FWS Partner Organizations

All student positions must be posted in the Student Employment Talent Management System and must adhere to the Student Employment Position Standards & Descriptions. In this system, the Hiring Manager will be able to set up Guest Users to review applicants, disposition applicants, and submit the Hiring Proposal (HP). For assistance with using the system review the Off-Campus FWS Partners User's Guide.

In order to successfully hire an FWS student, the following steps should be followed in the Student Employment Talent Management System after the student has applied to the position:

1. Disposition the status of all applicants to your posting, move your selected applicant(s) to Recommend for Hire. All students who were not selected will receive a notification of their status.
2. Complete a Hiring Proposal (HP) for your selected applicant(s) and submit it to Student Employment for Initial Review.
3. After all approvals are granted, Student Employment will send the applicant an Offer Letter to the student. The student must sign this document online via their applicant portal.
4. After the offer letter has been signed, the applicant will begin required pre-hire onboarding procedures such as the I-9 Form and tax withholding forms.
5. AFTER the student has completed ALL required pre-hire onboarding procedures, Student Employment will complete their hiring process. You will receive an email notification from Student Employment when this has occurred. DO NOT allow the student to begin working until you are notified by Student Employment that their hiring process has been completed.

For full instructions on this process please consult the Off-Campus FWS Partners User's Guide.

You will receive updated emails throughout the process, and Student Employment will communicate with you through these emails if any further action is required from you.

DO NOT allow the student to begin working until you have received the official notice email from Student Employment that states the student has been officially and completely hired. Be sure that you are actively communicating with your student throughout the hiring process and especially if changes need to be made to their start date. Once hired, the student employee's information will load into Kronos the day after they are hired.

How Many Hours Per Week Can A Student Work?

While there is no maximum number of hours a student may work per week,  it is recommended that student employees work no more than 20 hours, on average, per week so they can focus on their academic studies and so that more students can take advantage of the limited available student work opportunities. Students may only work outside of scheduled class time. Remember, student employees are students first.

Setting Your Student’s Work Schedule

The student’s schedule is jointly determined by you and the student. Supervisors should be flexible with working hours during exam preparation periods, institutional holidays, extended breaks (winter break, spring break), and unexpected school closures. Students’ availability may change from semester to semester as their class schedule changes, so be sure to ask your student employee about scheduling changes before a new semester starts.

FWS Students’ Working Limits

Students are not permitted to work during scheduled class hours. FWS student employees are not authorized to earn more than their allotted FWS award amount during a given school year. Therefore, it is important for students and employers to work together to monitor student employee's hours. Use this pre-programmed Excel sheet to calculate how much of their award a student has earned to date, and how many work hours they have remaining.

When you signed the FWS Participation Agreement, you agreed to monitor the earnings of all FWS students that you employ. The 75% funding match from the federal government only applies up to the limit of a student’s FWS award. If you fail to monitor a student’s FWS earnings and that student exceeds their award limit, your organization is charged 100% of the wages earned in excess of the award limit. We cannot leave the student in a FWS position after their award is reached, even if your organization could pay the wage at 100%.

Here’s an example:

• Your student has a $2,000 FWS award. They work enough hours to earn $2,200 with you.
• The 75% match applies to the $2,000 in the FWS award. You pay 25% of that $2,000 ($500) plus the 6.5% fringe on that $500, for a total of $500 + 6.5% = $532.50 for the wages earned under the FWS program.
• The student earned $200 above and beyond their FWS award limit of $2,000.  You are responsible for 100% of that excess of $200. The 6.5% fringe applies to your 100% contribution as well, which brings your responsibility for the $200 in excess wages to $200 + .65% = $213.00.
• You would owe GW $532.50 (for FWS reimbursement) + $213.00 (for excess over the FWS award) = $745.50

Please review the Promotions vs. Rate Increases document to determine prior to moving forward. To perform a promotion you will start the hiring process from the beginning and place the student in a new position, you will not submit a rate increase.

