Policy

UK Research and Innovation recruitment policy

This document contains the UKRI policy on recruitment and associated information.

From:
UKRI
Published:
Last updated:
- see all updates

Documents

Details

This policy covers the recruitment of employees at UKRI. It sets out the importance of fair and open recruitment and promotes consistency of approach across UKRI.  This policy covers:

  • all aspects of recruitment and associated law
  • pre-employment checks and onboarding
  • security vetting and screening information in respect of existing employees
  • internal recruitment/movement, with a view to supporting development opportunities for existing employees
  • secondments
  • redeployment

Employees should refer to the internal policy page on the UKRI intranet for further guidance and information supporting the implementation of this policy.

The first version of this policy was created in January 2020. Version one has now been archived.

Version 2 published in May 2024 is a revision of the previous version. The key revisions we have made are:

  • separating out process and guidance information and retain core UKRI recruitment policy, with guidance now available from the employee intranet
  • merging the ‘UKRI transfers and secondments policy’ (now archived) into this policy and guidance
  • information clearly set out regarding the end of any period of temporary action and banding and the interface with the redundancy and ‘at risk’ process and redeployment, plus other more detailed internal movement guidance which is available on the employee intranet
  • newly developed guidance regarding HR and screening and vetting implications, to reflect personnel security and broader UKRI requirements in both the policy and guidance which is available on the employee intranet
  • internal employee movement guidance has been set out on the employee intranet
  • setting out expectations for recruiting managers to accommodate flexible working options where possible (paragraph 2.5 in the policy), also referenced in guidance available on the employee intranet
  • updated immigration guidance, paragraph 6.6 and stand-alone guidance document available on the employee intranet
  • emphasising that where substantive roles are temporarily vacated, they should be backfilled on a fixed-term basis, unless there is a specific reason not to do this (paragraph 2.12). This change has been made for legislative reasons, including to reflect employment law updates effective April 2024 regarding enhanced redundancy protection for those on specific types of family leave

Updates

  • 30 May 2024
    The 'Policy statement' section has been updated, changing the sentence from 'UKRI employees should refer to the guidance on the HR SharePoint site' to '...guidance on The Source'.
  • 29 May 2024
    The 'Policy statement' section has been updated with the additional sentence added to the last paragraph 'Employees should familiarise themselves with the UKRI People Standards'.

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