Overview
Background
This project will undertake business analysis in order to deliver a business requirements document identifying:
- the requirements needed to automate the calculation of pay relating to maternity, paternity, adoption, surrogacy and shared parental leave, hereafter referred to as parental pay
- the requirements needed to enable HR to manage and monitor all aspects of parental leave
- the reporting requirements for parental pay
- the requirements for data capture for Athena Swan
- any overlapping requirements
- any dependencies between requirements, such as the order in which certain requirements may have to be implemented
- a recommendation as to how these requirements might be delivered - for example as one single or two separate implementation projects
- a reccomendation as to suitable timescales and timelines for these implementations
Parental Leave Payments
Currently, parental pay calculations are calculated off system and manually entered into Oracle.
(Oracle can record: Adoption, Maternity, Ordinary Paternity Adoption, Ordinary Paternity Birth, Shared Parental Adoption, Shared Parental Birth, additional Paternity Adoption, Additional Paternity Birth)
This project will identify:
- the requirements needed to capture the data for parental pay calculations
- the work required to automate these payments
- who would be best placed to carry out that work.
Complex configuration will be required in Oracle to enable this functionality.
It is expected that much of the work in any subsequent implementation project would be undertaken by the Payroll Technical Support Manager supported by the HR Systems Manager who will therefore both be key stakeholders.
Reporting of Parental Leave (Including Payments)
Data on SPL return rates/flexible working and related policies is fragmented. This is because it is currently held in different places e.g. College HR, individual Schools and by means of manual systems e.g. spreadsheets. Additionally the data is not maintained in a consistent format which makes gathering, collating and interpreting the data time consuming and inefficient. This fragmentation also applies also to managing the related processes. Payroll holds some of the information which is not held by either HR or individual Schools.
MI reporting is required to identify parental leave and parental pay over periods and to what schemes.
- The project will identify what the reporting requirements are.
HR require the ability to send letters to staff about their parental leave and payments.
- The project will identify what the requirements are to produce these letters,
Athena Swan
The Equality Challenge Unit's Athena SWAN Charter was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research.
In May 2015 the charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), and in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. The charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.
The University and all its STEMM Schools/Departments hold Athena SWAN awards which will be due for renewal/upgrade in the period of the next 1- 3 years. Data is required to enable the University and each School to measure progress and provide commentary in support of a renewal or upgrade, and to develop initiatives and subsequent action planning.
The Athena Swan reporting requirements may be summarised as follows:
Acad & Research staff by grade and gender
- Split by T&R, R and T
- Split by contract type
Leavers
- Acad & Research staff
- Professional staff
Professional staff by grade and gender
- Split by contract type
Recruitment – by gender and grade
- Applications
- Shortlist
- Offer
- Acceptance
Promotions – by gender, grade, full and part time status
- Application
- Successful
Eligible for REF by grade and gender, full and part time status
Submitted to REF by grade and gender, full and part time status
Training (out of scope)
Annual review – uptake by gender
Maternity
- Maternity return rate
- When people went on leave
- When people came back
- What happens when people return from maternity
- How many had contract that ended whilst on leave
- How many are still here after 6mths?
- How many are still here after 12mths?
- How many are still here after 18mths?
Paternity/ Shared Parental/ Adoption/ Parental Leave
- Update of each of these by gender and grade
Flexible Working (formal cases only)
- Applications
- Outcomes
Overlap
It is likely that there will be overlap in the requirements for automating parental payments, and recording and reporting on Athena Swan data - for example in recording uptake of parental leave.
Scope
This project will conduct business analysis only therefore any system design work will be out of scope. However most of the data required for Athena Swan (the significant gaps for parental leave and flexible working aside) is held in Oracle and eRecruitment and available via HR BI Universes. It is likely that these systems could be amended to include the additional data required.
It may be within the scope of the project to conduct some systems analysis work in order to inform the business requirements and to assist in the estimation of and scheduling of any follow-on implementation projects.
The Business Analyst will gather information from the business leads in HR and Payroll and from devolved HR in the college of Science and Engineering and individual schools may be contacted. The Business Analyst may gather some information from devolved HR at college level from the two remaining colleges (HSS and MVM).
Out of Scope
Requirements to record or report on informal flexible working arrangements made within schools or centres will be out of scope.
Requirements to record training offered to and taken up by staff will be out of scope.
This project will not articulate the design or technical implementation of the systems work relating to either automation of parental pay or collection of Athena Swan data.
It is anticipated that the solution will be in-house and that procurement is not required.
Objectives
To understand and document the existing processes by which staff in HR, devolved HR, Payroll and any other area ensure that the correct parental leave payments are made to university staff.
To understand and document the changes required to these existing processes which would allow them to be completely or partially automated.
To understand and document the existing processes (required to ensure that the correct parental leave payments are made to university staff) that cannot currently be automated and why.
To identify any areas of overlap or dependency between parental pay and Athena Swan requirements.
To understand and document reporting requirements related to parental leave.
Deliverables
No. | Deliverable | Priorities |
1 | Suite of clearly defined business requirements documented in a Business Requirement Document (BRD) detailing the current business processes, including flowcharts for all options, identifying any gaps in the current processes and addressing the following questions: · How is parental pay being managed (captured, calculated and processed) by the different stakeholders? · How is parental leave being managed by the different stakeholders? · How is Athena Swan data being managed by the different stakeholders? · What are the recording and reporting requirements (including exception reports)? · What are the current data sources; the data required, required feeds and compatibility of data? · Are all legal requirements currently being met? | mandatory |
| 2 | Suite of clearly defined business requirements documented in a Business Requirement Document (BRD) detailing changes to the current business processes which would address the following questions: · How can calculation and processing of parental pay be automated? .· Are there any known cases for which calculation and processing of parental pay cannot be automated? Is there any acceptable manual workaround? · How can Athena Swan data be managed and recorded so that it can be reported on at University, college and school level? · Are there any requirements to anonymise data or other data protection requirements?
| mandatory |
2 | Authorisation rules for who can:
These would then be incorporated in the system build in any follow-on projects to be scheduled. | mandatory |
3 | Authorisation for who can . View an employee’s contract(s) and view/report on parental pay. . View relevant Athena Swan data at the university, college or school (or centre) level. These would then be incorporated in the system build in any follow-on projects to be scheduled. | mandatory |
4 | Future ability to view/report on parental pay within the university at an individual and wider level. Department, school/planning unit, university level reporting to be easily accessible. | mandatory |
| 5 | Future ability to view/report on Athena Swan data within the university at an individual and wider level. Department, school/planning unit, university level reporting to be easily accessible. | mandatory |
| 6 | Future ability to produce letters to staff relating to their parental leave and parental pay. | mandatory |
7 | Future ability to communicate to employees the details of parental pay options. | mandatory |
8 | Ability for employee to view information on their own parental pay. | desirable |
9 | Identification of areas of overlap or dependency between the ability to authorise parental pay and provide Athena Swan data so that appropriate scheduling of technical solutions can take place in any follow-on projects. | highly desirable |
Benefits
- Staff saving for manual processing – estimated that this requires 63 hours per month (756 per year) for Payroll staff to process these payments manually.
- Improved accuracy of parental pay payments.
- Improved transparency for employees receiving parental pay payments.
- Improved ability to report on parental pay for Athena Swan and equality reporting across the university.
- Improve reportong for parental leave
- Improve Management Information available to university
Success Criteria
This project will be a success when the content of the business requirements is signed off primarily by Payroll, HR and agreed devolved stakeholders by the end of September 2015.