The purpose of this document is to provide a foundation for discussion, decisions, and definition of your system This document defines the current Time and Labor business practices of the Client along with ideas for the forthcoming implementation.
Question and Answers
Time Collection Process, Time Period and Time Reporting Code
1. Do you electronically track employee time worked? If so, what technologies are used to enter time?
Internet
Intranet
Electronic Timesheets
Clocking systems (Kronos)
Swipe card (i.e. Employee Badges)
Other (please describe)
2. Do you have employees or groups of employees who record time on paper-based time sheets? If so is there a need to print new timesheets?
3. Is employee time entered centrally or is time entry decentralized?
4. Does the time collection system allow time entry for groups of employees or for one employee at a time?
5. Do you have staff, such as timekeepers, who collect and post time? Please provide details of the process of collecting time and who collects and posts time.
6. Is there a restriction on who can enter hourly employees’ time versus salaried employees’ time?
7. Can employees enter their own time?
8. Can employees inquire and view their entered work hours?
9. Is time approved? If so who approves time? What is the procedure for approving employee time? Can time be approved electronically?
10. How is time capture for both electronic and paper timecards: hours per day or punch time ins and outs or are employees paid a standard schedule and only exceptions are captured or all three depending on the employee?
11. Currently, where is time entered corrected if there is an error? At the data entry level or is it corrected in the payroll process?
12. What is the input of incremental time, such as half days for vacation, etc. currently allowed?
13. If standard hours are used, what are your employees’ standard hours?
14. If time capture differs for different employees, explain the business process on what determines how the employees’ time will be captured.
15. Can retroactive time and labor adjustments be made once a time period has ended? Describe any situations that require you to pay employees hours and/or amounts from the prior period.
16. How are new employees set up for reporting time? Please describe the business process for “enrolling” your new hires in your existing time management system.
17. What are the beginning and end days of the time period? How does this relate to the payroll cycle?
18. What are the beginning and ending times for a 24 hour period?
19. Describe all of the specific time codes that are used in recording time in the current system, including any recorded hours for unpaid time, such as Unpaid Sick, Unpaid Vacation. Does the present system track absences or tardiness?
20. What are the Public Holidays offered to the employees? Are the same Holidays offered to all employees’ or are there different Holiday Schedules for different employees.
21. If more than one Holiday Schedule, what determines which Holidays are offered to an employee?
22. What are the specific business processes that must be adhered to for time reporting, such as Education leave must have at least 1 hour keyed to a maximum of 8 per year?
23. Aside from capturing hours, do you also record data elements such as dollar amounts or units? Such as flat dollar bonus amounts or units like 30 cents per mile.
Cost Allocation, Schedules and Shifts Processes
1. Is your timekeeping system used for allocating costs? Do you define how and/or where an employee time is spent? Are there certain tasks that are grouped together? Please describe how your costs codes are structured and how they are assigned to the time reported by employees.
.
2. Does the organization use Work Orders to capture information about labor costs? How is the information used?
3. Do your employees work shifts? What are they?
4. Is an employee assigned to one shift or are they allowed to work multiple shifts? Can they work multiple shifts in a day and/or in a week?
5. How many shifts make up a workday?
6. Are shift employees paid a differential? How is the differential calculated?
7. Describe your FLSA processing requirements? What days constitute the definition of your workweek? (E.g. Mon – Fri, Sun – Sat). Are FLSA requirements union driven?
8. Do all employees work the same schedule or are they flexible work schedules? Please describe all the different schedules that employees work.
9. Are employees allowed to work several jobs in the same week? In the same day?
10. If an employee is working out of his/her job classification, is their different rate of pay and how does the timekeeper or payroll representative determine the rate of pay?
11. Are employee’s represented by Unions/Bargaining unit(s)? If so, how many Unions/bargaining units?
12. When do these unions bargain? What are the bargaining seasons?
Time Administration Processes
1. What are the time processing rules currently used today? For example: How is Overtime calculated, only hours worked or does the calculation included Vacation, Holiday etc? Is it overtime after 8 hours in a day or after 40 hours in a week? Are these rules the same for all employees or different for each class of employee? If so, please describe each rule being used.
