This is a compilation of policies, benefits and terms and conditions of your employment at the University of Gothenburg. It targets in particular new staff.
All information on this page is a summary on information availbale here at the Staff Portal. The Staff Portal is the University’s one-stop online gateway to information such as news, tools and various other resources of relevance to University staff members: medarbetarportalen.gu.se. The content is partly personalised.
Use the Staff Portal to access the self-reporting system/Primula, your e-mail account and calendar, and the University’s various administrative systems. Contact the access management specialist at your department/equivalent unit to get your login information for the Staff Portal and Primula.
To make sure all new employees learn more about the university and what it stands for, we have put together a digital introductory course.
The course will take under an hour to do and consists of nine parts. It is compulsary for all new employees and should be seen as a complement to your local workplace introduction.
Read more: Skills development / Introductory course for new employees / Digital introductory for new employees.
As a University employee, you have an employment contract. It shows your job title, where in the organisation you work, whether you have a permanent or temporary position, your salary and whether you work full time or part time. Together with the employment contract, you received a sheet with information about the terms and conditions of your employment at the University.
Primula is the university's personnel and salary system. As an employee, you must record events in Primula that affect your salary and other benefits, such as sick leave, vacation, leave, overtime, etc. Your account to log in to Primula, so-called x-account, is obtained by administrator at your institution/equivalent.
If you register the wrong information or you do not register changes in a timely manner, you risk getting the wrong salary and liable to repay. It is therefore important that you check your registrations both in Primula and on your wage statement. You are personally responsible for all information registered in Primula.
If you are unsure how to register in Primula - contact the National Government Service Centre support or your local HR.
The university’s payroll administration is handled by the National Government Service Centre (Statens servicecenter, SSC). They also provide support and you can contact them regarding questions about your salary or your wage statement and if you need help reporting in Primula.
You can contact SSC either by calling them or by submitting a written case. Questions can be asked in both Swedish and English.
Call:
Direct number to SSC’s support phone: +46 771-456 000. Button 1 for salary-related issued.
Opening hours: 09:00-12:00 weekdays
Write:
You create a case in the SSC Portal where you formulate your question or place your order. Questions can be asked around the clock. Reach the SSC Portal here: https://portalen.statenssc.se
Primula does not automatically receive information from the population register, which means that you yourself need to ensure that the university's information about you is up to date.
You can't change your name in Primula. To do this, you need to contact HR/administration. Other information is possible to change directly in Primula. Go to My page > Personal data. In this form, you can also report your emergency contact information.
POP is the university's system for data on person and organization. You as an employee at the university have a personal page in POP with both contact information and other information. This information is displayed on www.gu.se.
Some of the information is generated automatically from different systems, while other information you can add yourself. The information that you can add yourself is CV, photo and personal description.
To add information, you need to be logged in to the Staff portal. Go to Profile & Settings, then choose Edit contact information in POP.
The University’s salaries are set individually. Salaries are paid on the 25th of each month. If the 25th is a Saturday, salaries are paid on the 24th, and if the 25th is a Sunday, salaries are paid on the 26th. In June and December, salaries may be paid on other dates as well, due to Christmas and Midsummer.
Salaries can never be paid in advance.
When you begin working at the university, you need to submit a tax card (skattesedel) to the National Government Service Centre (Statens servicecenter, SSC) via the Primula form A-skatt, together with an income tax adjustment decision (jämkningsbeslut) via the Primula form Jämkning, if you have applied for and received one.
If SSC does not receive your tax card, income tax will be deducted from your pay according to instructions from the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket). This may lead to an unnecessarily large amount being deducted from your monthly pay.
Visit the Swedish Tax Agency web page to obtain your tax card www.skatteverket.se.
If you would like to instead increase the tax amount deducted, you can make this request via Primula.
Swedbank handles the payment of salary from and including the May salary payment in 2023. To have your salary paid into your bank account, you need to register your bank account at Swedbanks website.
For more information, go to the page how to report a salary account to Swedbank.
If you have a BankID you choose this option to register an account. If not you choose the alternative to register your account without a BankID.
Please make sure that you register your bank account well before scheduled payment of salary that takes place around the 25th of each month, at least one month ahead. If Swedbank has not been informed before the day of payment they will send you a giro cheque to the address registered in Primula.
Please note that if you have registered a bank account connected to a coordination number and you later change th coordination number into a social security number, you need to immediately make a new account notification to Swedbank so that the bank account is linked to your social security number.
To view your wage statement, log into the Staff Portal and open Primula among the tools. Go to My page > Wage statement.
