HR policy briefing
Agenda
• Industrial Action update
• Reporting outside appointments
• Revised policy concerning relationships between staff and students
• Visitor guidance and agreements
• Bullying and Harassment – funder requirements
• Harpur v Brazel update
• Reward updates
• General Updates
• Communications / Poll
Industrial Action – update
• ASOS 20 April-30 Sept
“Working to contract; not undertaking any voluntary activities; not
covering for absent colleagues; removing uploaded materials
related to, and/or not sharing materials related to, lectures or
classes that will be or have been cancelled as a result of strike
action; not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike
action; and undertaking a marking and assessment boycott.”
• Full details see UCU Industrial Action | HR Support (ox.ac.uk)
• Position statement University’s position on UCU industrial action
| HR Support (ox.ac.uk)
Reporting outside appointments
Reminders:
• Academic and academic-related staff must complete form OA1
every time they want to take on an outside appointment or
consultancy Holding outside appointments | HR Support
(ox.ac.uk).
• If consultancy arranged via OUI, OUI will make sure form
completed.
• If not arranged via OUI, please input details to PXD for annual
HE-BCI returns: scenariofactsheet-outsideappointmentspdf
(ox.ac.uk).
OA1
Revised: Staff-student relationship policy
• Policy concerning relationships between students and staff | HR Support (ox.ac.uk)
• Cascade of 1 March 2023
• New emphasis
• Prohibits staff from entering into an intimate relationship with a student for
whom they have any responsibility
• Strongly discourages any other close personal relationship between a staff
member and student for whom they have any responsibility that transgresses the
boundaries of professional conduct
• Any member of staff who is in, (or who has had) a relationship of this kind must
notify their Head of Department by 17 June at the latest.
• HoD must undertake risk assessment of potential conflict of interest and put
mitigations in place (for guidance for HoDs see Annex 4 of the policy.)
• Relates to all University staff, inc joint appointments, casual paid workers, visiting
academics and graduate students with teaching, pastoral or supervisory roles.
• Please bring to the attention of your departments regularly.
Policy reviews
Thanks to our volunteer reviewers who
have been working through some policies.
Updates coming soon.
Visitors – COMING SOON
• Revised guidance – thanks to all those who have
shared their experience
• Highlights:
• Much more information on visitors in one place
• Includes key points from the visitor agreement guidance
notes
• When to use a short form agreement/long form agreement
• When to seek HRBP advice
• Making it clear (for you to pass onto colleagues!) that there
is a lot of work to set up a visitor properly – suggested
minimum term of one month
• Revised template agreements.
Bullying and Harassment – reminder of
funder requirements
• Some funders (in partic WT, BHF, CRUK and NIH) have strict
requirements to be notified about B&H and/or sexual
harassment allegations
• Where formal complaints received please always check
funding source asap
• Discuss with HRBP and Head of RSO
• If a report is to made to a funder – record keeping is key
• WT audit. Additional requirements later in the year
• Preventing Harm | Staff Gateway (ox.ac.uk)
PERS(19)03 Research funder policies and requirements on bullying and harassment
HR Audit
(self-assessment and data
collection)
• Annual exercise:
• Self-assessment checklist of operational requirements
• Data collection survey on a range of HR issues
• Paused for 2023
• Reviewing to understand better how it’s working
• In the meantime:
• Staff survey
• Survey related to Harpur V Brazel and holiday pay
• NWW pulse survey being re-run in the summer
• Any comments ka[email protected]x.ac.uk
Part-week starter and leaver dates
• PXD uses a Mon-Sun 7 day week and pro-rates against that
regardless of working pattern
• For part-week workers if the start or end date is recorded as
first or last actual working day this can result in shortfall.
• Eg Wed-Fri work pattern
• Employee works their complete full week (Wed to Fri) and
therefore due full 60%FTE salary for week
• But employment recorded as starting on Wednesday and
not Monday
• PXD will pro-rate as if only part of the part-week
hours had been worked
• See HR Systems pdf Record appointment start and end
dates
Harpur v Brazel - update
Government
consultation outcome
awaited
New consultation
launched on
reintroduction of rolled-
up pay
Uncertainty making
process changes
complex
Updated contract
templates coming soon
- casuals, variable,
casual examiners, TTO
Key activities for now:
Where poss pay
accrued, untaken
holiday in lieu at the
end of contract
Promptly close
down casual appts
contracts for min period
Seek advice on new
TTO and VH
Harpur Trust v Brazel
To update guidance we need to know more about how you are engaging part-year
workers
Survey coming soon
One response per department
Looking for details of how you are
currently dealing with holiday pay for:
Casuals
Casual teachers
Variable hours staff
Term-time only
Look out in the Cascade
HR Analytics
HESA – Higher Education
Statistics Agency collects
data on students, staff,
finance and estates
The team are moving into
intense HESA data quality
checking phase
They may be contacting you
for information
Grateful for your assistance
HESA data entry background
| HR Systems (ox.ac.uk)
Reward updates
Awards for Excellence Scheme
• Annual gathered field review element of the Reward and
Recognition scheme for academic-related and support staff
• Taking place in Trinity term - payments to be made from
August 2023
• Review period - 12 months to date of scheme launch
• Full scheme guidance inc criteria, nomination and payroll
forms available from webpage Reward and Recognition
Scheme | HR Support (ox.ac.uk)
Grading triage
• 3 month grading triage now ended
• Initial recommendations will be implemented in June
Vice Chancellor's review of pay and
conditions
• Professor Irene Tracey, has commissioned a review of pay and conditions:
• Purpose: to conduct a comprehensive analysis on the total reward and benefits
offer for all staff groups across the University
• Objectives include:
• Benchmarking pay
• Considering full employer value proposition (inc benefits, learning and
development opportunities etc)
• Looking at salary structures, progression and recognition
• Considering ways to reduce % of staff on FTC
• The first Steering Group meeting will be held on 19 June. Reporting findings to
• See new webpage for future updates: Pay and Conditions Review | HR Support
(ox.ac.uk)
General updates
Student ambassadors
• Casual letter of engagement template available (from
Templates webpage)
• Use for minimum period required but max 11 months
• Where possible pay accrued, untaken holiday in lieu at end
(using 12.07% calculation)
Career break scheme updated
• holiday accrued during break now paid but statutory only –
pro-rata to 28 days
Menopause
• Teams channel now has around 200 members
• New case studies being added including two teaching staff
HR self-service and personal details
Please remind staff (inc casuals) to keep
personal details up to date:
• E&D data important to help us achieve our
targets
• Home address essential for pensions,
payroll and also if staff are AWOL
• Important to remind upcoming leavers to check
their home address before they leave (P45 and
final payslip - NB P45s are NOT available in
HR Self-Service)
• (known issue with email field)
Policy team communications
• No longer using circulars and instead:
• Cascade for updates to policy/process
• Admin-personnel mailing list for comms direct to HR teams
• Please ensure robust process for prompt cascading
within dept
• Briefings and Newsletter – now just HR policy issues
• Broader HR issues coming in new HR-wide newsletter
• Twice per term
• To: administrators-personnel mailing list
• Using click-through email format, like Bulletin
• Covering news from all central HR teams
• HR Conference
Polls
1. HR Policy Briefings
• Do you continue to find these briefings useful, with the
operational focus?
2. Policy team Newsletter for HR colleagues
• Would you prefer to receive this in another format?
3. Policy team Staff Updates doc
• Do you still want this?
4. HR Conference
• When is the best time to hold this?