To perform a rate increase:

• Complete a GW Student Employee Performance Review (PDF) with the student
• Initiate a Rate Change Form in the SE Talent Management System
• Review the Hiring Manager User's Guide for step-by-step instructions

Send an email to Student Employment at [email protected] with the student’s name and GWID, along with the new supervisor's name and email address. We must have the current supervisor on file for each student at all times.

You must terminate student employees when the student is no longer working for your organization for any reason. To terminate a student’s employment, you will need to submit a Termination Form in the Student Employment Talent Management System. Review the Off-Campus FWS Partner User's Guide for step-by-step instructions. All FWS students are terminated automatically at the end of the FWS program year. If your FWS student employee meets or exceeds their allotted FWS funding, their position will be immediately terminated.

Students record their work hours by “clocking in” and “clocking out” using the Kronos system as do all other non-exempt (i.e. paid by the hour) employees. When we complete a student hire in Banner, that student’s name will appear in your organization’s Kronos display on the following day. Establish the clock in/clock out habit immediately with your student. Even if you opt to use another timekeeping system (such as hard copy timesheets), your student still needs to clock their hours and your timekeeper will need to report the hours of work using Kronos. Please note, it is against university policy to not use Kronos as the time reporting system. Kronos is the only official record of time worked according to the university.

Missed Punches

Inevitably your student will forget to clock in or out. Explain that they should contact the organization's timekeeper with the relevant date and time as soon as possible so that the correction can be made.

Overtime Pay (OTP)

OTP will be paid for any time over 40 hours worked in a week (Sunday-Saturday) at a time and a half.

Time Approvals

Every other week your organization’s timekeeper must go into the Kronos system and approve the time for your employee(s). The deadline for this approval is 10 am on the “departmental approval date” shown in this year’s GW Payroll Calendar. This is not a negotiable deadline, and failure to comply with this deadline may result in the student not being paid for their work on the correct payday.  If any delay or action on your part causes a delay in a student’s receipt of wages, it is your responsibility to notify the affected student that payment will be delayed. For assistance using Kronos, please see GW Payroll's helpful materials on the subject. Contact us at [email protected] if you have further questions.

We strongly encourage students to sign up for direct deposit or a PayCard.  If a student does not sign up for direct deposit (and until the direct deposit takes effect – this may take up to two pay periods), paychecks will be mailed to the student.  If a student has multiple jobs through GW, payment for all of the jobs will be combined into a single check.

Sick Time Accrual: Student employees begin accruing sick time on their date of hire and are eligible to use accrued sick time during their employment with manager approval. Accrued sick time is credited on the last working day of each month and may not be used prior to its actual accrual. For student employees, sick time accrual is equal to one (1) hour for every thirty-seven (37) hours worked, for a maximum accrual of seven (7) days per year. Student employees may also be eligible for benefits under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). For more information, visit the GW Benefit’s Time Off and Leave Guide. For questions regarding these benefits, please contact GW Benefits at [email protected].

Time Off Reporting: All eligible employees (including student employees) will also use Kronos, the university’s time reporting system, to request and manage their paid time off. Student Employment will approve sick leave approval for your student(s).

Off-campus partners will be invoiced for all hours worked at the end of each FWS program year (usually in mid-May). You will be billed for 25% of the student's total earnings and 100% of any earnings earned in excess of their FWS award amount, plus an 6.5% fringe fee. Student Employment can only receive payment by check or EFT payment.

What is the fringe fee?

Under the Federal Work Study program, the United States Department of Education provides funding for the University to hire eligible students into part-time jobs that supplement other forms of financial aid.  At GW, these federal funds are used to pay 75% of a student’s wages. The remaining 25% and any fringe benefits associated with the wages (e.g., FICA, unemployment, worker’s compensation) are the responsibility of the institution.

The University’s fringe benefit rate for part-time employees, which includes students, is 8.75%. This rate is charged to all GW departments who hire student employees regardless of whether a student is exempt from FICA withholding. When a student is hired into an FWS position by an Off-Campus FWS Partner Organization, the partner becomes responsible for the non-Federal Work Study portion of the student’s wages (25%) and the fringe benefits for 25% of the student’s wages, based on the 8.75% fringe benefit rate, just as an on-campus department hiring a student does.