Four thousand Harvard employees began the year with an unpleasant e-mail surprise—an electronic pink slip. And though the massive layoff was a glitch, further technological and administrative difficulties meant that some student employees went unpaid for as much as two months.

This was the inauspicious kickoff to the University’s Human Resources (HR) Project and new Peoplesoft payroll software—an update to a personnel tracking system that was over a half century old.

Like the disastrous implementation of new financial software known as ADAPT in 1999, the rollout of the HR Project was plagued with glitches.

Scores of students stopped receiving paychecks after the conversion to the online payroll system in September and October. Dorm Crew workers and intramural (IM) referees were two of the hardest hit groups.

Some students even put off buying books for their courses because the University failed to pay them on time for their work.

At the end of October, Hannah E. Wright ’06 had not received a single paycheck for her work as an IM referee.

“They owe me almost $350,” she said at the time. “I need [the] job to help pay for school.”

Elizabeth J. Quinn ’04, who held a work-study job at the Boston Medical Center, received her first paycheck a month late—and it wasn’t even for the correct amount. She was owed more than $400 at one point.

“As a financial aid recipient, I owe my parents $2,000,” she said. “It’s been hard because they really need the money.”

Administrators scrambled to fix the glitches in the new system.

Martha E. Homer, director of the Student Employment Office (SEO), had been working with Harvard’s Office of Human Resources (OHR) and Peoplesoft consultants in the fall to work out the problems. But with many students still unpaid after a month of waiting, she said in October that she was not convinced the new computer system was an improvement.

“So far, it is clearly more hassle than it’s worth,” Homer said at the time.

While difficulties were expected with the rollout, administrators did not expect such widespread problems.

“Peoplesoft, our new payroll system, seems to be working quite well,” said Marilyn D. Touborg, the OHR director of communications on Oct. 15. “This [problem] is certainly upsetting to the people it is affecting, but if you look also at the enormity of the project, by and large it has gone very well.”

Administrators publicized a hotline for paycheck issues and formed a “SWAT team” of College, Faculty of Arts and Sciences and central administration officials who were dispatched to deal with individual cases.