Alyssa Wilson ~ Editor-in-Chief
At the end of the fall semester, University of Lynchburg adopted a new payment system called Paycom, and let students and staff know that the new system would go into effect in the spring semester.
Midterms are now under way at the University and student workers harbor various opinions towards the platform and its different features.
Previously, student workers clocked in and out using the TimeClock Plus app, which used student ID numbers as a form of logging in on computers or smartphones.
Maxwell Garcia, a student worker at On Common Ground, does not see anything wrong with the way the old system works, and has had conversations with coworkers surrounding this thought.
“There’s a good time for innovation that will be well received. I don’t think this switch to the new system took that into account with how many upset rants I’ve heard about it. No one I know was asking for a new pay system, it worked just fine before,” said Garcia.
Overall, Garcia, who generally does not like to use online systems due to some technological limitations they can cause, has neutral feelings to the new system.
For Wilmer Writing Center Supervising Tutor, Anne Kelly, transferring to the new system was easy as she used it at a previous job.
Before being able to officially move forward with the system after setting up login information, every worker was required to watch a set of training videos.
For Kelly, this was a nuisance. “While I think it could be helpful for others, I wish there would have been an option to opt-out of certain training portions as an individual who knew about Paycom prior to its introduction at the university,” she said.
A collective concern seems to be the training that comes with the new platform; some students think there should be an in-person seminar to help people learn the system hands-on. Other students, like Kelly, suggest the option to bypass it completely.
Students have varying opinions concerning the new platform and some of the challenges that it brings, but they also seem hopeful that it will just be something students and staff have to get used to.