Staff Timekeeping

Purpose:

The purpose of this page is to communicate the policies, procedures, and resources related to timekeeping for classified and A&P staff employees within the College of Liberal Arts (COLA).

See also Faculty Sick Leave (for Faculty); student hourly employees can find information here (central HR site).

Relevant Definitions:

Staff: Any person employed by COLA in a classified or A&P job profile; this article is primarily considered with benefits-eligible staff but applies to all paid COLA staff employees. This includes faculty who are appointed at greater than 0SWH in administrative positions, such as Associate Dean.

SWH: Scheduled weekly hours, Workday term; for a given job, denotes the number of hours an employee is expected to work each week in that job.

Classified: A category of job types at UT; most staff jobs are in the “classified” job family.

A&P: “Administrative & Professional”; a category of job types at UT; these job profiles are intended to require significant, specialized education and/or experience, and/or are intended for an “executive level” administrative or leadership role within an organization.

Note regarding Classified and A&P Job Families:

Although both job families are “staff”, some HR policies differ across job categories. For example, classified hires are subject to a probationary period, but A&P employees are not. On the other hand, A&P employees are not guaranteed employment past the end of the fiscal year in which they are appointed. Some A&P positions are considered “Administrative Officers”, which can have yet further differentiated policies or procedures.

We’ll only mention these differences in this article that are relevant to timekeeping.

FLSA Status: The U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 (+ amendments) has been incredibly important in shaping and attempting to protect the American workplace for the past 80+ years, but this article is not about that [more info]. Within the context of timekeeping, what we care about is whether a given job is considered “exempt” or “non-exempt” from FLSA guidelines, requiring that the person in said job earns overtime (“time-and-a half”) for working over 40 hours within one work week. In brief: “Non-Exempt” earns overtime; “Exempt” does not.

NE: Non-Exempt from FLSA guidelines; earns overtime

EX: Exempt from FLSA guidelines; does not earn overtime

FLSA exemptions are determined on both the type of job and the wages of the job. Units do not have a role in making these determinations, but they can help to ensure that the job profiles of their staff positions appropriately reflect the actual job responsibilities, organizational role(s), required expertise, and work expectations needed for the unit. (See also Recruiting and Hiring)

Comp Time: Compensatory time; there are 3 types found in Workday: 1) Exempt; 2) Non-Exempt; and 3) Holiday. Comp time is generally accrued in one of two ways:

When a full-time Exempt employee works over 40 hours within one work week.
When a full-time employee records a combination of hours worked and paid time off greater than 40 hours within one work week.

Generally speaking, COLA does not approve of the second usage. [See Earning Comp Time Policy, below.] [See also central HR’s leave policy page.]

Overtime: Federal Compensatory time; when NE employees work greater than 40.0 hours within a single work week, they are entitled to compensation at a rate of 1:1.5 (hours worked above 40: hours earned) under federal law (see FLSA Status); in COLA (and most of UT), compensation takes the form paid time off, as allowable by TX Gov Code Sec. 659.015 [https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.659.htm ] [see also Banking Overtime]

WD: Workday; specifically, UT’s current HR administrative and information system version of WD.

Manager: WD security role assigned to individual to whom a worker reports in WD; almost always the employee’s direct supervisor, but if not, still holds the role required to review and approve time reports within their sup org.

Timekeeper: WD security role responsible for final review and approval of time entered, including time off entered on timesheet. Expected to be knowledgeable of time policy and compliance guidelines. [see Workday Security Roles definitions]

Week: work week. For most UT employees, this is Monday through Friday, with timesheets that span Monday through Sunday.

Can vary if on a different official work schedule.