2. Are leave balances maintained at time entry level? If so, list all types of leave that are maintained.
3. If leave balances are maintained at time entry, describe what happens when the employee’s leave requested is greater than the employee’s leave balance or are the employee’s allowed to carry a negative balance?
4. If employees work flexible schedules, are the hours paid for vacation, holiday and sick based on the flex schedules.
5. How is the entered time validated? For example, if total time entered exceeds standard hours, does the current system provide red flags for the approver to review?
6. List any reports that are used to validate this time. Please submit an example.
7. Are control totals used to reconcile employee time entry? Describe the process. Please identify and give an example of any reports used for reconciling.
8. What are the mechanisms for correcting error data? Please describe the business process for correcting data that your time collection system has invalidated.
9. Do you have any audit needs regarding who has changed or approved time?
10. What employee information is available for time entry personnel?
Compensatory Time Management Processes
1. Are Client employees allowed to report Compensatory Time (Comp Time)?
2. How is Comp Time earned? Can the accruals be recorded in the existing time collection or payroll systems?
3. How do employees take their Comp Time?
4. Are Comp Time balances maintained automatically by the existing system?
5. Are Comp Time balances adjusted at the end of the year? How is that adjusting done? Manually? Electronically?
6. Can Comp Time expire? What are the conditions under which Comp Time would be considered to have expired?
7. Can Comp Time be bought, sold or donated? How are these transactions handled?
Time and Labor Integration with Payroll, Human Resources, and Projects
1. Is the timekeeping system electronically integrated with an automated payroll system? Please describe the process of integrating the two systems.
2. Which system calculates the time rules, such as Overtime, shifts and such?
3. How often is time collected and uploaded to payroll? Do the time periods, used for capturing time, follow the payroll period?
4. What is the current deadline that time must be entered and calculated so payroll can be processed in a timely matter
5. If time does not load to payroll, what are the procedures for investigating, rectifying, re-approving and paying for that time?
6. Describe how your Time and Attendance business process integrates with human resources and payroll? Does your existing T&A system interface electronically with your payroll and HR systems?
7. Aside from Payroll, does your current time keeping system interface to any other system (internal or external)? Such as a Project or Funds. Please list those interfaces and describe what they do.
Reporting/Outbound Data
1. Are there reports generated to balance and prove employee time entry?
2. Are time reports generated to be sent back to time originators/collectors?
3. Are time reports generated for managers to approve time?
4. Please list and describe all time reports that are generated from the current system. Please submit an example of all the reports.
Policies and Procedures
Please provide any policies and procedures manuals and desk references currently being used by your department for time management.
Labor and Employee Relations
1. Define the following:
Number of bargaining units.
Number of unions.
Length of contracts and contract end dates
2. Describe how the Client tracks disciplinary offenses in the current HR system.
3. Define any and all disciplinary offenses.
4. Define the steps taken during the disciplinary action process.
5. Define any and all workforce grievances that are part of the current process.
6. Where are employee grievances maintained?
7. Define the standard course of action / steps to follow for each grievance. Training and Licensing
1. Where are the client’s training courses, programs and licensing currently maintained?
2. Are training classes offered by the Client?
• How many courses are currently being offered?
• Please provide a listing of codes.
3. Are instructors also employees?
4. Is the Client using vendors for training?
5. Please define all the programs currently offered.
6. How is the training program budgeted?
7. How are training costs tracked?
8. How are the training programs offered to employees?
9. Define the criteria needed for an employee to attend training. Workforce Development
1. Where are employees’ competencies and accomplishments tracked?
2. Define the employee review process.
3. Define the competencies that are currently maintained.
4. Define the accomplishments that are currently maintained.
5. Define the guidelines for evaluating competencies and accomplishments.
6. Does the Client use any type of alpha or numeric codes in ranking an employee’s competency? (If so, please define any and all codes) Reports/Inquiries
Please define in detail the reports produced for the following:
• HR
• Position Management
• Compensation
• Labor and Employee Relations
• Training and Licensing process
• Workforce Development
• Please define any reports that may be generated that were not addressed above.
