HR and Payroll bulletin - November 2024

 

Payroll deadline adjustment due to pay award

Due to the NJC Pay Award being applied this month, Payroll Services need more time to process payroll. The deadline for payment claims, expenses and absences (sickness, paternity and unpaid special leave), and bank and personal address details will be brought forward by one day. All other deadlines remain unchanged.

The new deadline is 6pm on 18 November 2024. Payroll deadlines and pay dates

Vacation rule Set Up for unplanned manager absence

A new catalogue item form called Vacation rule set up – Unplanned Manager Absence is now available on the ICT self-service portal. It enables a 'vacation rule' to be set up when a manager is unexpectedly absent. The vacation rule will re-route notifications for approval, e.g., leave requests and claims, to another manager for the duration of the absence. Please note that the form can only be completed by the absent manager's line manager.

Leading Lancashire Framework – Launch of Level 4

You may have already seen that the Level 4 Leading Lancashire Framework was launched on 24 September for all people managers and operational leaders. This follows the introduction of Levels 1 and 2 in May for the Executive Management Team and Directors, and Level 3 in June for Heads of Service.

The Leading Lancashire Framework is designed to provide direction and accountability for leaders and managers, focusing on responsibilities, capabilities, behaviour, and results.

From October, people managers have started to engage in ‘Key Conversations’ training, which is a significant component of the support that People Services is providing to our people managers. The rollout of the training is taking place over 12 months, starting with services experiencing significant absence and wellbeing challenges. The delivery team is actively collaborating with specific Heads of Service to invite colleagues to participate.

New Oracle Fusion Onboarding 'Journey' 

You may have noticed that within the 'My Team' area in Oracle Fusion, the former 'Onboarding' tile has been replaced by a new 'Journeys' tile. If you are currently involved in some live recruitment, you will see that all previous onboarding checklist tasks have been converted into onboarding Journeys. This seamless change improves the look and feel of the tasks from a user perspective and marks the first Journey to be introduced in Fusion at LCC.

Journeys

Oracle Fusion Journeys can be used to guide employees and managers through various employment-related tasks, and we are currently developing several Journeys to improve our processes and the customer experience overall.

Redwood

Redwood is Oracle's next generation user experience, designed to streamline and deliver consistent experience and provide advanced technology for user experience innovation. The new onboarding Journey is Redwood design, so you will see that it looks different to other Oracle Fusion screens, and, over the next six to nine months, you will see more and more Oracle Fusion screens move to Redwood.

Pay claims in Oracle Fusion - Personal contribution

When submitting or authorising a Personal Compensation Pay Claim in Oracle Fusion, you must ensure the date worked is not before the hire date of the position. The claim will not pay, and the record will be deleted from the Personal Contribution record.

Screenshot of personal contribution window in Oracle Fusion

Agency worker procurement

We are making some changes to the agency worker procurement process to improve the governance and oversight of agency worker ordering. In the main, this means placing agency workers against the position they are covering in Fusion. If there isn’t a vacant position available for the agency worker, a new position will need to be created for the worker to be assigned to and a Business case will be required for this.

Reminder: The only circumstances agency workers should be engaged

  • Where minimum staffing levels must be maintained for statutory purposes
  • Short-term cover (no longer than 12 weeks) pending recruitment
  • Covering a long-term sickness absence*
  • Covering a maternity absence*
  • A funded project work or to meet a specific urgent business need (a business case will be needed for a temporary position to be created)

*Contact PSestablishmentteam@lancashire.gov.uk  for an overlap against the position in these circumstances

Procuring an agency worker

To procure an agency worker, refer to the Agency Worker Supply guide and contact the council's Agency Team (agencyworkers@lancashire.gov.uk) so that we can support you through the enrolment process and assist you with placing your order. 

Please do not contact agencies direct. We have a current Neutral Vendor Agreement in place with Matrix to maintain a connection to the supply chain, secure workers at competitive market rates and ensure that all employment-related compliance checks are completed and verified.

Should any agency workers be sourced Off Contract, i.e., directly from the service to an agency and not via Matrix, the recruiting manager must complete a catalogue item via Digital Services to assign the worker to the vacant position they are covering. If this is not in place, Digital Services will be unable to assign them an LCC AD login account.

Amendments to terminations submitted on Oracle Fusion

A new form has been created for amendments to terminations. The Termination and Claims after leaving form should only be used after a termination has been submitted on Fusion and an error has been made on the original submission. The corrections include: 

  • incorrect termination date
  • wrong post terminated
  • change of termination reason
  • request to reverse termination
  • PILON and Accrued Holiday Pay for Leavers, if not included in the original termination

Oracle Fusion – Manager self-service task – guidance document

There is a handy document available that breaks down most common tasks that you need to do as a people manager in Fusion. The tasks are broken down by category and the document explains whether the task takes place either in Fusion or outside (via the Intranet or Business Case). It then provides a quick overview of the navigation as to where you need to go in the system as well as a link to the Oracle Guided Learning (OGL) process guide which opens straight in Fusion when you click it.

To access the document, open OGL and find ‘Manager Self Service Task - Guidance’ under links.

Remember, People Services offer regular training courses for managers to use Fusion. The course assumes no prior experience and is available to any new or long-standing manager.

The course covers the essentials:

  • Key navigation shortcuts: The quickest ways to get around Fusion
  • Oracle guided learning: Your trusty sidekick for help and guidance within Fusion
  • Hierarchy and employee info: Learn how to find essential information about your team
  • Documents of Records (DoRs): Understand what they are and how to add them for your team
  • Absences: How to manage sickness and maternity leave
  • Terminations: Ways to simplify the process
  • Reports: Access and generate manager reports with ease

Spaces are available for November, December and January. Book your place here. 

Guidance on managing Service Requests (SR)

When a response to an SR is received from the AskHR or Payroll team, the status of the SR may change to 'resolved' if the team have determined that there is nothingScreenshot showing advances search showing advanced search option they can add to the query at that stage. There is then a 5-day window following this during which an employee can choose to add a further message to a resolved request e.g., to provide further information.

The default setting to view existing SRs does not include resolved requests, so when the status is changed to resolved, the SR may disappear from the initial view. However, employees can still view resolved requests. To do this, click on the advanced search filter (found next to the blank 'list' box near the top) and change the status filter to include 'All' requests. Add messages to existing SRs where it relates to the same query, rather than adding new SRs, as this will enable us to answer your query more efficiently.

Useful information, support and links

Corporate HR Mailbox

The corporate HR mailbox has been renamed and is now live. Please email - peopleoperations@lancashire.gov.uk.

Oracle Fusion – Self-service training for Managers

The Manager Self Service training course shows managers how to carry out the self-service tasks required of them as part of their manager role. Courses are running throughout the year. Learn more about this course and check availability for booking on the Learning and Training area of the intranet.

Payroll Deadlines 2024-25

Please make sure all payment claims are completed by the deadlines set out in our published payroll deadlines to guarantee changes are made in time for payday.