Process:

Each Staff member shall Enter Time in WD on a regular, preferably weekly, basis, as follows:
1. Non-Exempt and Full-Time: Required to account for 40 hours of time each work week.
2. Non-Exempt, Part-Time, Benefits-Eligible, and Salaried: Required to account for their appointed SWH each work week.
3. Non-Exempt, Part-Time, Benefits-Eligible, and Hourly: Required to account for at least their appointed hours each work week; must complete timesheets in order to be paid.
4. Exempt, Benefits-Eligible, and Salaried (Full-Time or Part-Time): Required to account for their appointed hours each work week.
5. Non-Benefits-Eligible and Hourly: Required to report their hours worked each week, as applicable.
6. IMPORTANT: “Account for” means “to accurately record hours worked, paid time off used, and unpaid time off used, as relevant.” In other words, the above states the minimum number requirements in Workday (Enter Time BP). The applicable timekeeping and leave use policies must also be followed. (See Policies).
7. Note: Part-time employees may encounter oddities when recording time worked and time off in weeks including a UT-observed holiday, or university closure, due to variances between timekeeping rounding and appointment rounding. Please see Workday Enter Time Guidance for Part-Time Employees as applicable.
Each Manager shall review their employee(s) timesheet(s) for accuracy on a regular basis and approve or request corrections, as needed.
1. Managers are expected to be aware of their employee’s working hours and absences.
  1. Best practice suggestion: shared office calendar; or keep notes on own calendar.
2. Managers should clearly communicate their expectations around timekeeping and communication to their employees, at the start of their supervisory relationship, e.g.:
  1. How (method - email, call, text) and when employees should notify manager; will likely vary depending on leave type requested.
    1. For example, might prefer a month’s advance notice for a weeklong vacation request, but for a sick day, might want an email or text prior to normal start time, when possible.
  2. Expectations around earning comp or overtime.
    1. For example, a manager could identify certain “peak periods” during which employees are pre-approved to work up to an additional 2 hours/week without requiring additional approvals.
3. Managers are also expected to be aware of the relevant timekeeping and leave use policies and to enforce them.
4. Managers of hourly employees must review and approve timesheets on a weekly basis, or more frequently if needed, to comply with semi-monthly payroll deadlines.*
Each Timekeeper (where separate from Manager) shall review and approve timesheets on a regular basis as well; where Timekeeper role is separate from Manager, the emphasis is on maintaining compliance with timekeeping and paid time off use policies, rather than being aware of an employee’s whereabouts.
1. Timekeepers in sup orgs with hourly employees must review and approve timesheets on a weekly basis, or more frequently if needed, to comply with semi-monthly payroll deadlines.*
If errors are found in an employee’s time records, those should be corrected as soon as practicable.
1. *IMPORTANT: In order to prioritize correct and timely payment of hourly employees, the university has a Mass Advance process, in which timesheets that have been submitted but not yet approved by supervisor as of the payroll deadlines are moved forward to the timekeeper for approvals. Mass advance of time records is not an appropriate substitution for supervisor review of time reports. Corrections leading to pay adjustments may be required.
  1. Departments should establish internal procedures for the review of timesheets that have been moved forward as a result of the mass advance process.
  2. Monthly timesheets also have a prior period mass advance process.
  3. Although many time records can be adjusted to correct errors, Workday is designed to be a real-time system, so emphasis should be placed on ensuring accurate and timely review of time records so as to not cause disruptions or errors in pay.

College-Specific Policies

General Caveats:

It must be stated at the outset that all university employees who are required to complete timesheets are required to complete their timesheets regularly and accurately (to the best they are able).
1. Therefore: an employee should never knowingly falsify their time report; and the employee’s supervisor should never 1) request that the employee falsify their time report, or 2) approve a time report that they know to be falsified. [This latter point can get tricky, but—in most cases—if a supervisor (or timekeeper) believes a reporting error has been made, they should double-check with the employee, and go from there. [see Process, above].]
2. A note re: “falsify”: not to be confused with making a mistake; assumes that the employee knows they are reporting something untrue.
College-level policies should be understood to be in addition to existing university leave policies, therefore all university-level provisions should be understood to apply in COLA, even if those policy details have not been explicitly repeated here.
1. Some examples of university rules include, but are not limited to:
  1. Sick time off may never be used as a substitute for vacation time off;
  2. Employees must have prior approval before earning comp time;
  3. Limitations on the amount of comp time employees are allowed to earn, or use within a single work week, or how and when employees may earn comp time when traveling for work.

