Total Talent Management

UTemp Staffing

Our mission is to provide the University of Washington community with quality temporary staff through exceptional service, and to offer boundless opportunities to a diverse population of job seekers.

We take pride in matching qualified candidates with meaningful work opportunities, through which they make positive contributions, and we define quality as consistently demonstrating excellence to our clients.

Ready to get started? Request a temp.

Updated March 16, 2020 to reflect COVID-19 related changes.

As a self-sustaining unit of HR’s Total Talent Management, UTemp Staffing serves as a cost-effective option for your temporary staffing needs at the University of Washington. We recruit and hire qualified temporary employees, manage billing functions, and complete all monitoring and administration requirements associated with employee relations and compliance.We provide:

  • Responsive service: We strive to contact you promptly—usually within four business hours—to confirm your request and clarify your staffing needs. We are also here to assist you as needs arise throughout the duration of the temporary employee’s placement in your department.
  • Staffing ease: We place qualified temporary employees that fit your interim staffing needs, adding stability to your workforce. Whether you need a temp for four hours, days, or months, we aim to find you a great match.
  • Consultation: There are occasions when UTemp may recommend other options to better serve a unit’s specific needs. Depending on the situation, UTemp may refer a hiring client to work with UW Employment and Staffing on a targeted recruitment, or to seek the services of an outside contingent staffing agency.
Job categories covered

How can we help you and your department? We have suitable candidates in a variety of areas including:

  • General services (customer support, ushering, cashiering)
  • Office support (filing, reception, clerical, office coordination)
  • Professional and administrative (executive assistance, program coordination)
  • Healthcare office administration (patient services rep, medical records technician)
  • Fiscal administration (costing/budgeting, accounts payable/receivable, medical/dental billing)
  • Data processing (data entry, transcription)
  • Information systems (help desk, software support and development)
  • Hospitality and food service/catering
  • Student services (registration services, counselors, campus guides)
  • Research (lab support, grant coordination)
  • Trades and light industrial (warehouse, drivers, custodians)
  • Leadership (management and administration)

See the UWHR temporary employment program page for additional policy information.

After submitting a new job order, you should receive a confirmation by email. If you do not, please call or email UTemp so we may confirm receipt. Otherwise, after receipt of your request, a UTemp representative will reach out to you to clarify and confirm next steps.

All UTemp employees are hired into hourly-paid positions for a limited duration. Our recruiters ask various questions about the staffing need, the setting in which the work will be performed, and expected duration in order to:

  • accurately process the hire in Workday.
  • ensure temporary employees are hired into correct job classifications with appropriate rates of pay.
  • ensure the candidate we identify for you has temp hours eligibility to remain for the duration of your department’s need.
  • determine appropriate benefits eligibility. (Note: Whether a temporary worker is eligible for benefits or not, there is no additional cost to the department).

While lengths of positions are subject to change, in order to determine temp hours and benefits eligibility, it’s crucial that we know the longest length of time you anticipate needing the work to be performed.

Service-Level Expectations

Our commitment to you.

  • UTemp takes pride in partnering with our hiring clients and providing exceptional, timely, and responsive service.
  • UTemp considers candidates’ interest and availability, as well as their knowledge, skills, and abilities when placing a temporary worker in your unit to do specified work, for a specified duration.
  • Our top priority is meeting your interim staffing needs.
  • While many of our temporary workers do apply for, and are considered for, regular positions, finding the exact long-term match for your permanent staffing needs is not the focus of our office.

Our expectations.

  • Our candidates are eager to work, and UTemp is eager to find placements for them quickly, before they accept a position elsewhere. When we refer a candidate to you for consideration, we ask that you make a decision as quickly as possible to the suitability of the candidate to perform your needed work.
  • UTemp should not be considered as an option to circumvent the regular hire process, or to screen applicants “on-the-job” for permanent vacancies.  In fact, it can be counterproductive for a unit to think their temporary worker might be a match for other positions in their department, as many of our temporary workers are not interested in being hired permanently.
  • We ask about the intended length of the assignment so we can anticipate and ensure the candidate we place has eligibility to remain for the duration of your department’s need, although there is no guarantee the employee will stay for the full duration.
  • Because UTemp attests to the duration of the hourly appointment, ensuring that benefits are provided when appropriate, we ask you to:
    • quote us an appropriate length of time that you believe you will need the temp,
    • keep to that duration of assignment, unless you need to extend longer or end the assignment sooner due to funding, performance, or completion of the work, and
    • contact us as soon as possible should there be a need to extend the duration of an appointment.
  • Once UTemp has placed a candidate in your department, they should not be hired directly by your department, unless the candidate is selected for a salaried vacancy.
  • Client units should not initiate a transfer of a UTemp employee to a direct-hire position without first consulting with UTemp, as an additional fee may be charged. (See also “Minimum fee to convert employee to a direct-hire” under “Fee structure” below.)
  • No offer (verbal or otherwise) should be given to a candidate until the hire is confirmed and completed by UTemp or UWHR Recruitment and Staffing, regardless of hire type.

