As someone who works on campus, mechanical engineering senior Steven Salazar said he has experienced payroll issues before. However, within the past few months, Salazar said the issues have worsened.

In November, UT switched from its old payroll system to Workday, a cloud-based system that replaces dozens of systems related to human resources, payroll and employee data. Student employees on campus have voiced their concerns on Twitter with regards to not being paid the correct amount on time since the switch.

“I’ve noticed that my boss has been late in submitting my time sheets repeatedly,” Salazar said. “This was never really an issue before we switched to Workday.”

Salazar believes it may be a managerial issue.

“I have spoken to many friends of mine who work in different departments, and they have the same problem with their managers forgetting to approve their time sheets after the swap,” Salazar said. 

UT Human Resources provided training on the Workday system in various forms, including videos, training events and step-by-step guides online at the time of the switch. However, these trainings were not mandatory.

“We weren’t given any mandatory training or any real updates once this switch happened, so it wasn’t a very smooth transition for me or my staff,” said a manager within the College of Liberal Arts. “The website is confusing to navigate and took a lot of poking around to figure out what you were looking for.”

Adrienne Howarth-Moore, interim associate vice president of Human Resources, said there are systems in place to aid managers in approving time sheets on time including alert mechanisms and email reminders from HR prior to payroll deadlines.

“Anything that’s through the system before that deadline will be paid on the next payroll date,” Howarth-Moore said. “Anything that’s outstanding … those hours won’t be picked up until the next pay cycle.”

Salazar said he believes these errors take too long to correct.

“They should shorten the retroactive pay schedule, or establish consequences for managers submitting their time sheets late,” Salazar said. “As someone paying their way through college, rough spots like this often result in more stress on top of school. It’s disappointing. It’s infuriating.”

Howarth-Moore said the main issue with Workday is the training and managers’ familiarity with the system.

“With a brand-new system, we realize that there’s a learning curve,” Howarth-Moore said. “We do our very best to make sure that there’s training that’s been provided.”