The choice not to re-state the entire policy here is not an attempt to obscure rules, but rather to ensure that employees reference the policy at its source, in case there are any updates or changes.

COLA policy has been written with the goal of establishing a greater uniformity of timekeeping practices throughout the college, as well as to provide the college’s preferred interpretations regarding policy provisions that have previously produced confusion or inconsistency across units.

Summary of COLA-Specific Timekeeping Practices:

Generally speaking, priority of usage for non-sick paid-time off: 1) Overtime; 2) Comp Time; 3) Vacation. I.e., accrued overtime should be used before other types of non-sick paid time off.
COLA does not pay out banked overtime hours except for in 3 specific instances (see Banking Overtime).
With rare exceptions for holidays, employees should never report hours worked + paid time off used in excess of their appointed SWH.
1. Example: An employee is appointed for 40 SWH: in one week, they work 39 hours and are out for 2 hours for a medical appointment. They would not report 41 hours; because they worked 39 hours (out of 40 SWH appointed), they will only need to use 1 hour of sick time off to cover their absence.

Banking Overtime:

For university policies, definitions of overtime, and information regarding its accrual and use, please see HR’s website [State Compensatory Time and Overtime (Federal Compensatory Time) ]. All university-wide policies—such as the requirement for supervisor approval prior to earning overtime-- apply to COLA employees; the following college provisions specify that overtime hours will be earned as paid time off and that any accrued overtime hours should be prioritized to cover non-sick absences.

‘Overtime’ hours worked by COLA NE employees are accrued as Overtime paid time off (at the rate of 1 ½ for each hour worked) upon final approval of the relevant time report(s)[Enter Time WIG (Exempt); Enter Time WIG (Non-Exempt)] in Workday. In other words, overtime worked does not become overtime paid-time-off until a non-exempt employee 1) works more than 40 hours in a single work week; 2) records those hours in their time sheet in WD and submits; and 3) the timesheet BP is final-approved. This process is sometimes referred to as “banking” overtime.

Note: If a non-exempt employee works more than 40 hours in a work week, they are required to enter the accurate report of hours worked on their timesheet, regardless of whether they requested prior-approval for the extra work time. The lack of prior approval is a separate issue from the institutional necessity of keeping accurate time records.

COLA employees will only be paid for unused overtime balance if one of the following situations applies:
1. Employee separates from UT Austin;
2. Employee transfers to another Unit within UT Austin;
3. Employee’s current position is reclassified from a non-exempt job profile to an exempt job profile.
Although banked overtime hours do not expire, they are intended to be used as time off, ideally within the 12 months following their accrual. Therefore, employees with overtime accruals shall exhaust their overtime hours for their non-sick absences before using vacation or floating holiday hours.
1. Managers and timekeepers shall ensure that employees use overtime hours prior to using other non-sick leave types.
  1. Note: If not clear from above: overtime hours cannot be used the same week they are worked.

Earning Comp Time:

Comp time can be accrued in multiple ways. COLA’s policy is intended to limit the accrual of comp time to occasions where employees are working in excess of their appointed hours.

Benefits to this approach:

Produces a more accurate picture of employee workloads across the college.
- If comp time accruals in COLA accurately indicate additional hours worked, this data can be used to assess overall workloads, peak periods, potential staffing needs, and so on.
- Can be used to identify and assess instances where employees are regularly working more than their appointed SWH.

COLA does not approve the conversion of one type of paid time off into another, except as established by university policy, such as benefits-eligible staff who have no more sick time off being allowed to use accrued vacation time off to cover their absences related to illness, a.k.a. “vacation-for-sick”. [The reverse, using sick time off to cover a vacation, is prohibited.]

Policy Implications:

1. Non-Exempt and Full-Time:

As noted in Process step 1a, required to account for 40 hours of time each work week.
Generally speaking, it is expected that full-time, NE workers will not accrue comp time; explanation follows:
Although NE staff may choose to keep track of their time in WD on a daily basis, it is expected that they will look at their timesheet holistically before submitting, and, if they have 1) not worked 40 hours, but 2) are reporting more than 40 hours through use of paid time off, they shall adjust their paid time off hours down so as to report no more than 40 hours of work and paid time off in total.

