Weekly Approval of Operatives Hours
This article relates to the steps that are undertaken by a Works Manager on a project to approve the hours recorded in Allocations Sheets on a weekly basis. The approach is in place to ensure that all validated hours recorded by Supervisors and Black Hats across the project are approved by a senior representative on the project before they are passed onto the relevant Labour Agency for processing and payment to the operatives.
High Level Process
In terms of interaction in the process it is very straight forward as outlined below.
Key highlights to note in the above process are the fact that the system is designed to cut off hours entry for a week from 12:30 on the preceding Tuesday. This is set to allow for a single point in time when the data is locked and invoices/AFP's can be created. Missed hours need to be emailed to the Admin Team and they will add them into the system for the given period that has been missed. These will then be added to the output sent to the Labour Desk the following week and will be highlighted as being missed off previously.
Detailed Overview
In this section we will cover a more in depth overview of the process and the roles/actions of each of the individual involved in the process.
Step 01 - Supervisors/Black Hats
- Supervisors/Black Hats - These users are set up in Worksite as Supervisors and this allows them to create activities and manage operatives against those activities. They can mark absences, training. etc or assign operatives against activities. Supervisors/Black Hats will need to provide justification in the form of a comment where operatives exceed the standard working hours for a day in a project and to complete the process each set of activities in a given day will need to be Summitted and Validated by the Supervisor/Black Hat as per the example below.
1. Select the Submit Day button when all operatives are assigned for the day and hours entered
2. Click the toggle to accept hours over the standard working hours if required
3. Enter text for justification for working over the standard hours then click Save
4. The activity will now show as Validated as per above and will appear on the Works Managers approval for the week
NOTE: Activities not validated will not appear on the approval screen for the Works Manager so this step is essential and should be tracked by both Admin Teams and the Labour Desk.
Step 02 - Works Manager
- Works Managers are able to approve all allocated hours, that have been validated by Supervisors/Black Hats on a weekly basis. The option to approve hours will appear on a Sunday at midnight for the previous week and be available until 12:30 on the Tuesday of that week. If the option to approve is not complete by the Works Manager during this timeframe the system will auto-approve the hours for the previous week at 12:30 on the Tuesday and send the validated hours to the Labour Desk for invoicing. As part of the approval screen the Works Manager has the opportunity to edit the individual hours assigned to an operative. For a detailed overview of this process please see the Works Manager FAQ. The process for approving the hours is illustrated below.
1. Weeks that require approval will be shown as above example for 11/07/2022
Click on the week to open the approval screen
2. Any previous approval will be recorded here so it is possible to see who approved the week
3. Comments are required before the approval button becomes active
4. Once comments added click Approver to submit the week
- Once the week has been approved the daily activities that are entered by the Supervisor/Black Hats are now locked and Supervisors/Black Hats will not be able to edit any previous entries. Only the Admin Team will now be able to edit the hours, amending or adding missed entries as required.
- Any amendments to the activities made by the Admin Team are fully auditable and recorded in the system.
NOTE: Multiple users in the platform can be assigned the role to approve hours for a given week and a record of who approved the week is captured on the screen as shown in the above example. Each project requires a single approval only.
Step 03 - Labour Desk (Labour Suppliers)
- This step is mainly an automated step that runs in the background when either of two conditions are met i) the hours for the week on a project have been approved by the Works Manager or ii) the cut off of 12:30 has passed. When either of these two conditions are met the system will automatically calculate the payments for the week, aligned to the CIJC Working Rule agreement and send the hours via email to the appropriate Labour Desk member. There is no system interaction required by the Labour Desk at this point.
- It is essential that the Labour Desk representatives monitor the Allocation Sheets on a regular basis and chase any hours that have not been validated ahead of the cut off on the following Tuesday. This needs to form part of a daily check against hours on the system as the Supervisors/Black Hats should be entering hours on a daily basis and not leaving the hours entry until the end of the working week. The point at which hours are entered into the system is audited and can be reported on if required.
- Any hours that are missed by operatives should be emailed directly to the Worksite Admin team for entry into the system where the cut off has been missed. The Admin Team are the only users that are able to enter hours into the system retrospectively.
- Missed hours will be added to the output for the following week and highlighted as falling outside of the current period of hours.
- Missed or amended hours are re-calculated using the CIJC rules for the period in which they are missed so the operatives pay will be correct, corresponding to the week in question.
Step 04 - Worksite Admin Team
- This step is performed by the Worksite Admin Team. To undertake this role in Allocation Sheets, allowing for the amendment of locked hours a user will need to have the role of Project Admin in Worksite for each project they wish to amend.
- Missed hours are communicated to the Admin Team outside of the Worksite process and this needs to be agreed by the Admin Team and the Labour Desk.
- How hours are amended at this stage is not covered in this section as it is assumed the Admin Team are familiar with the process for amending hours. If unsure please contact support@ishango.co.uk
Confirmation of Roles
For this process to function correctly the following roles should be set against the accounts you wish to perform the roles;
- Supervisor/Black Hat - Supervisor role against a project. Allows the entering of operative hours against activities and Submit and Validate days.
- Works Manager - Allocation Sheet Approver against a project. Allows the weekly approval of all allocation sheets for a week across a project.
- Admin Team - Project Admin against the project. Allows for the entry of hours against an approved week. This is the only role that can amend hours against an approved period.
If you have any comments in relation to this article please send you feedback to support@ishango.co.uk