Calling in sick

In case you are absent due to illness, please take care of the procedure for calling in sick.

1. Inform somebody of your absence. To do this, you can call in sick via the self-service tool, notify the institute secretary by phone (020 525 5265), or send an email to pzhims@uva.nl. The secretary administrates the notification that will be received by the company doctor (Zorg van de Zaak). Your supervisor will get a notification of this.
2. When you are well again, please note this in the self-service tool or inform the institute secretariat that you have returned to work.

In case you need medical or psychological help, or if you are sick for an extended period of time, you will be invited to see the company doctor. The doctor is there to advise you about your illness and steps towards resuming work, or suggest and sometimes arrange subsequent specialists for you. Your supervisor and the  institute manager will receive a report in which only (1) your capability to work; and/or (2) estimated time needed for reintegration are recorded. The nature of the sickness is confidential and is not included in the report.

The company doctor can also be contacted when you are not sick yet but feel that you are struggling with physical or psychological issues that are hampering your work. You can contact Stephan van Duren or Jitske Roosjen to refer you. 

PhD candidates can also use the services of the Student Psychologists Office, where PhD candidates can receive short-term help in case of psychological problems that affect your PhD research or your personal life. 

How to arrange holidays

Every UvA employee has 232 holiday leave hours, which amounts to 29 days per year (adjusted pro rata according to your contractual hours). The UvA takes a Christmas recess, for which 16 hours of leave are deducted. Employees are responsible for taking leave. Given the personal interest of candidates to bring their project to a successful promotion, HIMS expects them to invest time in their own training/PhD program in case they apparently do not manage to do so in the regular working time. Only in case the supervisor forbids personnel to take vacation (for example, if certain experiments can only be performed at that moment), the director may decide to reimburse unused leave at the end of the contract. Unused holidays are automatically taken over for the next year.

You can request holidays via the self-service tool, after which your supervisor has to approve them.

Bursaries have the same amount of holiday rights, and can mail or talk to their supervisor about taking them, as they are not able to access the self-service tool.

Reimbursing money

Assuming your project budget has sufficient funds, it should allow you to travel, attend conferences, buy books needed for your research, etc. There are several possibilities to get HIMS to pay for these:

1. You can ask the supplier to send a bill to the UvA (email Saskia Spruyt in advance).
2. You can pay for the costs, scan the receipts, and submit them as declaration via the self-service tool (employees) or expenseclaims.uva.nl for bursaries.
3. If the amount for a purchase it too high, e.g. a flight, you can claim an advance payment via the self-service tool. You will receive the money within 3-5 working days.

• Note that receipts should clearly state what is purchased, on which date it was purchased, and show VAT/BTW amounts.

1. Bills that are addressed to your home address cannot be accepted. They should have the name of the UvA HIMS on them, e.g. if you buy something from Amazon or bol.com.
2. Luxury goods or 1^st class train or flight tickets are not acceptable.

When in doubt, feel free to ask Saskia in advance what to do.

Discounts via UvA (e.g. on a bike and insurance)

Buying a bike

If you would like to buy a bike, you could get a tax advantage on it. To do so, a few possibilities are available in the ‘term of employment' menu in the self-service tool. When you'd like to make use of this, the following should be taken into account:

1. There is a maximum of €749 that can be claimed for buying a bike.
2. This advantage can be acquired by selling holiday hours. The application for this has to be done before 1 April of a calendar year. Also, with regard to these applications, the University and/or Faculty will decide if it will be granted or not, based on how many employees buy or sell holiday hours. You must have taken at least 3 weeks of holidays in the year before you have the possibility to "sell" these for a bike purchase.
3. Another way to claim the advantage is through a salary deduction on your holiday- or end-of-year-allowances. The tax percentage on these two allowances are higher than on a regular salary, which results in a higher benefit for you. You can choose the amount that is withheld from your bonus yourself.
4. This tax adventage for buying a bike is available every three years. In case you buy accessories (like a lock or maintenance on the bike), you can apply a maximum of €82 every year. If you choose to insure the bike, you can add this amount to the application as well.

Health insurance discounts

You must take out a Dutch public healthcare insurance (called 'zorgverzekering' in Dutch) for yourself and your partner and children. This insurance provides coverage for basic medical care, such as a visit to the GP, most hospital treatments and other necessary medical treatment.

You are obliged to take out a basic health insurance (basisverzekering), and can also opt to take out additional cover (aanvullende verzekering). All insurance schemes with the UvA offer a discount on the basic insurance and additional insurance.

The UvA provides several collective health insurance packages, through insurance companies Zilveren Kruis and Zorg en Zekerheid. All insurance schemes offer a 5% group discount on the premium of the basic insurance and 15% on additional insurance. 

Other discounts

If you are employed by the UvA, you receive an ICT allowance of €125 every calendar year. If you work part-time or are employed for less than a year, you are also entitled to this amount. You can use your ICT allowance to buy software and hardware for home use. To build up your ICT allowance, log in at least once a year at the following link. You can accumulate the allowance over several years.

Books, gym, and travel discounts keep changing every year, so it is best to look at the website for all active links and discounts.