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Professional Staff Temporary Appointment
Recruitment & Appointment

CONTENTS

UNDERSTAND

A Professional Staff Temporary Appointment (PSTA) may be made for assignments of limited duration (e.g., short-term project, coverage for a regular employee on leave of absence, assistance during peak work load periods, etc.). The Compensation Office must give advance approval for all temporary professional staff appointments and extensions in accordance with the provisions of the Professional Staff Program.

PSTA appointments must meet one of the professional staff exemption criteria and may be paid on an hourly or monthly basis depending on the appointment's duration and the number of hours to be worked per week.

Criminal Background Checks

Some UW positions are considered Security/Safety Sensitive. The successful candidate for such a position must have a criminal conviction history check conducted after a conditional offer of employment has been made and accepted. See the Criminal Background Check web page for details.

If your position is "security/safety sensitive" discuss the background check requirements with your employment specialist.

Monthly-Paid PSTAs - Project Appointments

PSTAs of six to nine months duration that consistently require 20 or more hours of work per week are paid monthly, are benefits-eligible, accrue leave according to Professional Staff Program provisions and are termed "Project Appointments." Project appointments normally are limited to a maximum of nine months. Appointments likely to exceed nine months duration are treated as a regular professional staff appointments, and filled through the regular, open-competitive recruitment process.

The Compensation Office assigns monthly-paid project appointments to one of three job class codes depending on the applicable FLSA exemption criteria, and the professional staff program appointment level. The job class codes are: 9650 (overtime eligible 1650 (overtime exempt), and 1655 (overtime exempt - grade 11 and above).

Hourly Paid PSTAs - Limited-Term Appointments

PSTAs of less than six months duration and/or appointments of less than 20 hours of work per week are hourly-paid, overtime eligible, and do not accrue paid leave. Employees in PSTAs do not receive employer-provided insurance coverage unless eligibility criteria are met. You can review information about insurance eligibility for temporary employees on the Benefits website. Hourly paid PSTA appointments must be assigned to job class code 1850.

Hourly paid limited-term professional staff appointments receive overtime pay at time and one half for all hours worked in excess of 40 in a workweek.

Appointments working less than 20 hours per week may be established for periods of up to one year, with extension for longer periods possible.

Salary

The Compensation Office determines appropriate minimum salary levels for professional staff temporary appointments based upon established market minimums for comparable work

ACT

These instructions assume that you have identified an individual to perform the work. If not, contact your Employment Specialist (ES) for assistance in identifying a candidate.

  1. Check with your department's administration regarding internal processing, review and approval requirements.
  2. Review the professional staff exemption criteria to learn about the kind of work that qualifies a position to be placed in the professional staff program.
  3. Review the professional staff payroll titles to see payroll titles used for professional staff position, grouped by the applicable exemption.
  4. Draft a position description, including job skill requirements. You will copy this information into the appropriate fields in UWHIRES when you create your employment requisition.
    • Include the position's duties and responsibilities organized from most to least important.
    • Include the education and experience requirements necessary to successfully perform the position's duties. You may want to include desired qualifications, and information regarding conditions of employment.
  5. Determine whether the proposed PSTA should be monthly-paid project appointment, or an hourly paid limited-term appointment according to the criteria described above.
    • If you are not sure whether the position should be monthly or hourly-paid, or if you believe you have a situation that requires special consideration, use job code 0000 (titled "To Be Determined") when you create your requisition in UWHIRES (below) and contact your ES for assistance.
  6. Complete the Supplemental PSTA Questionnaire which you will later attach to your UWHIRES requisition. You will be required to add your UWHIRES Req ID Number to this questionnaire before attaching it to your UWHIRES requisition. A copy of the completed Supplemental PSTA Questionnaire also needs to be sent to the Benefits Office, Box 355660 via campus mail. Do not enter your PSTA into the UW Online Payroll Update System (OPUS) until you have final email approval from human resources with instructions to do so
  7. Create a the requisition in UWHIRES. If you need access to UWHIRES Contact your ES. The required fields are displayed below:
Required Field Description
Payroll title

Choose the payroll title that most closely matches the work the appointed individual will be performing. Your ES is available to assist with determining the appropriate payroll title. For PSTA's, use one of the following job codes as the search element:

  • 1850 — hourly paid limited term appointment
  • 9650 — monthly-paid project appointment, overtime eligible.
  • 1650 — monthly-paid project appointment, overtime exempt.
  • 1655 — monthly-paid project appointment, overtime exempt grade 11 and above.
Working title Type in the position title that best describes the work the employee will be doing.
Job location Select the location where the individual will work.
Employment program Select "Professional Staff Temp Appointment."
Full or part time Select "full time" or "part time."
Proposed salary amt. For job code 1850 enter the salary amount in the format ##.##/hour (e.g. 15.57/hour).

For monthly-paid appointments use the format ####/month. Always use the full time rate for the position. You will enter the percent FTE elsewhere on the requisition.
Type of vacancy Enter "New."
Hiring manager Name of person responsible for the hiring decision. Hiring manager defaults to the person logged onto UWHIRES.
Appointing department Department responsible for the appointment. (May be different than hiring manager's department.)
Position description Provide a complete description of the duties and responsibilities to be performed by the appointed individual.
Requirements Describe the required skills necessary to perform the essential functions of the job.
Notes Enter the proposed candidate's name as it will appear in the UW payroll system.
Requisition approvers Verify that all necessary approvers are listed and that any unnecessary approvers are removed. Approvers may be pre-set in UWHIRES by your ES per your request.
Less than 12 Months Dates From __ to __ Enter the start and end dates in the format MM/DD/YYYY.
%FTE Required for job codes 9650, 1650, 1655.
Work schedule other

Required for job code 1850.

Enter the information as ## hours worked/week, or as a range (e.g. 30-40 hours worked/week).

Candidate Information

If a candidate has been identified, request the candidate complete the online application profile in UWHIRES.

Be sure to enter the candidate’s name in the "Notes" section of the UWHIRES requisition. Include UW employee ID if available.

Your ES will attach the candidate as the final (or only) candidate to the requisition.  The Compensation Office requires the completed candidate application profile.

If you do not have a candidate identified, list in the "Notes" section this is an open recruitment temporary position.

Next step: Get your requisition approved.

Prostaff Temp. Appts.
Hiring Topics

Need help with UWHIRES? Call or email our help desk at 206-543-2544.