can populate a lot of the detail automatically on a booking.

To summarise, it depends on the requirement – if it’s to reduce hours, you would need to cancel and make a new one; if it’s to increase hours, you could create an additional booking without deleting the original, for the remaining hours needed; if it’s to change the costing, you can change this on the timesheet after so no need to amend the booking; if it’s to change the dates, you would need to cancel and make a new one.

The limits per week (working time directive, visa limits, rest breaks)

• The system defaults to 37 hours working per week for those not restricted to visa terms – if a person opts out of the ‘48 hour’ limit, then the system will allow up to 168 hours that week. The 48 hours limit relates to the Working Time Directive which allows 17 weeks of work greater than 48 hours before the Directive is breached if the individual did not opt out of the Directive.
• There are certain visas that only permit certain types of work and a maximum set of hours per week – usually this will be 20 hours or less. This applies to ALL UK employment, and not solely work done for the University. The system will not allow workers subject to these limits to be offered work that would breach their visa terms; they will simply not show up as available workers on your worker search when offering shifts/work/events.
• The restrictions on certain types of work – e.g. if someone is on a Tier 5 Charity worker visa then they cannot do additional work outside of their main job’s sector, and not for more than 20 hours per week on top of their main job.
• HR will check their documents before they register to ensure they can work in our sector and confirm the limits that apply; therefore, the workers registered on Dashboard should only be the approved list of workers and their hour limits will be managed by the system.
• Please note it is important to ensure breaks are accommodated for work longer than 6 hours; it is a legal requirement that workers take an uninterrupted break of 20 minutes if they work for more than 6 hours in a day. Other rest breaks also may apply.
  

What about UTs?

• The University Teacher registration process has not changed, and the Right to Work checks for these workers will remain in the Schools and Professional Services.
• Whilst the registration process has not changed, the UTs with Tier 4 status will have a record in Dashboard; it is expected that departments offer work to them for their teaching related work through Dashboard and submit timesheets for approval through Dashboard, therefore departments must be clear not to approve timesheets for the same work in Dashboard and iTrent. The changeover for UT claims from iTrent to Dashboard occurred in June 2019.

Who are the exceptions to registering and using Dashboard?

• Honoraria/guest lecturers doing a one-off lecture can be paid via the claims form. Right to Work checks are still necessary.
• External Examiners.
• University Teachers not on a Tier 4 visa

What if a student graduates and they want to keep working?

• N.B. Due care should be taken in checking whether a student can continue working after they graduate; there are some sponsorships or visas that do not permit working after they graduate. Check with the Immigration team if you’re not sure whether to continue employing an international student post-graduation.
• If they are fine to keep working, the student can remove their student number from my.HR (on the personal details tab) and the next day a staff account will be created – these details can be retrieved from IT Services.

Expiry periods explained

• An individual might work in various casual capacities at the University; it is not unheard of for students to help at open days, be a student ambassador on the Marketing Ambassador scheme, do some lab support for an academic, take up a subwarden position and work at one of the restaurants on campus. The individual’s inclusion on the Casual Register and therefore the Dashboard system depends on an expiry period; contract periods override the 6-month expiry of ad-hoc workers; university teacher contracts override the shorter casual contracts; subwarden roles override the temporary nature of ad-hoc work. It then can become difficult to know when a worker’s record on Dashboard will end. However, a helpful case study below outlines how the different casual engagements take priority.

Case study for expiry period

A student has a casual University teaching contract. They also help out at open days at their School, and were successful in becoming a Student Ambassador for the University scheme.

• The University teaching contract rolls on each year unless the department inform us they are no longer teaching/assisting academic courses.
• Their Student Ambassador contract is initially for one year but the Scheme administrators advise who is returning.
• The open day work does not need a contract; this is ad-hoc work.

Their contracted roles whilst open on the HR system (iTrent) will keep their record open on the casual register (and therefore on Dashboard). When these roles close, and there’s no future ad-hoc work booked, they will be closed on the Casual Register. If this student continues working on an ad-hoc basis with no open contracts, they will stay on the Casual Register. If they don’t work for 6 months after this, their record will be closed.

