Onboarding & Offboarding

Welcoming an employee is a critical responsibility of a manager and her/his department. The first year of employment is crucial to reducing voluntary turnover and increasing organizational retention.

The orientation program is a valuable way for new employees and team members to gain helpful information ranging from the UVA culture to IT and Workday basics. We encourage you to support your new employee in attending orientation and to attend the afternoon activities with him or her. 

Managers will also want to meet and lead discussions with their new hire about culture, competencies, expectations, and more. Workday will continue to notify managers of onboarding duties through an employee's first year of employment.

All salary and wage staff–even those without system access or those who worked for a limited time–must complete the offboarding checklist before leaving the University. This includes, temporary employees (the checklist is the department’s responsibility), individuals leaving for long-term disability, and employees transferring to different departments within the University.

Managers receive a Workday notification with a printable checklist of tasks to complete in order to prepare an employee for departure.

Use the Academic Offboarding Checklist For Managers and help your employee complete the Employee Offboarding Checklist and the Knowledge Transfer Template to protect the physical and intellectual property of the University, ensure compliance with security and access issues, and transfer pertinent information. Scan the completed offboarding checklist and email to the HR Solution Center to be uploaded into the employee's personnel file.

Cancel access to central systems and email on the employee’s last day of work. If the circumstances of the termination require that systems access including email should be removed immediately, contact accounts@virginia.edu for assistance. Important: Workday has the ability to terminate all access by categorizing the termination of an employee as ‘involuntary.' 

Please note that for temporary employees, the offboarding checklist is the department’s responsibility.

A termination is considered timely if completed on or before the employee’s last day of employment. Best practice is to enter the termination as soon as known. The following guidance applies only to true termination and NOT inter-entity transfers.

Is it a termination or inter-entity transfer?

1. To correctly process an employee, it needs to be determined if the employee is leaving OR remaining at a UVA-affiliated entity or not.
2. If an employee is leaving your area but remaining at another UVA-affiliated entity, do not proceed with termination in Workday; Recruiting will handle the next steps.
3. If an employee is leaving and not remaining at another UVA-affiliated entity, proceed with termination in Workday.

Why is it important to enter employee terminations in Workday as soon as possible?  

1. Beginning the recruiting process for a replacement is dependent on terminating the current employee.
2. The termination will be included in reports that are being run by HR so tracking of the termination process can be managed.  Did pay stop?  Did Cobra notices get sent? Did benefits end?
3. Timely termination allows IT to remove system access on the date of termination.

We have experienced a large number of delayed termination entries recently. The following problems may occur when entries occur AFTER the employee’s last day:

1. The continuation of insurance, or COBRA notice, has a set timeline that must be met.  Failure to provide a COBRA election notice within this time period can come with a hefty per day penalty as well as the cost of medical expenses incurred by the employee/dependent.  
2. Salary and benefits continue, which is huge financial burden on departments and the exiting employee.  
3. Salary & benefit errors are reportable to the IRS when certain fringe benefits are impacted.

Did you know?  

1. Clinical Faculty have both a UPG position (Clinician Physician) and SOM position.  You must first initiate the End Additional Job process for the UPG position.  Once complete, you can proceed with the Termination action.  
2. Terminations can be future dated in the system. Even if someone gives a 30 day or more notice, go ahead and enter it as soon as you are aware.  
3. If the termination date changes, it is okay!  It can be easily rescinded or edited.
4. Future pay, like incentives, can still be paid by submitting a ticket to AskHR.  Terming the employee doesn’t stop the ability to pay in the future, but it will stop the salary from being paid in error to that employee and it will end benefits, allowing the normal notifications to proceed.
5. Timely termination allows IT to remove system access on the date of termination.

Need More Info or Assistance?  

• Reach out to AskHR@virginia.com
• Job Aid Links: Reference termination Job Aids under Transfer-Promotion-Demotion-Termination

Thank you for your attention, and for adhering to these guidelines.