Inheriting salary, supplemental pay and benefit actions

This section describes the concept of inheritance in Workforce Budgeting. With inheritance enabled, cost structures are populated from one business object to another. Inheritance can be enabled for a position and an employee. An inheriting position receives the cost structure from its job. If inheritance is enabled for an employee, then the employee's position assignments inherit the cost structure from their positions.

Note: The inheritance is a separate setting for a position and an employee. A position that inherits the cost structure from its job, must have the option checked in Position details page. An employee with a position assignment that inherits the cost structure from its position, must have the option unchecked in Employee details page.

Workforce costs include salaries, employer-related taxes and any custom-defined benefits. Any labor costs that an employer incurs must be represented in the Supplemental Pay and Benefit Definition page. If those costs are not global, they are applied to relevant jobs, positions or position assignments through their action assignment.

Workforce Budgeting business objects create a hierarchy. A job can have multiple associated positions and a position can have multiple position assignments with several employees working on the same position.

When inheritance is enabled, a position or a position assignment is populated with this inheritable information:

Salaries
Supplemental pay and benefit actions

When a position inherits, the position is populated with this information:

Salaries
Inheritable supplemental pay and benefit actions from its job

When an employee inherits, each of the employee's position assignments is populated with this information:

Position assignment salaries
Inheritable actions from assignments' salaries positions

Inherited salary information includes base salary, hourly rate or salary table, step and grade, and progression rule, depending on the pay basis. In addition to salaries, all inheritable actions, including their values, start dates and end dates, are populated.

Note: Actions that are not marked as inheritable cannot be assigned to a job. If such an action is assigned to a position, it is not populated to any position assignment, even if the employee is inheriting. If the position assignment requires the action, it must be assigned directly to the position assignment.

Table 1. Salary, supplemental pay and benefit actions and their inheritance
Salary, Supplemental pay and benefit action	Can the salary, pay or benefit action be applied to the selected level?
Calculation Type	Job	Position	Position Assignment	Is the action inheritable?
BaseRateAmountChange	no	yes	yes	no
BaseRatePercentChange	no	yes	yes	no
PremiumAmountBaseRate	no	yes	yes	no
PremiumPercentBaseRate	no	yes	yes	no
PremiumAmountPremiumRate	no	yes	yes	no
PremiumPercentPremiumRate	no	yes	yes	no
YTDRanges	yes	yes	yes	yes
PercentOfPeriodic	yes	yes	yes	yes
PercentOfAnnualized	yes	yes	yes	yes
FlatAmount	yes	yes	yes	yes
QuantityXRate	yes	yes	yes	yes

An example of an inheritable action is a FlatAmount bonus that is assigned to a job. A position, associated with the job, and an employee with the position assignment have inheritance enabled. The effect of the inheritance is that the position and the position assignment automatically receive the bonus, together with the salary and any other job and position action. The action value, start date, and, if specified, the end date are populated.

A start date can be entered only for actions from a benefit configuration with calendar date type. Non-calendar date types, for example assignment effective start, have their start dates defined by the business object they are assigned to. If the start date of a selected position assignment is January 1, 2020, the action start date is also January 1, 2020. If a benefit configuration uses a date that is not a position attribute and the action is assigned to a position, the position effective start date is applied. If the benefit configuration uses a date that is a position attribute and the action is assigned to a position assignment, the date from its position is applied. If such a date is earlier than the assignment start date, the assignment start date is used instead.

If inheritance is enabled for a position or a position assignment, then the position from its job, and the position assignment from its position, receive the cost structure from the higher level in the hierarchy. A cost structure that includes salaries and inheritable actions cannot differ from the higher level in the hierarchy, unless inheritance is disabled. As in the FlatAmount bonus example, if only selected employees are to receive the bonus, the bonus action must be assigned only to the selected position assignments and not to the position or job itself. Such a position assignment inherits the cost structure from its position and, in addition, includes the extra bonus. Other position assignments that do not have the extra bonus assigned, include only the inheritable position actions. If the salary, or any inheritable action must differ between a job and its position, or between a position and its position assignment, then inheritance must be disabled on the affected level.

By default, inheritance is enabled for positions and disabled for employees. It is thus disabled for employees' position assignments. This default setting can be changed by users. Different positions associated with the same job, and different employees with the same position assignment, can have different inheritance settings. Also, inheritance must not necessary be enabled or disabled on both levels. For example, an employee and its position assignment can inherit the cost structure from its position, but the same position does not have to inherit the cost structure from its job or vice versa.

Because positions have inheritance enabled by default, any position created in the application automatically receives all its job actions. When inheritance is disabled, the position salary and actions received from its job can be modified. That includes modifications to the action values and to the start and end dates (if the benefit configuration permits it), and the removal of the actions. After inheritance is disabled, any new action added to the job is not populated to the position.