Playbook, recruitment agency
The lockout that costs somebody a week's pay
An access problem on most websites is an irritation. A temporary worker who cannot get into the timesheet system on the night of the cut off is looking at not being paid on Friday, and they know it, which is why the message arrives at half past ten with no punctuation in it. The assistant cannot reset anything or move a deadline. It can point at the fallback, if there is one written down.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for account access problems holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The lockout has a deadline attached that nobody at the agency chose, because the payroll cut off decides whether the week is paid on time and it does not move for a forgotten password.
- The person is often locked out of a system that is not the agency's: a worker engaged through an umbrella or another intermediary submits hours elsewhere, and the agency cannot administer that login at all.
- Candidates who registered in a branch years ago frequently never had an online account, so the access problem turns out to be the discovery that there was nothing to log into.
- The client side has its own version, where the manager who approves hours is on leave and nobody has been nominated to cover, and that holds up pay for a whole assignment rather than one person.
How it arrives
- i cannot log in to submit my timesheet
- the portal says my account is locked
- i have a new phone and cannot get the code
- my manager is on holiday and cannot approve my hours
- i registered at the branch do i even have a login
- the timesheet deadline is tonight and i am stuck
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The timesheet cut off, and what happens if it is missed | The day, the hour, whether a late submission is paid in the same run or the next one, and whether any manual fallback exists. This one paragraph is the whole answer to the urgent version of this question. |
|---|---|
| Which system a worker uses, and who runs it | Your own portal, a client's system, an umbrella or other intermediary's. Name them and say who supports each, because a worker sent to the wrong help desk loses the only evening they had. |
| The approval route when the usual approver is away | Who else can sign off hours and how a manager nominates a deputy. An absent approver is the commonest reason an entire assignment gets paid late, and it is entirely preventable in writing. |
| The self service reset route and the human fallback | Where the reset link is, and the number or address for somebody who cannot use it. Publish both, because a reset link is no use to a worker whose registered address was an old employer's email. |
The reply
If the cut off is tonight, do not wait for the login to be fixed. Our payroll page sets out the deadline and what to do when you cannot submit in time [1]. I cannot see accounts, reset a password or unlock anybody, so the login itself has to go to a person. If you are paid through an umbrella or another intermediary rather than by us, that portal is theirs and only they can reset it [2]. Leave me your name, the email you registered with and which system you are stuck on and I will get it to the right desk.
The deadline is dealt with before the login, because the worker's actual problem is being paid rather than being signed in. Ruling out three things it cannot do in one sentence stops the person trying to talk it into a reset. Asking which system prevents an intermediary's worker being sent to the agency's help desk.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor says they cannot submit a timesheet, names an account, or the cut off falls within a day.
I cannot unlock an account or move a deadline. Tell me your name, the email you registered with and which system you are locked out of, and I will pass it on now with the cut off flagged.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say an account has been unlocked or reset, because nothing here reaches any system and the worker will stop chasing on the one evening it mattered.
- Never confirm whether an account or a record exists for the person typing, since identity cannot be established in a chat window.
- Never say a late timesheet will still make the current pay run unless your published policy says exactly that.
- Never suggest a worker submit their hours through somebody else's login.
Questions
- Can it reset a password for a temporary worker?
- No. It has no access to any account and cannot write anywhere. What it removes is the message that was only ever asking where the reset link is or when the cut off falls, and those are the majority of them.
- Why publish the cut off so prominently?
- Because the urgent version of this question is not really about a login. A worker who knows the deadline and the fallback can act tonight. One who does not spends the evening trying to get into a portal that would not have helped anyway.
- Workers are confused about which portal is which. Can it help?
- It can name the arrangements you use and say who supports each. It cannot tell a worker which one applies to them, because that depends on how they are engaged and it cannot look anybody up.
Keep reading
- Everything for a recruitment agencyTwo audiences on one website. Process, payroll and compliance questions are answerable, application outcomes never are.
- Handling account access problems in generalLocked out, wrong email, a colleague who left, no admin remaining. Identity cannot be checked in a widget, so explain, collect, hand over.
- Which login is it, and which address is sitting on itA candidate area, a timesheet system and a client approval login all look alike from outside. Getting the reset pointed at the right one.
- What an assistant may say about how candidate data is heldProcurement wants to know how a recruiter stores identity documents and worker records. Only published answers, because each one is a commitment.
- Cancelling a search is not cancelling a subscriptionWithdrawing a brief, ending a temp booking and the introduction that stays live for months. Terms answers, never a decision on a case.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.