Total number of annual working hours:
1 700 hours with 35 days holiday
1 732 hours with 31 days holiday
1 756 hours with 28 days holiday
From 1 September to 30 April, full-time staff in these staff categories work 8 hours and 10 minutes per day (normally from 7.50 am to 4.30 pm with a 30-minute lunch break). From 1 May to 31 August, they work 7 hours and 30 minutes per day (normally from 8 am to 4 pm with a 30-minute lunch break).
Most administrative and technical staff (more precisely staff with kontorsarbetstid) are subject to a local collective agreement entitling them to flexible working hours within certain limits.
Researchers and "other teaching/researching staff" who do not hold employment as a teacher, formally have working time regulation corresponding to that which applies for administrative and technical staff.
Easter Eve, Whitsun Eve, Midsummer Eve, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are non-working days.
In years when the National Day of Sweden is on a Saturday or a Sunday, staff are granted one extra day off.
Staff work shorter hours on certain days:
7.30 am – 12 noon
The day before Epiphany, 5 January
The day of Walpurgis Night, 30 April
The day before All Saint’s Day (the date varies)
23 December if this day falls on a Friday
7.50 am – 2.30 pm
Maundy Thursday (Thursday before Easter)
Working hours for part-time staff are reduced according to the same rules as for full-time staff, yet in relation to their contracted number of weekly working hours.
The rules concerning reduced working hours do not apply for staff contracted to work non-regulated working hours or who are subject to certain alternative agreements.
For part-time workers, any work over and above ordinary daily working hours constitutes extra hours (mertid). However, extra hours do not extend beyond the ordinary working hours that apply for a full-time worker. The total amount of extra hours and overtime may not exceed 200 hours per calendar year, and extra hours alone may not exceed 175 hours per calendar year.
The employer may not request that staff on partial sick leave, staff on legally granted partial leave or staff on leave to care for a child work extra hours. Partially retired staff may be required to work up to 25 extra hours per calendar year.
Extra hours worked are classified as hours worked during regular working hours and are compensated accordingly in the form of either compensatory leave or extra pay. It is generally up to the respective staff member to decide how to be compensated. The hourly pay for extra hours worked is determined by dividing the person’s monthly salary by 142. If a staff member instead chooses to be compensated in the form of extra time off, the amount of time off will simply equal the number of extra hours worked.
For full-time staff, overtime work is work carried out over and above their ordinary daily working hours. For part-time staff, overtime work is work carried out over and above the ordinary working hours for full-time staff. Hours worked over and above the limit for extra hours (mertid) are also classified as overtime. The following limits apply for overtime work:
• Up to 48 hours in a 4-week period, or
• 50 hours in a calendar month, but
• not more than 150 hours in a calendar year.
Total overtime in a year does not include overtime hours for which a person is granted compensatory leave. All overtime must be approved or requested by the staff member’s supervisor.
The employer may not request that staff on partial sick leave, staff on legally granted partial leave or staff on leave to care for a child work overtime. Partially retired staff may be required to work up to 25 hours of overtime per calendar year.
Staff are compensated for overtime in the form of either compensatory leave or extra pay (the amount paid depends on whether the overtime is classified as so-called simple or qualified overtime). It is generally up to the respective staff member to decide how to be compensated.
According to government regulations, holidays are earned over the course of the respective calendar year. As a general rule, holiday must be taken in the same year it was earned. If you are a new employee, this means that you are entitled to holiday time during your first year.
The number of paid days holiday is calculated based on the number of days you are expected to work in the respective year. If you have accrued more than 20 days, you are allowed to save the surplus days for a subsequent year. However, the maximum number of days holiday that can be saved is 30. If you do not want to save holiday, you have to take your entire holiday in the year in which it was earned.
If there are special reasons, employees are permitted to take excess days holiday until 31 March in the year after the year in which the days were earned.
If you terminate your employment and have taken more days holiday than you have accrued, you will have to refund the employer the corresponding value. If you have been on unpaid leave, the number of days holiday decreases in proportion to the length of the leave (some types of leave are exempt).
The university reports standard holidays (schablonsemester) for teachers, researchers and doctoral students. This means that we automatically enter you holiday in the standard holiday period during the summer, starting Monday week 28 and as far as the days go.
Any person with one of the following job titles is included in the standard holiday:
Adjunct professor, adjunct senior lecturer, adjunct lecturer, associate senior lecturer, doctoral student, postdoctoral research fellow, visiting professor, visiting lecturer, researcher, professor, postdoctor, senior researcher, lecturer and senior lecturer.
If you want to have holidays outside the standard holiday period, you must this in Primula no later than 31 May. If you start your employment after the standard holiday period, you report your holidays the normal way via Primula.
Age 29 or younger: 28 days
Age 30–39: 31 days
Age 40 and older: 35 days
Midsummer Eve, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are not included in these figures.
