HR & Payroll

Following are some of the most frequently asked questions and information topics. Please click on the question/topic to expand or close.

For auditing purposes, we need to have the original offer letter attached to connect with the addendum.

Yes, you can start an AY appointment in spring and reappoint as AY for the following year as needed.

Currently I3 has approved that the appointment basis may change between the posting and hiring of a candidate. No additional approvals are required for appointment basis changes.

If you want to hire someone as AY fall who is currently AN spring, you should process a change of status from AN to AY prior to the end of spring. Otherwise, there will be a break in service and you will need to post the position or ask for an exception.

The recommendation is to leave this out of your posting and make the AY/AN determination based on the agreement with your most qualified candidate as a part of the offer process.

Is the appointment basis identified in the position summary? If the appointment basis is not listed in the position summary then you can modify the appointment to the needed appointment basis per hire. Otherwise, you will need to hire as AN and then do a reappointment for spring. You can do the reappointment as AY if you know you will want to hire them for the following fall semester.

Create the position as an AN designation as well as post for an AN position as it will provide you the most flexibility and should not detract from the diversity of your applicant pool. If at the time of hire the agreement is to hold an AY position HR will assist in making the necessary adjustments.

AHR, OI3, and HR’s guidance is to post the position with the most options for these pool postings. For instance the unit may decide to lessen the time frame or employment and this change should have no or a limited impact to the applicant pool versus increasing the duration of the appointment or employment percent, which would impact the applicant pool of the posting. 

A break in summer would require a search for a fall appointment. She would not be considered as having a recurring appointment.

If this person had a break in service from the University then the unit does not have to restart at the previous rate. If this person was on a leave of absence and is returning to work then you will be obligated to continue the salary as is.

If the pool search was not for a recurring appointment and the candidate had a break in service then a new posting is needed and the applicant needs to be hired through the posting. If the posting was listed as recurring then the candidate can be hired after a break in service. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t a mechanism to retain the posting and position information along with the diversity information required for OFCCP reporting to allow a person to be hired from a posting more than once. 

There is not a procedure to follow. Please ensure you have why this is a failed search documented. Then to cancel the posting you would work with you HR Analyst (found at the bottom of “posting information” in PageUp) to have this done. When you cancel the posting, an automatic communication will go to the units regarding this. In consultation with the chair, it is recommended that you send an email to any of the applicants that you may consider for future postings to retain a positive interaction with the unit/college.

AHR confirmed that the definition of supervisor means that they can hire/fire the person and that they write the annual review letters. Therefore, coordinators and internal unit program directors are not supervisors. Therefore, no one who is coordinating or an internal unit program director is barred from counting his or her years towards Designation B. 

CHR strives to process appointment forms and posting requests as quickly as possible. They prioritize pay related forms first.

If they don’t prioritize transactions that impact payroll first, they run the risk of violating federal wage laws that govern how long an employer has to pay employees for work they have done. Staffing resources in all parts of the university are limited and fixed and HR must prioritize transactions in a way that ensures people get paid on time and that correct, complete actions submitted by the CHR cutoff date get processed before their effective dates arrive.

Units are required to provide academic specialists with fixed term appointments a notice about reappointment or the likelihood of reappointment three months prior to the end date of the appointment.

If the employees have started working then we have to pay them as of the start date. Prospectively if you do not have signed paperwork including offer letter, I-9, and CBC the recommendation is to alter the start date to eliminate compliance issues and potential audit concerns if the hiring paperwork is dated after the start date of employment.

The process does not change between singular and pool postings. For pool postings if you have multiple applicants/candidates in the hiring process such as in compliance review and offer stages you will want to retain the compliance review status to ensure that I3 has access to the posting to review the candidates for the final offer process.

Should the person hired from the posting be reappointed for a second year the course load can increase and you can reappoint at a higher employment percent. The posting should reflect the current need and not focus on the potential need in the following academic year. Please note that if the future need were guaranteed to require a full-time course load then I would recommend dually identifying these statuses such that the current need is at a part time status with a reappointment option at full time status.

Closing a posting is basically closing the sourcing channels making the posting not available to new applications. A closed posting will not be visible on the careers.msu.edu website or any other sourcing website. You will still be able to view applications, switch applicant statuses, request reference letters, etc. Applicants are not notified when a posting is closed, it will simply disappear from the website. To close a posting please contact the HR analyst assigned to that posting (found in PageUp at the bottom of the postings “position info”).