Interfaces
Please define the interfaces used for the following:
• HR
• Position Management
• Compensation
• Labor and Employee Relations
• Training and Licensing process
• Workforce Development
• Please define any reports that may be generated that were not addressed above. Elimination / Changes
1. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current HR process?
2. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Position Management process?
3. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Compensation process?
4. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Labor and Employee Relations process?
5. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Recruitment and Applicant Tracking process?
6. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Training and Licensing process?
7. What would you like to eliminate and/or change within the current Workforce Development process?
Policies and Procedures
Please provide any policies and procedure manuals and desk references currently being used by the HR department.
Question and Answers Workforce Administration
1. Describe the organizational structure for the organization for which you are working. The fundamental organizational structure will help determine the Business Units, SetID’s, Depatments, and other configuration fundamentals.
2. How are departments defined? Are they currently identified in a system with codes? If so, can the client provide a list of codes and descriptions. Is this something that could be configured in a new way to optimize the system foundation?
3. How many Employer Identification Numbers are used throughout the Organization? Are they Automatically generated?
4. Define your current HRMS system (s): How Many? Based on what Operating System? Relational or Legacy?
5. Describe a work location as defined by the organization.
• Provide the number of work locations throughout the organization.
• Provide a list of all the work locations throughout the Organization.
6. Define the following employee types and the number of employees in each type:
• Full-time employees.
• Part-time employees.
• Seasonal employees.
• Temporary employees.
• Non-employees.
• Contractors.
• Define any other employee types that were not previously referenced.
7. Describe the current process used throughout the organization to hire an employee. (Attach any manuals or reference procedures if applicable).
• If this process is administered differently for certain employees; (Please detail the process and the employee group / type as defined in the above question).
8. Describe how employees are identified within your current HR system. (By social security number, assigned employee id).
• If by employee id, is this number system generated?
• Is this standard practice throughout the organization??
9. Describe the current process used throughout the Organization to terminate an employment?
• Is this standard practice throughout the organization?
10. Describe how employee changes are processed; e.g., pay rate changes, promotions, suspensions.
• Is this standard practice throughout the organization?
11. Describe how leaves of absences and returns are processed.
12. Describe in detail how other leaves are processed.
13. List and describe personnel actions available in the current system.
14. Describe the approval process for personnel actions.
Position Control
1. Describe how the organization identifies positions within the current HR system. (Numeric, alpha-numeric). Is the process centralized or decentralized?
2. Define the different statuses for a position. (Frozen, proposed and approved).
3. Are positions numbers re-used when the employee leaves or is a new position re-created?
4. Describe how positions are funded. (Is funding done at the department or position level).
5. Does the organization use commitment accounting?
6. Describe in detail as to how the organization currently organizes jobs?
7. Are Job Codes used throughout the organization?
8. Please attach or provide a list of all the Job Codes currently used.
9. Are all employees assigned a position?
10. Do you have multiple head count in a single job?
11. How does the organization currently use FTE’s?
12. Does the organization have multiple headcount in a given job/position?
13. Is job sharing currently practiced or allowed?
14. Do you have employees with multiple jobs?
15. Does the organization currently allow job sharing?
Compensation
1. Define your current salary plan structure.
2. Define the number of salary plans
3. Describe how salary plans are maintained.
4. Describe the process to create a new salary plan.
5. Define the different Salary Grades and Steps.
6. Describe how employees are moved to the next step within a salary plan.
7. Define the components that make up an employee’s salary.
8. Define the following employee types:
a. Number of hourly employees:
b. Number of salaried employee:
9. Define the percentage for each group.
10. Describe the criteria used for grouping employees.
11. Does the organization have contract pay?
12. Describe how contracts are defined?
13. Describe the varying frequencies and payment terms in detail.
14. Describe the process for any mass salary increase.
What are the questions you might ask when starting a 9.1 implementation for Core HR? Everyone has a questionaire stuffed away somewhere that was used in a former project. Some of us have several. In the next few posts, I will provide some of the initial questions I use when trying to get some high level information from my clients. Please feel free to comment and add your ideas as that is what makes this site valuable. Contributions that are longer than comments may be submitted for consideration. Though these questions are pertinent to a PeopleSoft Implementation, many could be used for other applications as well.