For employees with concentrated part time, holiday is calculated by quota. The holiday pay consists of the regular salary at the time of the holiday plus a holiday premium, and if applicable also a special holiday allowance regulated in some collective agreements (semesterlönegaranti).
If you are ill, you must notify your department/equivalent according to applicable instructions. You also need to register illness in Primula from the first day of absence, or have somebody help you do this.
Once you are back at work following an illness, you need to report your return in Primula.
If you are ill and absent from work for more than seven days, you need to submit a sick note signed by a doctor to your department/equivalent. The sick note does not need to provide information about your diagnosis. In some cases, your employer may ask you to submit a sick note earlier than the 8th day of leave.
If you are on sick leave for more than 14 days, you need to submit the original copy of the sick note to the Swedish Social Insurance Administration. Your human resources officer will inform the National Government Service Centre about the duration and extent of your sick leave as stated on the sick note, but not about the reason for your absence.
When you are ill, you are entitled to sick pay for the first fourteen days. Sick pay is calculated for the days you are absent and equates to 80 per cent of the pay you would have received if you had not been ill. As of day 15, you receive sickness benefit from Swedish Social Insurance Administration. The employer sends reports to National Government Service Centre as of day 15.
A qualifying deduction is then made from the sick pay. This qualifying
deduction will amount to 20 per cent of sick pay for an average working week.
Note that there is a rule covering relapses. Under this, if you get well and then relapse within five calendar days, the new sick period is counted as a continuation of the previous one. Remuneration is then calculated as if you have been continuously ill.
There is a special high-risk protection scheme whereby further qualifying deductions are not made where an employee has had a deduction from sick pay on ten occasions in the past twelve months.
From the 15th to the 365th day of sick leave, the employer pays a 10% sick pay allowance for salaries up to the so-called basic amount (basbelopp) and 87.60% for the part of a person’s salary that exceeds the basic amount threshold. From the 366th day of sick leave, a full deduction is made for salaries up to the basic amount threshold. For the part of a person’s salary that exceeds the basic amount threshold, the deduction varies depending on whether the person has been granted sickness benefit at normal or continuation level (normal- or fortsättningsnivå) by the Swedish Social Insurance Administration.
A pay deduction is made for each day of parental leave. In cases of partial parental leave, pay deductions are made on a per-day basis in proportion to the reduction in working time on the specific day a deduction is calculated for.
For each day a staff member receives parental benefit above the basic level (grundnivå) from the Swedish Social Insurance Administration, the University pays a parental benefit supplement. The parental benefit supplement is paid for up to 360 days for each child born. It is paid monthly and must be requested no later than two years after the month that the payment is for.
The supplement is 10% of the daily pay up to the basic amount threshold. For the part of a person’s salary that exceeds the basic amount threshold, the parental benefit supplement is 90% of the daily pay.
The parental allowance supplement is then paid once you have scanned in your payment decision from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and have attached it in a case in Primula. You create the case in My page > Compensation/fees > Additional parental benefit. It is after this that your days with paid parental allowance supplement will give you holidays. It is therefore recommended to regularly request the parental allowance supplement so that your holiday balance is updated in Primula.
A deduction for each working day of 4.6% of the fixed monthly salary is made in conjunction with unpaid leave of up to 5 working days.
A deduction for each calendar day of 3.3% of the fixed monthly salary is made in conjunction with leave of 6 working days or more.
If you have been granted leave in accordance with the Swedish leave ordinance, you are entitled to pay without deduction during the leave as below:
If needed, you can visit a doctor or dentist during working hours. You can be reimbursed for physiotherapy and medical, dental and mental health treatment (certain conditions apply for all types of treatment) up to the so-called high-cost protection (högkostnadsskydd) threshold. Expenses for preventive health services and immunisations are not reimbursed. In order to be reimbursed for health-related expenses, the services must have been registered on a Swedish medical expense card (högkostnadskort).
You can also be reimbursed for the cost of prescription medicines (certain conditions apply). Your pharmacy will keep track of how much you have paid for your medicines.
Compensation for the above can be obtained by reporting the expenses in Primula. Attach scanned receipts and your national medical expense card if the expenses are for medical care etc. according to the above. Submit the original copies of receipts to your department/equivalent, where they will be saved for 3 years. For reimbursement of costs for medicines, you need to enclose a scanned prescription specification.
The right to reimbursement of health care expenses expires two years after the respective expense was incurred. Reimbursement for medical expenses within publicly funded health care is subject to tax.
Expenses for naprapathic, chiropractic and osteopathic care etc. are not reimbursed unless special reasons exist (i.e., that the treatment is provided for rehabilitation purposes following approval by the person’s supervisor).
You can receive tax-free reimbursement of keep-fit activities up to SEK 2000 per calendar year. This benefit aims to encourage health awareness and provide opportunities for participation in health promotion activities.