We offer very competitive rates to the UW community based on UTemp Staffing operational requirements. Effective January 1, 2022, our service fee is a 35.0% mark-up over the temporary employee’s pay rate and is inclusive of the payroll load rate (Worker’s and Unemployment Compensation, Social Security, Medicare, Health and Retirement Plans, etc.). The service fee helps to cover administrative costs of providing the following services:

  • Confirming and clarifying your order within four business hours of receipt.
  • Referring qualified candidates who have successfully completed our pre-screening processes, which includes in-depth behavioral interviewing and skills assessment, reference checking and background checks (if required), and assessing employment eligibility (review of prior UW employment history, I-9 requirements, etc.).
  • Compliance monitoring, including but not limited to work hours limit monitoring, verifying employee pay is commensurate with qualifications and experience, as well as employee relations and performance management.
  • Adjusting and extending employment start and end dates.
  • Easy, direct services billing to cost center(s) you elect under object code 03-42 Temp Services.

Example: If we place a program assistant with a pay rate of $20.00 per hour, the total cost to the department will be $27.00 per hour (which is 35.0% over the pay rate).

Note: If using an Agency temporary employee through UTemp, please see information on fees in “Using an outside agency” below.

Cancellation fee

We assess a $75 fee if you cancel a job order after we have referred a suitable candidate for placement. This fee may be waived by the recruiter with good reason, such as canceling due to budgetary concerns, unit’s decision to not fill the staffing need temporarily, or if UTemp was unable to refer a qualified candidate in a timely manner.

Four-hour minimums

With advance notice, UTemp can fill one day jobs for a minimum of four hours. If you have a one-time staffing need that is less than four hours, your department will be charged a minimum of four hours, even if the employee works less time.

UTemp compensates employees for a minimum of four hours if they arrive to work and are sent home because there is no work to do. If the department hasn’t made a good-faith effort to communicate with the temporary employee or UTemp Staffing to cancel their arrival, the department will be charged a minimum of four hours, even if the employee doesn’t work or works less time.

If there’s an expectation that work shifts may fluctuate and it is understood that there may be times when the employee is not needed, there should be a mutual understanding between the department and the temp that cancellation may occur. These situations are not subject to the four-hour minimum.

Minimum fee to convert employee to a direct-hire

To ensure UTemp is able to recover the necessary administrative costs of providing our services:

  • Should a department seek to convert a temporary worker whom UTemp has placed, and hires them as a direct-hire employee, UTemp may charge the department a fee. This fee will be equal to the mark-up percentage prorated for the time short of three months.

Example: UTemp identifies and coordinates placement of an administrative assistant for a department to cover a leave of absence. A department directly hires the administrative assistant placed by UTemp after one month. The administrative assistant earns $20.00 per hour and works four hours a day. The total cost that UTemp will charge to the department is $28.00 each day for the remaining workdays short of a maximum of three months. In this example, the remainder would be two months.

  • 35.0% mark-up x $20 per hour = $7.00 per hour x 4 hours per day = $28.00 per day
  • $28.00/day x # of days in next two months…
    • For instance, employee started April 29, and was converted by department effective June 1. The conversion fee owed to UTemp would be 43 days x $28.00/day = $1204
Employee pay and time entry

All our temporary employees are paid on an hourly basis and are subject to FLSA overtime requirements. The pay rate of the employee will be discussed between you and your recruiter when you initially submit a request for staffing support, or upon selection of a candidate for the placement.