What might be some of the over arching questions that must be asked at the beginning of an implementation and what are some of the things you want your project team thinking about as they start on their adventure into implementation? Certainly a knowledge of the organizational structure is critical to understanding how the system might support the organization. Also, this is a time for looking hard at the organizational structure to envision where changes might make it more effective or integrated.
In terms of process your team members must have the ability to conceptualize and verbalize what they envision as the future state. Who will be doing what in the new process, what are the roles going to look like as the organization moves into the future? Where are the boundaries in the process? Is there a boundary between recruitment and workforce administration? Are they different systems which would require an interface? Where do processes begin and end?
What are the pre and post conditions? For example, after a termination there are actions that must be taken such as Cobra communication. This would be a post condition of the termination process.
Finally what are the business rules that must be followed in the process and are there any government regulations that will impact the way the process is implemented?
Wow, that seems like a lot of information and yet it is only a small part of the information that you must gather during project initiation.
What might be some Points of Discussion that you want your team to consider?
Investigate their pain points in the current process and how they might want to change that going forward? On every project there are pain points in the process such as dual data entry, manual processes, hand delivery rather than electronic. I am sure you can add to this list.
Are there points in the process that could be eliminated? Would automated workflow improve the efficiency of the process? If so, how and where would workflow be critical?
Are there manual processes that you would like to have supported by the system? Again, analyzing the process often uncovers areas that are still being especially where there are hand offs in the process or boundaries to cross.
Finally, what changes are most frightening in the organization? Uncover the areas of fear and trepidation and communicate the value of the new system. Enlist change agents to carry the positive message forward to the entire organization. Where are the pockets of resistance most apparent?
These are just a few of the overarching questions and concerns at the beginning of an implementation. In future blogs, discussion will center on the questions you might use in your initial questionaires.
Continuing to read the Cluetrain Manifesto and finding great insight into organizations. A big clue that is mentioned is that top down organizations are dysfunctional and counterproductive. Look at the organization you are working in and determine if it is an organization where communication is open or controlled. “Do not contact that person”, “don’t send that email”, “never call anyone that is higher in the food chain “….dysfunction at its finest. People throughout the organization top to bottom often have very valuable information and much more valuable than the “control freaks”. Remember too that listening is a very important communication tool as is assimilation.
Putting down the Cluetrain and listening to the morning news brought forth another enlightening concept. A camel is a horse that was developed by committee. Any team has to have a leader and if everyone is the leader you will have a beautiful Camel. This does not mean the leader has to be “Controlling” because that is NOT true leadership. They do have to lead the team in the direction of the results expected and provide guidance and direction while listening to suggestions. It is so easy to put together a group that goes off in every direction believing that each of them are the “in charge” person. If you are building a Camel…look around and find a leader, or be one!
Going through many books during a recent move, the cluetrain manifesto surfaced. Having read it before it seemed apparent it had been saved for a reason. Reading back through the 95 theses in the beginning provides 95 reasons for a re-read. The theses apply at different times but some of my favorites include things like the org chart today is hyperlinked not the old pyramid. There are those who would like to maintain that heirarchy as it provides them with “secrets” and “power”, but it will be short lived in a hyperlinked organization.
Command and control are outdated and just enhance bereaucracy and power as well as a culture of paranoia. Don’t talk to the CEO as it will only result in TMI for them. Don’t skip levels in the heirarchy or power will be lost to your superior. Hah, and Dah, these no longer apply. Most communication failures can be traced to command and control.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but employees want access to corporate information and not just in a brochure or an annual report. Employees want to know what the strategy is, where the corporation is going, the mission and results. How do they fit in the corporate culture and how many ways are they contributing to the results.