An Example:

Employee has a doctor’s appointment on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, they were given a time-sensitive project, so, with their manager’s approval, they worked an additional 30 minutes. They filled out their timesheet as follows (see Fig. 1):

Fig. 1

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals
Hours Worked	8	6	8.5	8	8	38.5
Sick	0	2 (dr appt)	0	0	0	2.0
totals	8	8	8.5	8	8	40.5

However, this approach will result in the employee accruing 0.5 hours of NE Comp time , which means they are using more paid time off than needed.

To correct their timesheet, they should reduce the amount of paid time off recorded (see Fig 2):

Fig. 2

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals
Hours Worked	8	6	8.5	8	8	38.5
Sick	0	1.5 (dr appt)	0	0	0	1.5
totals	8	7.5	8.5	8	8	40.0

2. Non-Exempt, Part-Time, Benefits-Eligible, and Salaried:

As noted in Process step 1b, required to account for their appointed hours each work week.
- Ex. If appointed for 30 SWH, expected to account for at least 30 hours of work and/or paid time off each week.
The expectation for a part-time salaried employee is that they will work the hours they are appointed and/or use accrued paid time off to cover absences.
Part-time staff should not be regularly accruing comp time.
- If works more than appointed hours, but less than 40 hours in one work week: will accrue comp time at a ratio of 1:1 for the time worked over their hours appointed.
  - Ex. Appointed 25 SWH, works 30 hours; would accrue 5 hours NE comp time.
- If part-time staff work more than their appointed hours and also more than 40 hours in one work week: will accrue comp time at a ratio of 1:1 for the hours worked above their appointed hours, up to 40, and then will accrue overtime at a ratio of 1:1.5 for hours worked above 40.
  - Ex. Appointed 25 SWH, works 42 hours; would accrue 15 hours of NE comp time and 3 hours of overtime.

Multiple Jobs

Managers who employ part-time employees need to be aware of whether or not an individual employee has multiple jobs. If staff have multiple jobs at UT--or multiple State agency jobs-- this will require clear communication and active oversight of work hours so as to ensure compliance with Federal & State laws, institutional regulations (such as those of TRS), and other applicable policies.

If a part-time staff member regularly accrues comp time, this is often a sign that their workload needs adjustment or that there is a performance issue (or both).
- Potential compliance issues:
  - If employee has multiple UT jobs, can trigger overtime compliance issues;
  - If employee has multiple State jobs (part-time UT, part-time at another TX State agency), can create TRS compliance issues (also overtime compliance problems);
  - If appointed 20-29 SWH but works 30+, could suggest attempt to avoid providing full-time premium sharing and/or trigger ACA non-compliance;
  - Paid time off accruals are based on SWH of appointment, along with months of state service, so could be providing less in employee benefits than appropriate (relative to hours worked);
  - Comp time is not salary; could be creating compensation issues.

3. Non-Exempt, Part-Time, Benefits-Eligible, and Hourly:

Rare in COLA.
As noted in Process step 1c, required to account for at least their appointed hours each work week; must complete timesheets in order to be paid.
If employee works and records more hours on their time sheet than their SWH of appointment:
- If hours worked in one week are 40 hours or less: employee will be paid for hours worked, they may not accrue comp time. (See HR Comp Time Policy Page)
- If hours worked in one week exceed 40 hours, it appears that WD automatically calculates the overtime but will “bank” the overtime hours (while paying up to 40?). (See WD Enter Time WPO, p3; WD Enter Time Part-Time Employee Guidance WPO and WD Timesheet Adjustments for Employees with Multiple Jobs). This may be incorrect…
If multiple jobs, there can be several kinds of issues (see section 2 above).

