Setting Up Absence Elements

This chapter provides an overview of absence elements and discusses how to modify and create absence elements.

See Also

Defining Absence Elements

Understanding Absence Management

Entering and Processing Absences

Understanding Absence Elements

This section discusses:

• Delivered absence entitlements and takes.

• Delivered absence earnings.

• Process lists and sections.

• Viewing delivered elements.

Delivered Absence Entitlements and Takes

The PeopleSoft system delivers a set of entitlements and takes for absences. You can use these elements as delivered, modify them, or create new elements.

This table lists the entitlements and takes that the PeopleSoft system delivers:

Vacation

For the delivered VACATION entitlement, full-time payees scheduled to work 20 hours or more per week accrue vacation time based on their job status and years of service. This table summarizes the vacation entitlement according to job status and years of service:

The system calculates vacation entitlement every pay period using the formula ABS FM ENTITLEMENT. The amount of vacation that accrues each pay period is prorated depending on the period frequency. For example, suppose that a payee earns 96 hours of vacation per year and is paid monthly. The system divides the annual vacation earned (96) by the number of pay periods in the year (12), resulting in a total of 8 hours of vacation per month. For payees who work fewer than 40 but at least 20 hours per week, the system prorates the number of vacation hours accrued. For example, suppose that a full-time payee accrues 2 hours of vacation per week, but a part-time payee works only 32 hours in one week. The system prorates the payee's vacation accrual based on the payee's work hours (32 ÷ 40 × 2 hours per week) so that the payee earns 1.6 hours of vacation. Payees who work more than the normal 40-hour work week do not accrue extra vacation. The maximum accrual is always based on a 40-hour work week. The system carries a payee's vacation balance over to subsequent years, but the balance cannot exceed the annual number of hours that a payee earns.

Absence entries using the absence take VAC TAKE discount from the VACATION entitlement and generate the VAC PAID earning. Holidays and nonworked hours are not discounted from the vacation balance. The system allows a negative vacation balance of up to the granted time for the next service year for all employees. Non-exempt employees cannot have a negative vacation balance. The system generates the VAC UNPAID earning for vacation balances that exceed the allowed negative balance.

Note. Payees who are on paid absence accrue vacation time, but payees who are absent without pay do not.

Note. Payees who work fewer than 20 hours per week do not receive vacation entitlement.

Sick Leave

The system calculates the SICK entitlement on a monthly basis. Payees who work full time (40 hours per week) accrue 8 hours (one full work day) of sick leave per month. Payees who are on paid absence accrue sick leave, but payees who are absent without pay do not.

Absence entries using the absence take SICK TAKE discount from the SICK entitlement and generate the SICK PAID earning. Holidays and nonworked hours are not discounted from a payee's sick leave balance. The system does not allow payees to have a negative sick leave balance, and sick leave can be charged against any available vacation hours (up to the employee's annual vacation entitlement). If SICK TAKE hours remain after the sick and vacation balances are used, the system processes the SICK UNP earning.

For example, assume that an employee who is paid monthly has an annual vacation entitlement of 48 hours:

• Sick Balance as of 1 October = 8 hrs.

• Sick Entitlement on 4 October = 8 hrs.

• Vacation Balance as of 1 October = – 45 hrs.

• Vacation Entitlement on 4 October = 4 hrs.

The employee in this example is assigned a Sick Take of 32 hrs for the month of October. As a result, he is paid the following as of the 31 October pay period end date:

• Sick Paid = 23 hrs (Sick Bal, 8 hrs + Sick Entlmt, 8 hrs + Vac Hrs Available, 7 hrs)

• Sick Unpaid = 9 hrs (Sick Take hrs not covered by Sick Balance and vacation hours)

As of 31 October, the employee's Sick and Vacation balances are:

• Sick Balance = 0 hrs (Sick Beginning Balance, 8 hrs + Sick Entlmt, 8 hrs – Sick Take, 16 hrs)

• Vacation Balance = – 48 hrs (Vac Beginning Balance, – 45 hrs + Vac Entlmt, 4 hrs – Vac used for Sick Take, 7 hrs)

Note. Sick time is prorated the same as vacation time for payees working between 20 and 40 hours. Payees working fewer than 20 hours do not accrue sick leave. The sick leave balance does not carry forward to the next calendar year.

Jury Leave

PeopleSoft Global Payroll for United States does not deliver an entitlement for jury leave. That means that no limit exists to the amount of jury leave that a payee can take. Absence entries using the absence take JURY TAKE generate the JURY PAID earning.