UTemp temporary employees may receive holiday premium pay or additional premiums or shift differential if allowed under the terms of their collective bargaining agreement, should the temporary job be in a title performing union work.

Authorized overtime is paid at the FLSA overtime rate of time-and-a-half for work performed in excess of 40 hours per week (Monday through Sunday). We advise each of our temporary employees that all overtime must be pre-approved and scheduled by their supervisor. Once their time has been submitted, it must be approved by your department to be paid.

Time tracking

Your department’s designated Time & Absence Approver is responsible for approving your temporary employee’s time in Workday.* Additional training and information may be found through the Integrated Service Center (ISC).

Please see the following link to an up-to-date Payroll Calendar, indicating the Time & Absence Transaction Deadline. Failure to respond appropriately to time submitted by a temporary employee may cause additional administrative work and delays. Please plan for outages of the office to delegate this role as needed. To request a delegation, complete and submit the Workday Delegation Request Form.

If you have questions about who should approve the time of your temporary employee, please reach out to utemp@uw.edu (or call 206-543-3652) as soon as possible. This role is decided in part due to the 1) supervisory organization in which the temp’s been hired, and 2) Time & Absence Approver that’s been assigned a role within the supervisory organization. We are happy to help troubleshoot to help ensure employees are paid on time.

*Temporary employees from outside temp agencies will have a different way to track time that their UW supervisors will need to approve. This may be a paper form or an online form, depending on which method the agency uses. UTemp requires agencies to provide signed timesheets to us before we pay their invoices, and before we bill your department for the hours worked. We need this to ensure the hours were approved by your department, as well as to track hours in compliance with the University’s 950 work hours limit.

Benefits

Temporary employees who meet eligibility criteria can participate in employer-provided insurance and retirement plans. The Integrated Service Center notifies temporary employees of their eligibility. You pay the same UTemp billing fee regardless of a temporary employee’s eligibility for benefits. The UTemp employee is not employed directly by your department, so we incur the benefit load rate.

There are other benefits afforded to temporary  employees including:

  • Eligibility for sick time off (to be paid by UTemp). Information about accrual rates can be found on the Sick time off for temporary and student hourly employees webpage. They are also eligible for unpaid time off due to a disability or serious health condition (or to care for a family member with a serious health condition) or for military duty.
  • Eligibility to purchase a quarterly UW TEMP Pass from Transportation Services. This is the temporary/hourly employee equivalent to the U-PASS.
  • University Libraries resources, including checking out books, DVDs, etc.
  • Access to the Intramural Activities Center (IMA) for a fee.
Union representation

A temporary employee may be represented by a union and covered by a collective bargaining agreement depending on the nature and location of the work assignment. If you have questions regarding this, please contact one of our recruiters or Labor Relations.

What you should do when a temp starts

Before the temporary employee starts work, you should:

  • Complete a sponsorship agreement if an Agency temporary employee needs a UW NetID; there is no cost to your department for sponsoring (UTemp handles NetID acquisition/reactivation for UW temporary employees.)
  • Arrange access to programs the employee needs to use (for example, Ariba or EPIC).
  • Obtain badges or security cards needed for building access.
  • Confirm who your department’s Time & Absence Approver is, as they will approve the employee’s time in Workday.
    • Agency temps will not use Workday to track their hours and will instead use whatever time keeping method that their agency uses. The supervisor of the employee should sign off on the timesheet each week.
  • Determine who in your department will be the primary contact for billing, as they’ll receive billing information.
    • All billing contacts have access to the billing history on the UTemp Manager Dashboard in UTempHires.
What you should do after the temp starts

Once the temporary employee starts their assignment, you should:

  • Introduce the temp to other employees in your department.
  • Make sure the supervisor has the temp’s contact information (and vice versa).
  • Provide the temp with Emergency Health and Safety (EHS) information in case of an emergency or fire drill.
  • Provide any training or onboarding that is specific to your department or work area (more information related to onboarding and training is referenced on HR’s Total Talent Management web pages).
Extend an appointment

Do not extend UTemp employees in Workday.

UTemp handles the extension for our clients. If you haven’t verified the temp’s availability and interest in continuing in the assignment, let us know that as well, so we may follow up with the temp on your behalf, if needed.