4. Exempt, Benefits-Eligible, and Salaried (Full-Time or Part-Time):

As noted in Process step 1d above, expected to account for their appointed hours each work week.
- Ex. If appointed for 30 SWH, expected to account for 30 hours of work and/or paid time off.
If works more than appointed hours in one work week: will accrue comp time at a ratio of 1:1 for the time worked over their hours appointed.
- Ex. Appointed 40 SWH, works 42 hours; would accrue 2 hours of comp time.
Should not report hours worked and paid time off used in excess of appointed SWH within one work week.
- Ex. Appointed 40 SWH, works 35 hours, uses 8 hours of vacation, reporting 43 hours total. Do not do this.
  - Exception: In weeks with a university holiday, if an employee works ‘extra’ hours in the other days, would leave holiday hours intact and record hours worked as normal. (See Fig 3.)

Fig. 3

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	totals
Hours Worked	0	8	8	9	8	33.0
University Holiday	8	0	0	0	0	8.0
totals	8	8	8	9	8	41.0

5. Non-Exempt, Non-Benefits-Eligible and Hourly:

As noted in Process step 1e above, required to report their hours worked each week, as applicable.
Are not eligible for comp time or overtime accruals: will be paid based on the hours recorded.
- If employee works and records over 40 hours in one week, WD will calculate overtime hours at time-and-a-half for the time above 40 hours and will pay the person accordingly.
- Whether or not the person is benefits-eligible, if they work more than 40 hours in a week, in one job or multiple jobs, they will be owed overtime pay for the work over 40 hours.
- As above, employees with multiple jobs require additional monitoring.

Accruing Comp Time During University Closure:

General:

With rare exceptions, and consistent with any guidance issued by the University for emergency closures, COLA employees are not expected to work while the University is closed.

Holidays and Skeleton Crew Days:

As a State agency, UT is able to observes a certain number of holidays per year, set by the legislature. The University selects which holidays they will observe via closure and publishes that schedule annually. (see HR’s website [Holidays ] for details and for yearly schedule(s)). Except for rare instances, such as jobs involving the care and feeding of animals, it is expected that COLA Staff will not work [and will not be required to work] on UT holidays.

Skeleton Crew:

Certain days during Winter Break are designated as “skeleton crew days”; if the Dean were to determine that an employee’s job was essential to college operations during those days, the employee would be authorized to earn Holiday Comp Time for hours worked on those days.

Note: An individual employee is not authorized to designate their own job as “essential.”
Typically, the COLA HR Director shares the Dean’s skeleton crew decision via email announcement prior to Winter Break (in mid-December).

As excepted above [i.e., animal care], and unless designated by the Dean, most COLA jobs do not need to be performed during Winter Break.

Individual exceptions to the general announcement would be notified in advance of required work dates; when in doubt, please contact COLA HR.

Best practice: Work on a University Holiday should be approved by an employee’s supervisor, in advance of the holiday, preferably in writing.

Consistent with the above, it is expected that the accrual of Holiday Comp Time in COLA will be uncommon.

Managers and Timekeepers should take extra care when approving timesheets for work weeks involving university holidays, as sometimes individuals enter hours worked on holidays by mistake (especially as Holiday time off is not added to the time report in Workday until after the employee has entered time worked (or off) on the week in which the holiday occurs.

Emergency Closures:

The university occasionally closes due to inclement weather conditions when UT’s President determines it is in the best interest of student and employee safety on campus.

If the university closes, officials will attempt to notify everyone as quickly as possible, through as many means as are practical, but the best place to check is the UT Emergency Site.

Human Resources (central HR) will send instructions to all employees regarding their potential eligibility for, and use of, Emergency Leave in the week or so following any university closure due to weather. Staff whose work was impacted by a closure ought to wait until HR’s guidance is sent out before completing the time report(s) for the date(s) of closure.

2 important points:

Only UT’s President can authorize the use of Emergency Leave, so, excepting pre-approved circumstances related to funeral leave in specific instances detailed in HOP 5-4130, [https://secure2.compliancebridge.com/utexas/public/getdoc.php?file=5-4130 ] staff must await verification of Presidential authorization prior to any use of Emergency paid time off.
Re: impacted by the closure: with the increased usage of telework in combination with approved Flexible Work Arrangements [FWA], many staff may be able to work some or all of their normal work hours during a closure, because they were not scheduled to work on campus or because their job functions were not directly impacted. Staff whose work was unaffected by campus closure would complete their timesheets with hours worked as usual.