Cristina Macz
Staff Writer
To kick off the new school year, USF rolled out USFWorks, a new payroll system set to be used by all USF employees, including full-time and part-time faculty, staff and student employees.
USFWorks is powered by the financial and human resources platform Workday. It’s intended to provide easy-to-use HR and payroll information to the University community.
“The former HR and Payroll system did not efficiently meet the university’s needs and included manual and complex processes,” Mara Krasts said, USF’s human resources project manager said in an email.
Plans to implement USFWorks began in Feb. 2018. The transition meant a shift in the pay cycle for adjunct faculty, staff and student employees, which caused a one week delay in their pay period during Jan. 2019. These groups were offered a loan or usage of their paid vacation days as compensation to cover the gap.
Whereas the pay cycle shift was not necessary for the implementation of USFWorks, Krasts said the University made the changes together for efficiency.
She said the new pay cycles will also help streamline the University’s time-keeping systems, keep sick leave balances current, and increase timesheet accuracy.
Michael de Vera, who is in charge of payroll for students on the 4th floor of the University Center, said he enjoys some aspects of the new system in comparison to the old one. For example, in the old system, if students wanted to submit their timesheets after the submission deadline, the submission of a paper timesheet was required.
“The way the [new] system is setup [students] are able to submit more than once,” de Vera said. “This is an effort to make sure [students] all get paid the correct amount.”
Krasts said all University employees have received regular communication about the USFWorks implementation starting in April 2018 through its launch on Jan. 2.
Despite many training resources available on platforms such as myUSF and Canvas, which are accessible to both students and faculty through their USF accounts, the new change has still left some feelings of uncertainty for University employees of all levels.
Monsse Torres is a sophomore who works as a Student Assistant with the Graduation Center and a Resident Advisor within the St. Ignatius Institute Living Learning Community. Despite the two positions, Torres had no idea the new payroll system was being implemented until she had to submit her new timesheet for pay.
“It’s a little different and the parts that got me confused were the way in which the hours [are now] labeled,” Torres said. “What I do like is that it’s a lot more organized. Since I technically have two jobs in which I have to input hours for, I can submit my hours all in one day, and I don’t have to submit two separate [timecards].”
