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Supervisor Time Approval FAQ

General Questions

Q: Will supervisors receive an email with training information or are Y-Time Managers responsible for getting the information out to them?

A: College/Division Controllers have been asked to distribute training information to work supervisors.

Q: Where can I find out who the supervisor is for specific employees?

A: Supervisors assigned to employees can be viewed by running the Employee Report in Human Resources’ eForm system.

Q: What are supervisors asked to review and what does their approval mean?

A: Supervisors are asked to review the daily hours reported. Supervisor approval means that the supervisor agrees with the reasonableness of the reported time. It is not expected that the supervisor will have an exact knowledge of the time worked but should agree that the time worked is reasonable for work product that resulted.

Q: If more than one Y-Time Manager is assigned to a job in Y-Time, will all the Y-Time Managers receive time approval notification emails?

A: Yes. There is no method to determine which of the several Y-Time Managers should receive the notifications or when the primary Y-Time Manager is gone and others need to act as their backup.

Q: When I am both a Y-Time Manager and a Supervisor, do I have to log in twice?

A: No, a single log in will allow you to complete the actions for both of these roles.

Q: As the Y-Time Manager, I have been routing emails and hard copy reports to supervisors for their approval then have stored those approvals manually. Does that process need to continue?

A: With the electronic Employee Time Approval system, Y-Time Managers no longer need to use other processes to track supervisor approval.

Communication with Supervisors and Employees

Q: When a supervisor does not or will not approve time what should the Y-Time Manager do?

A: It may take some time for new supervisors to become familiar with its features. Supervisors may need help understanding that University policy requires time worked by staff and student employees to be approved by their supervisors. Deans/Directors and College/Division controllers are asked to take the lead in encouraging supervisors to fulfill this important responsibility. Where supervisors are not cooperating, Y-Time Managers should advise their college/division controller.

Q: When should the Y-Time Manager just contact the employee?

A: The Y-Time Manager acts as a broker to help resolve supervisor disapproval of employee time. Y-Time Managers should review the notes made in the system by the supervisor, contact the supervisor if more clarification is needed, then, as needed, contact the employee to find out their view of the situation. After the concern has been satisfactorily resolved, the Y-Time Manager may mark the approval section, “Approved”.

Q: Whose responsibility is it to approve employee explanations when time has been disapproved?

A: When the employee’s explanation does not satisfy the supervisor’s concern, it is the supervisor’s responsibility to decide what the next action is: approval, adjustment of time, or referral of the employee to the Human Resources department for further consideration of the conflict.

Q: After the one week allowed for supervisor approval, can supervisors still approve time from their own approval page?

A: Yes, this approach is strongly encouraged since it assures that the supervisor has done the approval. The Y-Time Manager should only approve when the supervisor is truly unavailable and even then the approval should be after consultation with the supervisor to assure the reported time is reasonably accurate.