No later than the employee’s last day, or at any point during the assignment, you can go to the UTempHires Department Dashboard to request an extension of your temporary employee’s appointment.  Next to their name on the Active Jobs tab, click on the Extend Job link. This will open a new Outlook email message to UTemp through which you fill in the requested end date and reason for extension. Below is an example of what the email will look like:

Please complete the fields below and email your request for the job extension.

UTemp Job Number: 1117
Candidate Name: Smith, John
Requested End Date:
Reason For Extension:
Your Recruiter: Claudia Munoz

We will review the employee’s temp hours to confirm whether the employee has enough remaining temp hours to work through the new requested time frame and reply back to you.

Work hours limits

Temporary employees are subject to work hours limits. As of March 13, 2020, the Office of Financial Management (OFM) Division of State Human Resources exempted all University of Washington temporary hourly employees working in critical positions essential to maintain safe hospital and institutional operations during the state of emergency period during the COVID-19 crisis from the 1,050-hour maximum under WAC 357-04-045. Temporary hourly employees working in positions critical to maintaining safe hospital and institutional operations may exceed the University’s institutional 950-hour and the 1,050-hour limit without approval from UW Human Resources.

Temporary employees who previously hit an hours maximum may be rehired to fill vacant positions that meet the critical position criteria.

Departments should continue to only work temporary hourly employees up to 950 hours limit if they are not performing work critical to public and institutional safety.

For those not performing work critical to public and institutional safety, under special circumstances, you may request an extension of a temporary who has reached their 950 hours limit, up to a maximum of 1,050 hours.

Email your extension request to utemp@uw.edu. Your request will be reviewed by UTemp Staffing’s delegated appointing authority, who may grant exceptions for UTemp employees to work beyond 950 hours. An employee must not work beyond 950 hours without prior approval from UTemp’s delegated appointing authority. To help expedite your request, please include the following in your email:

  1. The reason your department needs to keep this temp and why another temp cannot be hired to continue this work. For example: The person acquired special skills and knowledge of inter-workings of your department, has the necessary flexibility for a very strange schedule, etc.
  2. What your department will be doing once the employee has exhausted their hours. For example: Will the project be completed by then? Will a new staff person be hired by then? Will the new staff person be trained by then?

It generally takes one to three days for us to obtain appointing authority approval and provide a response. We ask that you submit a request as soon as a need for an extension is identified. Submitting a request before it’s needed will prevent the employee from having to stop work while waiting for an approval for an extension beyond 950 hours.

What to do at the end of an assignment

The temp’s supervisor will receive end-of-assignment reminder via email two days before the temporary employee’s end date. If your unit would like to request that the assignment be extended, you may reply to that email with a new end date. Before doing so, please confirm with the temp that they are open to remaining on the job, or let us know in the email if you haven’t verified their availability so that we may follow up with them on your behalf.

If you need to end the assignment earlier than scheduled, contact your recruiter. Inform your temp of their new end date, if you’re comfortable doing so. Otherwise, we’ll be happy to assist you.

After the assignment ends, the temp’s supervisor will receive an email with a request to complete an evaluation that asks for feedback related to the temp’s performance, as well as welcome your comments related to the service your unit received from your recruiter and/or UTemp in general. While completing the evaluation is not required, it is valuable to UTemp as we consider placing the individual again, as well as to let us know how we might improve our services.

UTemp Staffing is the central point of contact for contingent staffing needs at the UW. UTemp is continually finding talent possessing a variety of skills and experience to perform various, interim staffing needs. If UTemp doesn’t have a qualified candidate readily available from our internal staffing pool, we will begin a search to find a suitable match for our valued client.

There are occasions, however, when UTemp may recommend other options to better serve the unit’s specific needs. Depending on the situation, UTemp may refer a hiring client to work with UWHR Recruiting and Staffing on a targeted recruitment. There may also be occasions when, due to time constraints, a hiring client may benefit from contracting with an outside contingent staffing agency. This option is more costly than hiring an employee through UTemp, and there is no guarantee external temporary agencies will always be able to supply a qualified candidate at a reasonable cost. However, this is another option to access candidates in a tight job market.

