FAQs

Compensation

• How is Compensation Services different from Payroll?

  Compensation Services studies and recommends the pay levels assigned to UTHealth Houston positions based on the duties and responsibilities of those positions. The Payroll staff calculates and issues payroll checks based on hours worked.

• What is a Salary Range?

  The range of pay rates, from minimum to maximum, established for a pay grade. Salary ranges are used to establish the range of pay for a specific job.

• What is a Serious Health Condition?

  The most common serious health conditions that qualify for Family and Medical Leave (FML) are:

  • Condition requiring an overnight stay in a hospital or other medical care facility.
  • Conditions that incapacitate you or a family member for more than three consecutive days and require ongoing medical treatment.
  • Chronic conditions that cause occasional periods when you or a family member are incapacitated and require treatment by a health care provider.
  • Pregnancy, including prenatal medical appointments, incapacity due to morning sickness and medically required bed rest.
• How do I find out what my salary range is?

  The Job Description page includes a job aid with instructions on how to access your salary range through Employee Self Service.

• How do I know when a position should be reclassified?

  If you are an employee and you believe that your role’s essential functions have changed to an extent that they now differ from the essential functions of your role when you first entered the job, you should contact your immediate supervisor to discuss the changes to determine if a reclassification of your role should be considered. If you are a supervisor or manager, and you believe that a role you supervise should be considered for reclassification, you should compare the essential functions of the position, the primary duties of the position, how the job is characterized, the kind of decisions that are made by incumbents in this position, and the supervision exercised to determine that it may be time to review the position. If only the volume of work has changed, but the essential functions have not changed, a reclassification is usually not indicated. Reclassifications are based on the functions of the position changing, not the qualifications or performance of an incumbent, or based on the longevity of the incumbent.

• How do I get promoted?

  A promotion is where an existing employee is selected as the most qualified candidate for an existing vacant position in a higher salary range. Once you have completed six months in your current position, you may apply for other positions at UTHealth Houston.

• What is a Merit Increase?

  A merit increase is a performance-based salary increase granted to an employee whose performance and productivity is consistently above that normally expected and required. A merit increase should not be confused with a market or equity adjustment.

• Where do I find the Job Description for my role?

  Job descriptions can be found in Employee Self Service. A job aid with instructions on how to access job descriptions is available through the Job Description page.

• Where can I find help with writing Job Descriptions?

  The guideline for writing a job description is a tool to walk you through the process with key attributes that are needed to complete the description. If you need further assistance please contact Compensation Services.

• What is total compensation?

  Total compensation is the complete pay package for employees, including all forms of monetary compensation, benefits, and services that are provided to the employee for performance of work for the organization.

• What is the difference between a reclassification and a job description update?

  A reclassification occurs when a job title is changed to appropriately align the title with the actual duties of the position. A job description update is a review of position which has had minimal changes and no change in classification level is anticipated.

• What is red-circling?

  An individual’s salary is red-circled if it is at the maximum of the established pay range for the assigned salary range. The incumbent is not eligible for further base pay increases until the range maximum is increased.

• What is a non-exempt position?

  A non-exempt job is subject to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because of assigned duties and salary. Non-exempt employees will be paid at one-and-one half times the hourly rate for work performed in excess of 40 hours during the work week.

• If a nonexempt employee works overtime without obtaining prior approval from his/her supervisor, is the department obligated to compensate premium overtime?

  Yes. Overtime must always be authorized in advance by the supervisor. However, it still accrues as a liability when the employee works overtime and the supervisor knows or "should have known" that the work was performed and did nothing to stop it from occurring. Corrective action against the non-exempt employee who worked unauthorized overtime may be appropriate for failure to follow department procedure.

• What is an equity adjustment?

  Equity adjustments are salary changes outside of the normal salary programs (promotions, reclassifications, merits, etc.) to remedy internal salary compression. Equity adjustments are not granted to reward performance. For specific information on use of equity adjustments please contact Compensation Services.

Family & Medical Leave (FML)

• Commonly Asked FMLA Questions

  Click here for all the information regarding Family & Medical Leave.

Holiday / Vacation

• How is the UTHealth Houston holiday calendar developed?

