costly undergrad RA

[rabbitandfox23]

At the beginning of last semester I hired an eager RA who approached me and showed enthusiasm to help with my research. I said yes, somewhat reluctantly. I didn't really need the extra help, but wanted to give the student an opportunity to gain research experience and to be remunerated (out of my own research money). We settled on a fixed maximum number of hours and a precise hourly pay.
I gave this student one minor task before coronavirus hit, so there was obviously no further research work to be done after beginning of March.
I just checked my research accounts and noticed that the RA submitted to our department financial offer the entirety of the hours allotted to the student, which should have lasted until July.
I guess I'm just taken aback by how quickly the student clocked these hours, especially since the work I delegated required rather little time (in my view).
Has this happened to others before? Is this normal for undergrad RAs?  Or should I have been more specific with the student about how much time I expected each task to take?  I've just begun my career so have little experience in this area...

[pigou]

Could this be a misunderstanding on behalf of the student? E.g. they thought you'll give them X number of hours of work, so they should report X hours -- not thinking they should do weekly time sheets or something of that sort?

[Ruralguy]

Unless the administration is giving you heck, I'd just be more clear in the future and let this go.
But do let this student know that this wasn't your intention.

[teach_write_research]

Check with your finance office - is it possible that they released the funds to the student?

Not exactly the same but related, our college paid the balance of federal work-study wages to students whose work-study jobs ended when they moved off-campus. Perhaps your non-work-study job was administered that way too?

[Vkw10]

My university also paid full funding allocated to students who were working in certain job classifications but aren't able to continue work because job had to be done onsite.

For the future, be specific about what you are paying for and when/how  employee should claim pay. For example, I will pay you $x per hour to work on assigned tasks at this time/location and I expect you to claim your pay every two weeks by submitting this online form.

It's also a good idea to establish a system for checking in with employee regularly, especially with new employees.For example, I expect my RAs to track progress on assigned tasks in a shared online work log. I can review quickly, jot a quick "good progress" or prompt with a comment like "taking longer than expected, do we need to review process?", and assign new tasks. Check-in is especially important with undergrads, because many have little work experience. We have to teach them to be good employees or to be good employees in a research setting.

[Hibush]

We use biweekly time cards for student employees just like regular employees. Supervisors have to approve each time card to say that the time was both scheduled for work and actually performed.

What is your system?  You must have something to demonstrate compliance with labor law.

[mamselle]

Do you have an EA? Are they not in charge of time cards?

Or do you have to do the submissions yourself?

In cases where I've been the EA I couldn't put in for payment to a student without the paperwork.

(In one horrible case, she was halfway-across-the-globe, overseas, her father was dying, and the very obstructionist, entitled person in the accounting office who never could process anything easily kept sending her payment cards back to me for backup materials showing the line in the grant that I'd already provided, twice. Each turnaround took a few more days, and she really needed the money...and I still couldn't dislodge it without the "right" paperwork....maddening, and mean, really).

So, yeah, I'd want to follow up on the paper trail to see how it was expensed, especially if it came out of your budget, and any part of it was grant-funded.

You don't want that to show up with any irregularities.

M.

[rabbitandfox23]

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughtful responses! I will definitely take all of the above into account the next time I hire an RA.

[mamselle]

That's good, but if there are grants involved, or departmental funds overseen by others, follow it up now.

M.