Frequently Asked Questions

If you are a temporary contract holder in the General Service and related categories and would like to apply for the G to N examination, you will be allowed to apply as an internal applicant in inspira on an exceptional basis. If your contract is currently not valid until six months after the examination date (date noted in the job opening), you MUST attach a letter to your online application from your Executive Office stating the intent to renew your contract until at least that date.

If staff members notice any discrepancies in their data in Umoja, they must contact HR Partners (i.e. HR Assistants or Officers) of their Department/Office.  The relevant HR Partner will find out where issues are and make arrangements to have the discrepancies corrected. 

Leave Balances:  On Day 1, staff members are able to check all leave balances, with the exception of Annual Leave, and apply for various leave, again with the exception of Annual Leave, from the Portal.

Annual Leave balances as of 31 May will be loaded in Umoja on 4 June 2015.  Therefore, staff members must note that their Annual Leave balances and the ability to request Annual Leave will not be available until 5 June 2015.

Prior to Day 1, staff members are encouraged to activate their Unite Identity Account and set up a permanent password.  They are also strongly encouraged (and sometimes required) to familiarize themselves with Umoja Self-Service functionality by taking Umoja Self-Service tutorials, which are available on Umoja website.

All staff members (international or national staff) who are working in C3 entities (UNEP, UN Habitat, UNON, OCHA, ESCAP and UNAKRT) as well as MINUSTAH, regardless of their duty station, have access to employee self-service in Umoja.  All non-staff (Consultants, Individual Contractors, UNVs, Interns, etc.) will not be given access to self-service functionality at this time.

Business processes related to education grant will not yet be available through the Umoja Employee Self-Service Portal. Staff will still be required to submit hard copy applications to their HR Partner.

The deployment of the first extension of Umoja deals with transactions related to personnel administration, entitlements, benefits, time management, payroll, and travel

Example 1:

All staff will be responsible for entering their leave in Umoja. If a staff member is out of the office (e.g. sick leave or annual leave), the staff member must record the absence through the Employee Self-Service (ESS) portal.  The supervisor will be notified of the entry and will need to review and it will be routed to the right person for approval.

Example 2:

Personal and financial Information about staff will be converted from the current system, IMIS.  There will be a “blackout” period where no changes will be permitted in IMIS during this conversion.

In addition, personal addresses and emergency contact information are converted from Inspira, if available and if no data is found in Inspira the IMIS data is converted.  The last day for a staff member to make changes to address and emergency contact information in Inspira that will be transferred to Umoja is 15 May 2015 (for duty stations deploying Umoja in June 2015).

Umoja is an on-line web based system that can be accessed from any location.

There are numerous training materials and guides available to help staff and managers navigate the system and can be accessed on the Umoja website (https://www.unumoja.net/display/public/Umoja+Employee+Self-Service+Tutor...). Specialized training is provided to transactional users (HR, travel, finance, procurement, etc.)