  A committee selects the holidays and Executive Council approves the annual holiday calendars. The committee is representative of UTHealth Houston units and various campus committees. There are nine national holidays and eight state holidays which state employees are allowed to take. Each component can choose which holidays to celebrate provided they fall on a Monday through Friday. State employees are not entitled to a holiday if it falls on a weekend, hence the variability in the number of holidays from year to year. The model used to develop the calendar is to count the total number of holidays that fall on a Monday through Friday and subtract the CORE holidays for UTHealth Houston. The committee then determines the remaining holidays, which vary up to six days.

• What are “CORE” holidays at UTHealth Houston?

  In 1993 Executive Council approved the following nine core holidays to be observed each year:

  • Labor Day (1 day)
  • Thanksgiving (2 days)
  • Christmas (2 days)
  • New Year’s Day (1 day)
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (1 day)
  • Memorial Day (1 day)
  • Independence Day (1 day)
• What is the difference between a full holiday and a skeleton holiday?

  UTHealth Houston is closed for official business on national holidays. Skeleton holidays require that the University “have on hand enough personnel to carry on…public business.” During skeleton holidays each unit and department head must ensure the capability of that unit to respond to inquiries from the public. Department heads must consider whether or not the department must be available to respond to patient needs, student needs, public information queries, fiscal accountability, environmental health and safety, facilities operations, etc. For further information about skeleton holidays, refer to HOOP 27 Holidays.

• Can anyone work these skeleton holidays and take other time off?

  Some departments are designated as critical services and are required to be open on these holidays. An employee “may” work on a skeleton holiday if he or she has the permission of the department head. This may be in lieu of or in addition to other “critical” staff. Employees in these departments who work skeleton holidays have 12 months to use this holiday time. Any time off must be scheduled and approved by the employee’s supervisor.

• Where can I find the UTHealth Houston Holiday Calendar?

  The UTHealth Houston Holiday Calendar can be located here.

iLearn

• How do I log in?

  Internal User

  1. Use https://go.uth.edu/learn to visit the iLearn site.
  2. Click the Internal button if you are a UTHealth Houston Employee.
  3. You will be directed to the UTHealth Houston sign-on screen.
  4. Use your UTHealth Houston credentials to log in.

  External User

  1. Use https://go.uth.edu/learn to visit the iLearn site.
  2. Click the External button if you are logging in without UTHealth Houston credentials.
  3. Enter the provided username and password.
  4. Click SIGN IN.
• How do I unlock my account?
  1. Please ensure you enter your login credentials correctly. Otherwise, after repeated attempts, your account will be locked.
  2. Reach out to the iLearn Support Team at [email protected] to unlock your account.
• When logging in, I receive an error message with a series of numbers. How can I log in successfully?
  1. Clear your browsing history of cookies and cache.
  2. Close out all browsers that you have open after clearing history.
  3. Relaunch your browser and try accessing https://go.uth.edu/learn again.
• Who is required to take Annual Compliance training?
  1. Anyone receiving a UTHealth Houston paycheck.
  2. Anyone hired 90 days before Annual Compliance training was assigned is exempt.
• Are there other types of required training?
  1. Faculty without Salary and Visiting Scholars have their own compliance training tailored to their unique roles with UTHealth Houston.
  2. Behavioral Sciences Campus employees, UT Physicians employees, and GME residents will have additional training assigned to them along with Compliance.
• How do I navigate to my assigned training?
  1. From the iLearn homepage, click Timeline to open the list of all training assigned to you.
  2. Click the button to the right of the activity title. Depending on the type and status of the activity, the button may read as follows: Register, View Details, or Start.
  3. You will be directed to the activities detail page. If you had the option to click Start, the training will automatically launch.
• What happens if my training appears frozen?
  1. Click every item on the screen. Some modules use gamification, which requires clicking on everything before allowing you to advance.
  2. If you exit and reopen the module, the course player asks if you want to resume where you left off. Click ‘yes’ to resume or click the ‘restart’ option to start from the beginning. After that, click everything on the page.
  3. You may also need to clear your browsing history.
  4. Sometimes, you may need to restart the training from the beginning.
• Why are my training activities not playing or showing complete?
  1. The vast majority of issues are related to the user’s internet connection and speed, cache, or machine’s processing ability, and there may be a lag.
  2. Please wait a few minutes, try clearing your browser history, and attempt the training module or view your transcript again.
• Where can I find and search for grades?
  1. Grades and completions are found on the Training Transcript page, accessed via the left navigation menu.
  2. Scroll down to view the completed activity list.
• How do I find my completed training results?
  1. Click the Training Transcript icon to review all completed activities.
  2. Select the date range from the drop-down box to choose the dates you want to view.