Bereavement Leave

The system calculates the BEREAVEMENT entitlement on an as-needed basis. The system grants 24 hours (three working days) of bereavement leave to payees for each death of a family member. In the event that a payee has more than one death in the family in a given year, unused bereavement leave from a previous death in the family does not carry over to the payee's bereavement leave balance. When the system calculates the entitlement for the second death in the family, it deletes any previous bereavement leave balance and grants a new balance of 24 hours.

Absence entries using the absence take BEREAV TAKE discount from the BEREAVEMENT entitlement and generate the BEREAV PAID earning. The system does not allow a negative balance of bereavement leave. The system discounts any bereavement takes beyond the 24 hours granted from the VACATION entitlement.

Delivered Absence Earnings

The PeopleSoft system delivers earnings elements for absences and vacations. You can use these elements as delivered, modify them, or create new elements.

This table summarizes the absence earnings:

All of the delivered absence-related earnings have a calculation rule of Unit × Rate. All absence earnings except VAC PAYOUT subtract from the SALARY earning to maintain the same pay rate for salaried payees. They do not, however, subtract from the REGULAR earning because earnings for hourly payees are based on the actual number of hours they worked during the period. For example, if a payee were absent for 8 hours during a 40-hour work week, the entered work hours would be 32. The system generates the earning VAC PAYOUT upon the termination of a payee. Vacation Payout (VAC PAYOUT) is also generated for a negative vacation balance up to the net pay available.

The generation control element associated with the VAC PAYOUT earning is GEN GC TERMINATED.

The system processes the delivered earnings elements each time you run a payroll. You can change the processing schedule as needed.

See Also

Understanding Earnings

Process Lists and Sections

PeopleSoft Global Payroll for United States delivers these absence-related process sections:

• INIT ABSENCE

• ABSENCES

• ABSENCE ENTITL

• ABSENCES TAKES

• HOLIDAY SEC

INIT ABSENCE Section

The INIT ABSENCE section is a member of the USA STD ABSENCE process list and contains the following elements:

• GEN FM WORKED HRS (formula)

• GEN DT SRVC EXT (date)

• GP PRD END DT EXTR (date)

• ERN CT HOLIDAY (count)

ABSENCES Section

The ABSENCES section contains nine absence-related earnings:

• VAC PAID

• VAC UNPAID

• BEREAV PAID

• BEREAV UNP

• SICK PAID

• SICK UNP

• JURY PAID

• JURY UNP

The ABSENCES section is a member of the USA STD PAYROLL process list.

ABSENCES ENTITL, ABSENCES TAKES, and HOLIDAY SEC Sections

The ABSENCES ENTITL section contains two entitlements:

• VACATION

• SICK

The ABSENCES ENTITL section is a member of the USA STD ABSENCE process list.

The ABSENCES TAKES section contains four takes:

• VAC TAKE

• SICK TAKE

• BEREAV TAKE

• JURY TAKE

The ABSENCES TAKES section is a member of USA STD ABSENCE process list.

The HOLIDAY SEC section contains the HOLIDAY earning.

It is a member of the USA STD ABSENCE process list.

Viewing Delivered Elements

The PeopleSoft system delivers a query that you can run to view the names of all delivered elements designed for the U.S. Instructions for running the query are provided in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Global Payroll 9.1 PeopleBook.

See Understanding How to View Delivered Elements.

Modifying and Creating Absence Elements

PeopleSoft Global Payroll for United States delivers absence elements based on practices that are common to many businesses in the U.S. Your specific business practices, however, may require you to modify the delivered elements or create your own. This section provides some examples of common absence rules modifications and additions. Of course, many other ways are available in which you might want to set up absence elements. These examples illustrate the kinds of changes that are possible and how you implement them.

Modifying Vacation Accrual

The system determines how much vacation a specific payee should accrue each pay period based on job status and years of service. This information is stored in the ABS BR ENTITLE bracket. By changing the return values for this bracket, you can modify how much vacation the system assigns to payees.

See Defining Bracket Elements.

Modifying Bereavement Leave Allotment

The system assigns 24 hours (three working days) of bereavement leave to a payee per death that occurs. This allotment is based on the ABS VR BER ENTIT variable. By changing the value of this variable, you can modify the amount of bereavement leave that the system grants.

See Defining Variable Elements.

Establishing an Annual Limit for Jury Leave

PeopleSoft Global Payroll for United States does not deliver an entitlement for jury leave. This means that no limit exists to the amount of jury leave that a payee can take. If you want to establish an annual limit for paid jury leave, you must create a new jury leave entitlement.

See Defining Absence Entitlement Elements.

Adding New Types of Absences

A business may provide payees with types of absences that are not delivered with PeopleSoft Global Payroll for United States, such as maternity leave or personal leave. To implement new absences, you must create a variety of new elements, including entitlements, supporting elements, takes, and earnings.

See Defining Absence Elements.