How Dashboard and iTrent and LUSI interact (detail on payroll and integration)

• Dashboard Technology is fed by both iTrent and LUSI – staff data comes from iTrent, and current student programme information comes from LUSI. Only information pertinent to their casual work will be taken into Dashboard, and is updated on a daily basis. More detail on what specific information is brought into the system is available on the Privacy Policy (on the left when logged into Dashboard).
• iTrent is the HR system which holds the full staff record – if a worker wants to update their personal, sensitive or immigration information, they should do this in my.HR. iTrent is the driver for including records on Dashboard – if someone has a casual job with a grade, or a subwarden role, or a PUT job (and is Tier 4), then they will have a record on Dashboard.
• LUSI is the student system which holds the full student record – if a worker needs to update their student information, they should do this with the Academic Registry.
• Dashboard produces a payroll file at 5pm on the 5 of every month; any approved timesheets before that date/time will go into this payroll file and an automated procedure will pay the work against contracted positions and ad-hoc positions on iTrent.
• The worker’s payslips will be available on my.HR on the last working day of the month.
• The contracted rate for work will override a basic rate displayed in Dashboard – if someone has agreed to a rate in the middle of the grade, but in Dashboard it assumes the base of the grade, they will be paid at their contracted rate.
• The holiday rates are not displayed in Dashboard, but they are paid and displayed separately on their my.HR payslip – as the holiday rates vary depending on the grade (1-5, 6+) these are calculated once the hours are imported into iTrent.
• Additional benefits such as London weighting and market supplements are factored into people’s pay. Rest assured that workers will be paid the appropriate benefits; however, if anyone does have concerns or queries about their pay, these should be directed to Payroll. 
  
• The general privacy information is covered on the Privacy Policy linked on Dashboard Technology when you’re logged in. However if there are concerns or questions about specific details/situations in Dashboard, departments can refer them to Claims Support. 
• For Department Administrators/Co-ordinators, new departments can be created to separate them out further e.g. Schools split into their constituent departments or ‘responsibilities’ e.g. SBE Ambassadors can be distinct from the main School department on Dashboard.

Privacy Policy

• The general privacy information is covered on the Privacy Policy linked on Dashboard Technology when you’re logged in. However if there are concerns or questions about specific details/situations in Dashboard, departments can refer them to Claims Support. 
  
• For Department Administrators/Co-ordinators, new departments can be created to separate them out further e.g. Schools split into their constituent departments or ‘responsibilities’ e.g. SBE Ambassadors can be distinct from the main School department on Dashboard.

Will I get a notification when there’s a timesheet to approve?

• Emails are sent only for disputed timesheets (to the worker). A general email notification gets sent on the 2 of the month when there are timesheets outstanding to be submitted. Provided timesheets are approved before 5pm on the 5 of the month, pay will go forward for the current pay period. That means if someone works on the 5 from 3-4pm, submits their timesheet at 4:15pm and its approved at 4:30pm, it will be paid on the last day of that month.

What browsers are supported?

• Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge are supported.
• The Android and Apple device iOs are supported.

How do the Pay rates work?

• The pay rates in Dashboard are specific to the base of each grade.
• The pay rate in the system is without holiday pay (emails about work offers are clear that holiday pay will be added on their payslip).
• London weighting will be applied to approved timesheets for the London campus on the worker’s payslips.
• There are some bespoke pay rates in Dashboard – these are for specific hourly rates where market supplements are applied, or for roles that are always paid higher than the base of the grade. If a role is usually paid at the base rate of the grade, but a specific person needs paying higher than this for that role, then they need a casual contract (instructions for departments doing this are in the iTrent Casual Recruiting Department guidance).

When will I get paid?

• The department offering the work can tell the worker this – the timesheets have an audit trail that is visible to the timesheet approvers (co-ordinators and dept admins), so provided the timesheet was approved before 5pm on the 5 of the month, it will be paid that month.
• If a worker has not submitted a timesheet and had it approved, payment will not be made until they have actioned this.