frequently asked questions for support workers.

The holiday year runs from 1st February to 31st January. You can claim for holiday pay at any point you take annual leave in the holiday year.

All accrued holiday must be taken by the 31st January. You cannot claim for the previous years holiday pay after this date

You need to request holiday pay giving at least 2 weeks notice of the holiday you wish to take.

You must not be supporting students during your holiday dates.

Holiday will be processed in the payroll month within which the holiday takes place - this is not always the month of the holiday (e.g. a holiday from 18th – 21st August will be paid to you in the September payroll).

The holiday accrual will be based on 12.07% of the hourly rate. The hourly rate is based on your average pay rate from the previous 3 month pay periods. 

You can take holiday at any point in the academic year, but we request you limit this to when students are not studying e.g. the Christmas break, Summer Holidays, etc. where possible.

If you request holiday pay for certain dates, you cannot work on these dates (i.e. you can’t add timesheets on these dates).

If you are taking time off, please let your Randstad consultant know with at least 2 weeks' notice. You will also need to contact the students you support to let them know about this.

Randstad will contact your students and will ask them if they need any cover support for the time you are absent. Your student may not wish to work with another support worker while you are off, and if this is the case, we’ll ask you to rearrange the support session you would usually have to the week you are back from leave.

The cut off to claim holiday pay is the 31st January. You must request holiday pay before this date in order to ensure you can claim the holiday you have accrued.

If you claim after this date, you will be paid the hours from the new holiday year.

In order to ensure you receive all the holiday pay you’re entitled to, we recommend requesting your holiday at different intervals in the year. Students usually require less support over the Christmas, Easter and Summer breaks so this is a good time to request holidays.

You should email the student to introduce yourself, confirm the first session day/time and location (if applicable) and discuss any preferences the student may have. Ie if you are meeting on campus, do they have a preference to meet at a certain building/area. 



At the moment, you should NOT be providing face-to-face support unless you have consulted with Randstad first.

You are not able to amend retrospective sessions. You must contact your Randstad Account Specialist who will amend Opus to enable you to add your timesheet to claim for the full duration.

It is strongly recommended that you add your timesheets within 24 hours of the session taking place.

Timesheets are approved by students much quicker, when added and submitted on the same day.

Many universities use Opus to monitor student engagement and attendance. If timesheets are not added to Opus regularly this means the information is not live and means that the University will contact Randstad to request an update on whether a student is engaging in their support. Your Randstad Account Specialist will then need to contact you to understand whether the session took place due to it not being logged on Opus. 

On your Opus homepage, there is a “Submit All Timesheets” button. You need to select this and then Opus will automatically send an email to any students who have timesheets that are “pending”. Any timesheets that are “pending” won’t be included in the monthly payroll so you are only paid for these once the student has approved them.

On your Opus homepage there is a button called “Search Timesheets”. If you select this it brings up a list of timesheets you have added to Opus. You can use this to check you have added all timesheets for sessions you have provided. On this page there is a column called “Approval Status”. This shows whether the student has approved the timesheets or not. The status will be listed as one of the below:

Approved - this means the student has approved the timesheet and you will be paid for this in the next payroll

Pending - this means that an email has been sent to the student asking them to approve the timesheets, but the student hasn’t yet approved them. 

New - this means the timesheets have not been submitted to the student yet. In order to do this you will need to select the “Submit All Timesheets” button

Rejected - this means that the student has rejected the timesheets. Please contact your consultant at Randstad if this happens. They can either resubmit the timesheet if the student has rejected it by mistake, or they can amend the timesheet if there is something on the timesheet that is incorrect.

Every time you select “Submit All Timesheets”, Opus will send another email to any students who still have “pending” timesheets. We also recommend you remind your students at the end of your session that they will receive a timesheet email from opus@randstad.co.uk that they will need to action.

Once you have selected “Submit All Timesheets” the student will get an email from opus@randstad.co.uk. On this email there will be a link for the student to click and then this will take them to an Opus page that shows any timesheets that have been submitted by their support worker. The student then has the option to “Approve” or “Reject” the timesheets. The student will always need to check the most recent email from opus, as once a new timesheet approval email is sent, and previous emails and links are deactivated.

On your Opus homepage, you have a tab called “Assignments” on this, it will list any students that are assigned to you on Opus. The far right column shows how many hours the student has remaining for the academic year. When you check this, you will need to make sure you check the line for the student that shows the current funding. You can do this by looking at the “Funding Period” column and finding the one for the current academic year - e.g. 20/21. Please be aware that this number of remaining hours only updates when you have added timesheets for your sessions. If there are some sessions you have not yet added to Opus as timesheets, you will need to deduct the number of hours of these from the Opus figure.

On the “Assignments” tab on Opus the “Funding Period” column shows the start date and end date of the student’s funding for the 20/21 academic year. This is an indicator of when the student’s funding could end. However, this could be subject to change if the student leaves the course early, gets an extension on their course, or if they are a final year student (as they then can’t access support over the summer).