Reimbursement of keep-fit activities is offered to all employees at the university regardless of the type of employment and is also offered to the parental and sick leave. The university follows the Swedish Tax Agency's rules for approved health care activities.
You apply for reimbursement in Primula under “Travel and expenses”. In the case, you attach the scanned / photographed original receipt, bank statement for autogiro payment and / or payment certificate from the health care provider.
You should not submit your receipts as paper documents, but you should be able to present the documents 3 months after the reporting date in Primula.
University staff are entitled to paid leave for one hour of keep-fit activities per week. The keep-fit hour must be completed during regular working hours. It can be completed at any time during the workday, as long as the timing of it does not cause a significant inconvenience.
Read more: Working at GU / Work environment and health / Your health / Keep-fit policy
If notice is given by the employee, the following periods of notice apply:
When the employee has been employed for up to 1 year: 1 month
When the employee has been employed for 1 year or more: 2 months
If notice is given by the employer, the following periods of notice apply:
When the employee has been employed for up to 1 year: 1 month
When the employee has been employed for 1 year or more: 3 months
If notice is given by the employer, the period of notice may be longer in accordance with Section 11 of the Swedish Employment Protection Act and Chapter 2 Section 5 of the Swedish labour agreement Avtal om omställning.
The Swedish government offers a group life insurance that you are covered by from your first day of employment at the University. While at work, including your travel to and from work, you are also insured via the Swedish Work Injury Insurance Act. Moreover, when travelling for work-related reasons, you are covered by a work travel insurance. Contact your department/equivalent for more information.
As an employee at the University of Gothenburg (with certain exceptions), you are included in an occupational pension scheme titled PA 16. PA 16 consists of two departments. Section 1 applies to employees born in 1988 and later and Section 2 applies to employees born before 1988.
Read more about your pension at The National Government Employee Pensions Board (SPV): www.spv.se/privatperson/statlig-tjanstepension/forsta-din-tjanstepension
Read more: Working at GU / Employment / Pension
The University’s work environment agreement is based on the Swedish work environment legislation and central and local work environment agreements. Working to advance a good work environment is a task shared by the University’s management, staff and students. The responsibility for work environment issues rests with the employer.
The work at the University to ensure a good work environment is well organised. Each department/equivalent has a work environment representative who is tasked to monitor work environment issues from the perspective of employees.
All University staff contracted to work at least 20% of full time have access to occupational health services provided by Avonova. The services include access to doctors, nurses, ergonomists and psychologists. The services are only for work-related problems.
If you have an urgent need for health care services or medical advice, or you need to go on sick leave, please contact your district health care centre.
Read more: Working at GU / Work environment and health / Your health / Occupational Health Serivce
The work to promote equal treatment at the University of Gothenburg is based on the University’s Vision 2020 document, which sets the guiding principles for the work and constitutes the foundation of the University’s policy and action plan for gender equality and equal treatment.
The University’s goal in promoting equal treatment is to ensure a positive work environment in which all staff and students, irrespective of sex, transgender identity, ethnicity, age, religion or other faith, sexual orientation or disabilities, have the best possible opportunities to grow and develop. An equality representative is appointed at every department or equivalent unit.
Your time at the university should feel safe and secure. As an employee, the university is your workplace and it is the university that is ultimately responsible for a good working environment.
IA is the University of Gothenburg's system for incident and deviation reporting. For example, if you have been injured, or feel that the university is lacking in its routines regarding work environment, safety or the environment, you should do a so-called incident and deviation reporting in IA.
The system is only available in Swedish. If you need help logging an incident or deviation, please contact on of the administrator at your workplace.
Go to the webpages for leadership and skills development for more information and to sign up for staff trainings at the University of Gothenburg.
Read more: Skills development
The terms and conditions of your employment are regulated by agreements between the Swedish Agency for Government Employers and the main trade unions SACO, OFR-S and SEKO-civil. An agreement titled Villkorsavtal/Villkorsavtal-T regulates the general employment conditions.
The University of Gothenburg also has a local collective agreement in place, Villkorsavtal-GU, which specifies additions to and exceptions from the other agreements.
Three main trade unions are represented at the University of Gothenburg:
OFR-S
Saco-S
SEKO
© University of Gothenburg, Sweden • Postal address: Box 100, SE-405 30 Göteborg
Invoice address: Box 115, SE-405 30 Göteborg
Phone: +46 31 786 0000 • Contact (gu.se) • Organisation number: 202100-3153, VAT No SE202100315301
This page is printed from the following webpage:
https://medarbetarportalen.gu.se/working_at/new-at-work/new-at-work-a-staff-introduction/?languageId=100001&skipSSOCheck=true
Print date:
2023-12-11
Tools