Cancelling a posting is usually done when a position is no longer needed (e.g., a course is cancelled). When you cancel a posting, the position number associated with that posting is released and the posting is no longer accessible. Canceling a posting is much more permanent than closing the posting and we basically cannot do anything with the posting once it is cancelled. Cancelling a posting sends out a notification to applicants that the posting is no longer being filled. To cancel a posting please contact the HR analyst assigned to that posting (found in PageUp at the bottom of the postings “position info”).

EXCEPTIONS TO HIRING PROCESS

All chairs & directors should send forward rationale for the exemption of emergency hire or internal hire to the associate dean for signature before sending forward to AHR via SAP. You will attach the approval to the Academic Position Request form in SAP along with their CV.

Below are the acceptable reasons for a potential exception:

• Recruitment and Retention Contingent Hire – Spouse/Partner
• Recruitment and Retention Contingent Hire – Non-Spouse/Partner
• Emergency Hire
  • This will be allowed for non-Tenure/Continuing appointments
• Internal Hire
  • This will be allowed for all positions except on-calls
• Senior and Executive Management Hire
• Position will last 3 days or less
  • This will be allowed for non-Tenure/Continuing appointments

1. Emergency Hire Tip An emergency hire prohibits the employee from being reappointed following the emergency appointment. If being reappointed, they must apply through a search.
   
   
2. Internal Hire Exception The recommendation is that you post a position whenever possible. If there are extenuating circumstances where a posting cannot be done, then an emergency hire or internal hire reason using the exception process would be the alternative route. The employee must be rehired within 60 days of the termination in order for the internal hire reason to be available. Additionally, if the emergency hire reason is used the individual will not be permitted to be reappointed due to the emergency nature of the hire/rehire.
   
   Currently an applicant cannot reapply to the same semester position more than once in a pool if there has been a break in service. HR understands not wanting to have this person reapply to the same posting they have already interviewed for. To process the reappointment under our current processes the unit would need to request an internal hire exception, with prior approval from the Associate Dean through the academic position request process. After this request has been approved by OIII and AHR, reappointments will be allowed because the last hire reason is internal hire.

A recruitment effort is not required for no pay positions. This particular appointment can be processed without a posting. 

Attachment A should be attached to the no-pay form. Degree verification may be necessary and can be done by running the education-only package with HireRight.

Definition – recurring is every fall, every spring, or every summer.

• Postings, singular and pool, can be setup with the recurring designation. The recurring designation has to be specified for a particular semester such that one posting could be reoccurring for fall and if a spring option was needed then another posting would need to be posted for the spring recurring option.
• A recurring appointment is an assignment that occurs every fall only, spring only, or summer only. For example, a faculty or academic staff member who only had appointment in spring 2020, spring 2021, and spring 2022. In this example, the employee taught a course only offered each spring, thus, making this a recurring appointment. Any appointments that are denoted as recurring will be attributed a designation in the HR/Payroll System that will allow the unit to reappoint employees for recurring appointments without a posting.
• If you post a position, not recurring, and the original hire was for fall and then the decision was to keep the employee through spring then you would be able to process a reappointment. Once there is a break in service then the individual would have to be hired through another posting or, if applicable, one of the other hiring processes.
• Appointment must be into a designated recurring position held by the employee within the last year (must be the same organizational unit, similar job, and job duties).
• If someone is going to take a year off then the individual is no longer considered recurring and the position would need to be posted when the individual was ready to return to the unit

For all appointment types if the primary organizational unit is changing then the employee needs to be hired through a posting or exception process.

HireRight is the preferred method of verification. If this cannot happen, we will take a letter or email from the MSU registrar’s office if the student graduated from MSU. For MSU degrees, we will need an email from the Registrar’s office to HR.Academic.Operations@hr.msu.edu confirming the PhD degree was awarded to the faculty member.

If the student graduated anywhere else, then we need a letter from the Dean of the College in which they received their degree on letterhead stating all requirements of the degree have been met.

This responsibility has changed to the Registrar’s office. The Registrar’s office is the only office that can certify degree requirements have been met for MSU graduates who are seeking FAS employment.