Working with Outside Contingent Staffing Agencies Checklist

Before contacting staffing vendors:

  1. Contact UTemp, via phone, email, or by filling out an order form.
  2. If UTemp is not the best option to assist with a department’s particular staffing need, a UTemp recruiter may refer the client to their UW Recruiting team to explore other options, such as posting for a direct-hire recruitment. (Conversely, if a client first contacts their employment representative regarding the need to hire a temporary worker for an interim period, they may be referred to UTemp, particularly if a candidate has not yet been identified.)
  3. If UTemp or UW Recruiting determines the department’s temporary staffing needs would be best served by seeking assistance from outside staffing agencies, we will recommend that the client explore the use of temporary staffing agencies to assist in finding the needed talent.
  4. The list of approved staffing vendors may be obtained by contacting UTemp, or Procurement Services.

The following process outlines the steps for departments seeking staffing assistance from an outside vendor:

  1. Procurement Services recommends selecting a minimum of three vendor(s) to contact from the list of approved vendors to foster competition through a second-tier selection process. Being “approved” means they have reviewed and agreed to UW’s contractual terms and have a signed contract on file with Procurement Services. (*Medical Centers Recruiting will facilitate this process for their clients).
  2. See sample Vendor Contact Template (below) for guidelines on the type of information you will need to present to vendors so they may begin working on your request. To ensure fairness, provide all the same information and timeline to all vendors for which you will solicit candidates for your consideration.
  3. When receiving candidates from vendors for consideration, if not immediately provided, be sure to ask the vendor what the bill rate (or charge) will be should you select the candidate.
  4. Upon reviewing qualifications and pricing, the department works with the vendor to select the most appropriate candidate for their needs, verifying candidate meets requirements, and will be paid appropriately for the work being performed per UW compensation guidelines. Criteria for selecting a candidate from a vendor will be the one who proposes the most “responsive” candidate, at the lowest bill rate. “Responsive” may be considered as “most qualified”, allowing flexibility for the hiring client to choose a more qualified candidate that comes with a higher cost over one that has a lower bill rate.
  5. As soon as a hiring decision has been made, notify the vendors not selected that a candidate has been identified, so they no longer spend time working on your request.
  6. If the work needing to be performed is security/safety sensitive (or covered by CAAL), a background check must be conducted by the staffing agency prior to the candidate starting work. While this is a requirement agreed to in the contract, the department will be responsible for asking the vendor whether a criminal background check has been completed successfully on the candidate being referred.
    (a) If there are questions or concerns with this process, the UW hiring client may refer the vendor to UTemp or their Recruiting team.
    (b) This includes if there’s a disclosure of a conviction, which may or may not affect the candidate’s eligibility to perform the required work.
  7. Department then works with vendor directly on invoicing.
    The agency will be required to register with the UW to receive more information and obtain payment for services, as indicated here:
    • UW Supplier Registration –  https://finance.uw.edu/ps/supplier-information/registration
    • Ariba Supplier Network – https://finance.uw.edu/ps/supplier-information/ariba-network
    • ePayables – https://finance.uw.edu/ps/epayables
  8. If the worker will need a UW NetID, they will need to be entered into Workday. See instructions on the ISC website for Contracting Contingent Worker and for how to End Contingent Worker Contract, after the worker’s assignment has ended. (*WMS team will facilitate this process for Medical Center clients).

Vendor Contact Template

The following is a template that may be used when contacting staffing agencies for assistance. When emailing multiple agencies, please bcc: or send individual emails, rather than cc:ing multiple contacts. The vendors need not know what other vendors you are contacting. Provide all the same information to each vendor, with an expected timeline for which you accept solicitation of candidates. Afterwards, don’t forget to communicate with vendors not selected.

To: [StaffingVendorEmail@vendor.com]
From: [YourEmail@uw.edu]
Subject: [JOB TITLE at UW needed!]

Job Title:

Job Description:

[DUTIES – What are the true day-to-day job duties?]
[SKILLS REQUESTED – Be prepared to clarify desired and required skills. Are any of the tasks negotiable?]
[REQUIREMENTS – Education, experience or knowledge needed?]

Department:

Location:

Pay Rate (Range):

Work Schedule:

Reason:

[Why are you looking to bring in a temp at this time, and how long do you think you will need someone?]

Anticipated Start Date:

Anticipate End Date:

Selection process:

[resumé review only?, phone screen?, interview?, accepting referral of candidates by end of the week, or until an acceptable candidate is identified?]

Background check needed: [Yes or No]

Conditions of Employment: [Any other pertinent information?]

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