The Universities of Wisconsin (UW) utilizes The Work Number® to provide automated employment and income verifications for UW employees.
The Work Number is a fast and secure way to provide proof of employment or income—a necessary step in many of today’s life events involving credit, financing, or securing of benefits or services. The Work Number simplifies the verification process and accelerates credit decisions through an online system available to verifiers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
How to Initiate a VOE Request:
- Direct the lending institution, property manager or other business requesting employment or income information to contact The Work Number at theworknumber.com or at 1-800-367-5690 for commercial verifications.
- Employees initiating this process may be required to provide your Social Security Number and the UW Employer Code: 18032.
- Contact UW-Shared Services (UWSS) with any issues or questions
How it Works:
- UWSS securely transmits employment and income data to The Work Number on a regular cycle, so the information remains current.
- When you apply for credit or other services where proof of employment or income is required, you provide consent to the credit grantor to verify that information when signing the application.
- The verifier, who has been carefully screened and credentialed before gaining access to the system, looks up your record in The Work Number secure database.
- The verifier must provide a valid reason or permissible purpose for requesting the information, as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
- With the above conditions met, the verifier can validate your employment or income in seconds, accelerating the decision process and helping you obtain the credit you seek.
What is The Work Number used for?
- Housing
- Loans (Mortgage, Vehicle, Personal, etc)
- Social Services
- Potential employers
What is The Work Number not used for?
- Data prior to the past 3 years
- Background investigations
- Job descriptions
- Buyback of retirement
- Verification of hours
- Probability of rehire
- Performance reviews
- References
- I-9 Process / Employment Eligibility
- Financial Aid ‘Independent Verification’
- Professional Licensure Applications
- Public Service Loan Forgiveness (please download and follow the linked verification request instructions)
For more information on services provided through The Work Number®, please see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is The Work Number?
The Work Number, a service of Equifax Workforce Solutions, is an automated service for employment and income verifications that allows employees to provide proof of employment or income instantly. More than 200,000 credentialed verifiers (leading mortgage companies, pre-employment screeners, banks, social service agencies and others) access The Work Number to retrieve this critical information rapidly and securely.
Is the information secure?
The commitment to information security at Equifax is unparalleled. Equifax is SSAE16, FISMA NIST 800- 53 and ISO 27001 certified. They employ risk based authentication and data encryption technologies and house The Work Number data in an isolated network. The Work Number has a detailed privacy policy that tells you what they do, and more importantly, what they do not do with information they gather while you are on their websites.
Who is considered a verifier?
A verifier can be any lending institution, property manager or other business with a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)-compliant permissible purpose for requesting employment or income information. All verifiers are screened and credentialed by Equifax before receiving system access and authenticated at each login.
Does a verification from The Work Number take longer?
No. If the information is on the database, it is delivered instantly and does not require a callback or other response from the employer.
What is a Commercial verification?
Standard employment and income verifications (as part of the approval process for mortgage loans, auto financing, credit cards, job offers, apartment rentals, etc.) are commonly referred to as commercial verifications.
What is a Social Services verification?
Employees may be eligible for public assistance through a variety of social service agencies. Employees apply for benefits through these organizations, and those agencies verify eligibility for these income qualified services. Thousands of agency verifiers nationwide regularly use The Work Number to perform employment and income verifications on their applicants and program participants. Typical social services verifications include TANF, SNAP, Public Housing, Medicaid, Child Support, WIC, Welfare-to-Work Programs, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and others.
What Employer Code do I Use?
The UW employer code is: 18032. This five-digit code is used to identify each organization in The Work Number database. Credentialed verifiers can also search for employer codes by name.
Does an employee need anything special to obtain an income verification?
The Work Number requires that verifiers have the documented consent of the employee-consumer to access income information. Consent is generally established via a signed acknowledgement at the point of application for a loan or service. And, as with all verifications via The Work Number, the verifier will need to state a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) compliant permissible purpose prior to accessing the data.
In most instances, the employee’s consent to have income verified is attained by the verifier during the application process. However, an additional consent mechanism available through The Work Number is the Salary Key.
How and when does an employee need to create a Salary Key?
To generate a Salary Key, go to www.theworknumber.com/employees or call 800.367.2884. You will be prompted to enter UW’s employer code, 18032 and your User ID and PIN.
If logging into the system for the first time, you will use a default User ID and PIN combination. For UW employees, the default User ID & PIN is:
- ID: Employee ID Number (8 digits, no dashes):
- PIN: Last 4-digits of your Social Security number and your 4-digit birth year, no spaces or dashes (YYYY)
If you do not know your Employee ID (sometimes abbreviated as ‘EMPLID’), it can be found on your payslip or in your profile in Workday.
You will also be asked to provide basic personal information, including address, phone and email options. This will be used to contact you with your One-Time Passcode.
Next, you may be asked to verify your identity via the One-Time Passcode (OTP) that will be sent via phone, text (SMS), or email. You may select the delivery method, and you must remain in the application (do not log out, do not close browser) while waiting for the OTP to be sent. Passcodes are sent in “real time,” and you should enter the received passcode immediately into the application you are trying to access.
Once your identity is verified, you will be prompted to reset your password. Once you have successfully logged in to your account, you will be directed to the Main Menu. You will select the option to create a Salary Key and the system will generate a 6-digit random number. It is a single use code, and you must create a new Salary Key for each income verification needed. You may have up to three codes active at one time.
Will The Work Number only have my most recent salary information on file, or will they retain a history of my salary?
The Work Number has three years of history on employee data.
Why might an employee’s Total Pay for a given year not match his/her W2?
For most employees that would see a difference, pre-tax deductions will account for it. For more information on why an employee’s earnings statement may differ from their W-2, please, see Comparison of the Year-End Earnings Statement to Form W-2.
I am a new hire, will my data be in The Work Number?
Data for new employees or future hires is provided to The Work Number for Verifications of Employment. Payroll data will not appear until a payroll is run that includes pay for the new employee. If an employee is a future hire or rehire, the Total Time with Employer will be displayed as a negative value because they have not yet started employment.