If your student has run out of hours, then you will not be able to continue supporting them. Your student may be able to increase their hours allocation but this is not guaranteed. In the first instance, they would need to contact their needs assessor about submitting a request for additional hours to the student’s funding body, this may involve a written recommendation from you to support the request. If this is approved by the student’s funding body, the student will be informed by their needs assessor. We will require a copy of the student’s updated award letter confirming the additional hours before any further sessions can go ahead.

To avoid disruption to your students' support, please try to avoid taking holiday during term time. 

If you have a holiday booked, please communicate this with your student and Randstad in good time. If your student requires temporary cover during your absence please email your Randstad Account Specialist.

You may be entitled to holiday pay, please refer to ‘How do I claim holiday pay?’ for more information.

If you are a notetaker or providing practical support to a student and due to illness, you cannot attend the scheduled session, please call Randstad on 0161 247 8800 and inform the student that Randstad will review alternative support arrangements during your absence.

Please keep Randstad and your student informed for how long temporary cover is required for.

If you are a Tutor or Mentor and cannot attend an appointment, please liaise with your student and book an alternative support session for later in the week. We would not usually organise alternative temporary cover for these appointments however if you are absent for a longer period of time then we may discuss alternative arrangements for the student to avoid further disruption.

For students funded by the Student Finance, this can be done by their assigned support worker contacting the Students Needs Assessor directly to recommend why additional support will be needed (please copy Randstad into this request).

If a student does not know who their Needs Assessor is, please ask them to contact their Disability Team at the university who will be able to provide this information.

Please note not all additional hours requests will be approved by Student Finance so please provide as much detail as possible in the initial request to avoid delays.

Alternatively, if a student is funded by their university and additional support is needed, this can be requested by the student contacting the Disability team at the University who will review their ongoing support.

All additional hours requests must be approved before any additional sessions take place with your students.

Please contact your Randstad Consultant if the student you are assigned to support does not respond to you after 3 attempts. We will then contact the student and University to confirm their ongoing support for the Academic year.

When logged into your Opus profile you will be able to resend any pending timesheets to your students by clicking 'Submit all Timesheets'. This will send a reminder email to your students for approval.

If the student is not receiving the notifications to accept the timesheet or does not respond then please contact your Randstad Account Specialist

New students starting their degree should only begin to access their support when they are fully enrolled on their course. This is information that we attain when adding funding. You should always check any student's course dates before agreeing to support, this can be found under Assignments on Opus.

Returning undergraduate students that are continuing on the same course will need to provide evidence of their return by sending in confirmation of their student loan or grant from their funding provider. Popular funding provider include Student Finance England, Student Finance Northern Island, NHS Bursaries, and SAAS - This should have the current year of study included to be eligible as evidence

Post-Graduate students need to re-apply for DSA funding each year. This means that we would need to see one of the following:

• An updated DSA letter which states which academic year the student will be attending
• A confirmation email from the funding provider confirming eligibility for DSA support
• Once confirmed support can go ahead. Please always check your student's details on Opus before agreeing to a session

A student's funding ends when the student is no longer in study. This could include reason such as the following:

• Completion of their degree
• Student has left their studies/deferred
• Student has changed provider

If your student's funding information looks inaccurate you should speak to your Account Specialist before arranging any further sessions.

Support provided when this is the case could result in Randstad being unable to recoup funds for support when sessions have been provided after an end date

NMH support is none subject-specific; Should you have a student that you feel you are unable to help please speak to your Account Specialist.

Most arrangements with University Disability Services is that you contact your Randstad Account Specialist directly if you have a query or a concern about a student, and they will liaise on your behalf with the University. Depending on the University arrangement, some Disability Services may have more contact with Randstad support workers than others, we will notify you if this is the case. Otherwise please direct all your queries to Randstad in the first instance.

You are entitled to 28 holidays pro rata, sick pay, maternity pay, and paternity pay, pension, access to our Hapi app and a dedicated Randstad Account Specialist who will be your point of contact.

If you refer a friend for any of the roles stated below and we manage to place them into a role, they will be eligible for a Love2shop giftcard once 250 hours of work have been completed.

What roles are eligible for this referral scheme?

The referred candidate must be placed into one of the following roles for the referral to be valid:

• Specialist One-to-One Study Skills
• Specialist One-to-One Study Skills (ASD)
• Specialist Mentor
• Specialist Mentors (ASD)

What's the process?

Step 1

Fill in this online form before your friend registers for us. If the referred candidate already exists on Opus then the referral will only be eligible if they have not worked with us within the previous 6 months from date of referral.

Step 2

Once the form is submitted, you, your friend and Randstad will be notified

Step 3

Once the your friend has completed 250 hours of work, you will be eligible for a £300 giftcard (providing all ts&cs are met)

Step 4

To order the giftcard, please email your Account Specialist who will liaise with our Marketing team to get this sorted for you