University of Roehampton

Roehampton University originally used VT2000 only for managing visiting academic staff, who are employed each year to deliver a specialist service. This included guest lecturers who delivered one-off teaching sessions, exam invigilators or external research staff.

The University previously used an external recruitment service to manage short-term staff contracts outside of academia and to manage student employment. In 2017, the University of Roehampton brought the management of these short-term contracts in-house and quickly transitioned to VT2000; a single system to manage both hourly paid academic and student employment.

In recent years Roehampton University’s workforce requirements has become very diverse, with more casual contracts. Employees fulfil a multitude of different roles; from student ambassadors to post room staff to van drivers and switchboard operators to research assistants and beyond. This diverse workforce demands a flexible and customised solution – like VT2000 – to effectively manage short-term employment from a centralised system.

General Technology worked with Roehampton University to understand their specific challenges and ensure that VT2000 was customised to meet their needs. For example, the University’s existing HR system was not able to generate contracts for academics who were invited to teach one-off sessions, possibly at short notice. With VT2000, staff were able to quickly and flexibly generate contracts for these teaching set-ups.

VT2000 deftly addresses the challenges and needs of a diverse workforce, from senior lecturers to student employees. 80% of the university’s non-academic temporary workforce are student employees and VT2000’s user friendly interface ensures that students and teachers alike can easily and intuitively use the system to submit their pay claims.

• Intuitive self-service pay claims

VT2000’s interface allows employees to use the claim features with minimal fuss and training

• Automated processes leading to improved data accuracy

Roehampton automated all their previously manual, paper-based processes. This led to more accurate payments for employees, saving time and money previously spent on collating paper claims.

• Greater financial awareness

Using VT2000, departments have better control of costs and can use the reports generated by the system to monitor spending in real time.

“Two years on from using VT2000, I can safely say that the system has really made a difference to how we manage our workforce. We’ve found General Technology’s ‘co-creation’ approach extremely valuable as we have been able to co-design a system that works for us. I am looking forward to finding new ways we can improve and streamline our processes and am confident that we have a strong partner in General Technology to help us do this”, Toby Beehan, Human Resources Systems and Compliance Manager