As of July 1 of this year, all new full-time employees will be paid on a biweekly basis, said Larry Robertson, Compensation and Human Resources director.

In addition, all current full-time employees and faculty also will have the opportunity to make the change to the new payroll system, he said.

The change has been in the works for some time, Robertson said.

In August 2009, all part-time and student employees were switched over to a biweekly payroll.

“That started the discussions about making the change for all employees and faculty, but this is the first year that we’ve really made it an initiative,” Robertson said.

He said one of the downsides to the change will be a lag period employees will face right after.

“When we go to transition, employees will get a monthly check on June 30. Then the new pay schedule kicks in, ending on July 9, so there’ll be only be six working days on that paycheck.

“They receive that check on July 27 for those six days, and then they get the next check on Aug. 4.

“The disadvantage will be that they’ll only receive one check in July, and it’s only for six days.”

Robertson said that among the benefits of the change would be fewer payroll errors, more frequent paychecks for employees and a more environmentally conscious payroll system.

“One of the things that will be different is that our current non-exempt employees for fulltime fill out a paper timesheet.

“Those that move over to a biweekly payroll will able to fill out the online form on Mineonline.”

Nicholas Webb, Communications Lab assistant, said that’s one of the features he’s looking forward to.

“I’m not too fond of the current [paper] system,” Webb said.

He said while he’s looking forward to the change over, he has no plans to go to the biweekly system on July 1.

“I’m interested in waiting to see if there will be a conversion plan, and I’ll probably wait until the last minute to make the change.”

Robertson said although there was initially talk of creating a plan to ease the transition that would allow employees making the change to convert sick leave and vacation time into salary, the plan has been shelved for now.

“That plan hasn’t been put in place, and we don’t even know if we’re going to do it. It’s likely that when we make the change mandatory for the whole college that we will try to do something like that, but it’s still in discussion.”

John Richardson, online marketing coordinator, said that while the transition might be rough, he’s opted to make the change on July 1.

“I was on the President’s Advisory Council where they made a presentation. And I told them right then and there that I want to go for it. And as soon as I got the form, I filled it out and sent it back in.”

Richardson said he’s not worried about the lag period.

“Obviously, that could create some challenges for people that have to budget very closely, which is probably most of the people on this campus. But I think once people get past that issue, it’ll be smooth sailing.”

As of this time, the change is optional for current employees, Robertson said.

“And at some point in the future, it will become mandatory that all employees move to the biweekly payment schedule, but that time has not yet been determined.”

For more information, e-mail lrobertson@occc.edu or visit employee.occc.edu/biweekly.