Manager roles
It is the responsibility of the hiring manager to ensure all employees (regardless of type) are hired and onboarded properly and on-time to ensure they are paid in accordance with the University pay schedule and cycles.
Managers are also responsible for the entry or approval of casual employee working hours within Workday to ensure on prompt and accurate payments within the proper pay period.
A few tools that are available within Workday to support these key processes are:
- Workday Announcement upon login shows the next pay period due dates
- A menu item called “Onboarding Status Summary” is available for managers that outlines pending tasks
- the Workday Daily Digest that is delivered to the Outlook inbox daily shares items that a Manager has to action by the pay period deadline
Note: Failure to follow the hiring or payment processes correctly may result in unpaid or delayed payment to employees.
Submission cut-off schedules
Bi-weekly paid employees apply to casual employees as defined in Policy 54, and those employees who are covered by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) collective agreement (Food Services and Plant Operations).
Monthly paid employees apply to faculty, staff, graduate students, and those employees hired on a Temporary Employment Authorization form (contract lasting three months or longer, including co-op students).
Submission cut-off schedules can be accessed on the Pay Dates web page.
Paying employees
Casual employees
Departments paying casual employees on more than a one-time basis should submit hours worked through Workday. View the Enter time for casual staff and Approve time for casual staff user guides for step-by-step instructions.
Casual employees are staff members who are employed for less than three months or on intermittent bases, or who do not have regularly scheduled hours of work. Learn more about employee definitions on our Employee Resources page.
Note: Casual salaries are managed by the hiring manager or department, not through Human Resources.
View the Workday user guide for hiring casual employees.
Graduate students
Graduate students are paid on a monthly basis. Payments for graduate students performing work as a teaching assistant or research assistant should be submitted using Workday.
View the Workday user guides for student hiring.
Payment types guidelines/procedures
To ensure compliance with government legislation, it is important that payments be coded correctly for taxation and year-end reporting purposes. These guidelines/procedures are meant to provide the campus community with additional information regarding taxable benefit and payment types, when they are/are not appropriate, and how to submit amounts for payment and/or reporting purposes.
This list is currently under development and is not a complete representation of all payment/taxable benefit types. This list only includes payment types that are not considered regular employment earnings.
- Gifts and gift cards/certificates
- Graduate Research Studentship (GRS) vs. Graduate Research Assistantship (GRA)
- Payment types definitions/guidelines (PDF)
Net pay/benefit cost estimator
The Net Pay/Benefit Cost Estimator (.xlsx) is a tool that departments can use to estimate the employer cost for University of Waterloo supplemental benefits and statutory taxes for budgeting purposes. Employees, who are considering a change to their working hours, gross salary, or benefit coverage, can also use the tool to estimate what their benefit deductions and net pay will be.