Cluetrain points out a new kind of organizational conversation between and among workers. The conversation is making them smarter and more productive. Isn’t it time for your organization to join the conversation?
Want to see some of the latest government sites..try apps.gov, data.gov and Recovery.gov. Recovery.gov is supposed to provide information on where the stimulus dollars are being spent. Let me know if you find anything interesting.
Projects need to have a governance model and the project team needs to understand the model and agree to work within it’s construct.
How this activity works:
By reviewing the standards of the methodology you are using. Will it be Compass, Rational, or some similar project methodology. Many groups are looking to Agile to implement or upgrade faster. This might be a good methodology if your technical team is also solid in understanding the functionality associated with the application.
Reporting relationships will be identified and how status reporting will take place is important to the success of your project. Do you have a status report template so all reporitng is consistent.
Determine status reporting responsibilities
How often will you require status reports? Daily? Weekly by team rolled up once a month by Project Manager? Discussed at weekly meetings?
What is the format or template that will be used for your status report? How can you determine at a quick glance the status of the project.
Who should receive the status reports? How will they be distributed, posted?
• Define project filing system/repository or project diary to maintain all information in a central location.
• Determine meeting schedules and format
• Determine issue resolution procedures
• Determine change request procedures
• Determine configuration management procedures
• Determine quality review procedures
how often
who will perform
what will they review
Management Procedures
Objective
To determine the tools for tracking the project and how we will measure progress and budget
Overview
How this activity works:
This discussion is about the collection of input, processing and reporting of project information and what tools will be used for these activities. Examples such as Excel, Project, Word, Powerpoint for progress presentations (standard project template, logos etc..
It begins with the your methodology standard as a “straw man”.
Additional Materials
Distribute methodology standards
As we move through the discussion on Day 2 and looking at the project scope, constraints will be identified. Be sure to provide your client and consulting team with examples of what might be a constraint. A constraint is something that limits your degree of freedom. Limited development resources might be a constraint. Constraints might be economic, political, functional, technical and even environmental. Be sure to document the constraints and work with the project team to ensure they are identified.
Second to constraints would be assumptions. You make assumptions regarding many aspects of the project. Assumptions represent opinions that have not or cannot be readily or easily proven; yet they are expected to be true. An assumption that is often made in organizations is that the executive team is on board and giving total support to the project. Sometimes an assumption is made that the organization has a specific requirement, only to find out in the fit/gap that the system cannot support the requirement.
So far we have covered many discussion topics in Day 2 and it is important to facilitate interaction and participation by the team. The one week workshop packs a great deal into the first week that not only sets the stage for the project but also ensures the success of the project. Think about the deliverables that will be produced as a result of the workshop.
Planning is so critical for a project and what makes a project successful is in the way you approach the first few weeks. I have conducted these strategy and implementation workshops in a week but the work of the team goes well beyond that. The first few weeks, however, are what can determine success or failure for a project. So far we have discussed how important it is to get a project right the first time, the importance of scope, and organizational impact or change. Another important factor that needs to be addressed in the first week is how you will handle issues that arise during the project and what the process will be for resolving those issues.
If you are working with a standard implementation methodology there is probably a process for issue resolution. If not, develop a database, excel spreadsheet or similar method for tracking issues. It is important that you establish what an acceptable time frame is for resolution and what will be done if the issues are not resolved in a timely manner. What are the roles involved in the resolution process, who identifies, who assigns, who tracks, how high up in the organization will you have to go to find a solution, and finally who determines if an issue is closed.
Issues should be addressed on a weekly basis at meetings. If critical you might have a process in place to identify them on your project website, or even use twitter to get information out to your team in a timely fashion.
Of course, there is a deliverable that would be associated with this part of the workshop which would be a template for tracking issues.
So we have now addressed one more small part of what would happen in Day 2 of your implementation/upgrade workshop.
Looking forward to any additions you might provide via comments.
Entries (RSS)