Defining Plan Participation

This chapter provides an overview of plan participation definition and discusses how to:

• Define participation requirements.

• Calculate the participation date.

Understanding Plan Participation Definition

Use the participation function to establish age, service, and possibly plan entry date requirements that employees must meet before they begin to accrue pension benefits.

If you have a service requirement, you must create a service function result to measure service for participation purposes. This may be different from the service function result used when measuring plan service accrual. This is because participation service often measures service from hire date, whereas plan service usually measures service from participation date.

Participation Results

A participation function result returns:

• A yes or no status for the given event date.

• The date, actual or projected, when the employee met or will meet the participation requirements.

The participation function result name references the status.

When the participation status is Not Participating, the calculation ends without calculating a benefit. While this is normally the only use for the participation status result, you can reference this status for other reasons.

Set up a function result alias in order to reference the participation date. Although this alias is not required, the calculation gives a warning if there isn't one. By defining the function result alias even if you're not going to use it, you spare your users this warning.

You can integrate participation requirements into other functions (such as service) by referencing the participation date. For example, on the service parameter pages you can exclude service prior to this date.

Refer to the participation status (the yes or no result) to incorporate, for example, participation requirements into a custom statement with criteria such as the following: If participation status equals Y

See Also

Understanding Function Result Aliases

Defining Participation Requirements

To define participation requirements, use the Participation (PARTICIPATION) component.

This section provides an overview of the Participation page, lists the page used to define participation requirements, and discusses how to enter participation requirements.

Understanding the Participation Page

Use the Participation page to define participation requirements.

Page Used to Define Participation Requirements

Entering Participation Requirements

Access the Participation page (Set Up HRMS, Product Related, Pension, Components, Participation, Participation).

Establish Immediate Participation

Age Requirements

See Using Date Aliases and Date Options.

Service Requirements

See Creating the Plan Implementation and Plan Aliases.

Participation Date Adjustments

See Also

Using Date Aliases and Date Options

Working with the Participation Date

This section discusses how to:

• Determine the participation date.

• Handle multiple definitions of participation.

Determining the Participation Date

If participation is based on age, the participation date is the same day an employee attains the specified age, subject to any date rounding or plan entry date adjustments you specify.

If participation is based on service, however, the system doesn't necessarily determine the exact date an employee attains the specified amount of service. Instead, the system:

1. Looks at the service history to find the period when the employee attained the specified amount of service.

2. Uses the first day of the next period.

How exact this date is depends on how you set up your service requirement.

If participation requires one year of elapsed time, set up an elapsed time service definition to use months or anniversary years. Employees who attain one year of service in exactly a year use the day after their one-year anniversary as the participation date. Results are less accurate for employees who don't attain a full year of service during their first year—for example, because of leaves of absence.

You generally attain greater accuracy in calculating the participation date by measuring participation service in months rather than years. If you use months, the system sets the first day of the next period to within a month of the actual participation date, rather than to within a year of the date.

For greater accuracy, you can create a date alias or a series of aliases that adjust the participation date. You then use this alias instead of the participation date anywhere that you require this information.

Finally, you can set up the participation date using a date alias to begin with, then enter that date alias as the age requirement in the participation parameters. Even though the alias doesn't necessarily reflect the date when the employee attains a specific age, it does reflect the date that the employee meets participation requirements.

Note. The participation date can't be before either the hire date or the start date of the participation definition. The system verifies that an employee is eligible for the plan before providing a participation date.

Handling Multiple Definitions of Participation

The system applies the participation definitions that are effective for a given time period.

If your pension plan has multiple definitions of participation set up under an effective-dated row on the Participation Function Result page, include only the last participation definition. Do this by deleting the prior participation definitions so that only the last definition remains.