Administering WGIs

The system identifies and differentiates among employees who have a WGI Status of Waiting or Approved and a WGI Due Date up to 60 days in the future, but do not meet all automatic WGI criteria. Employees are classified into four different WGI automatic action types.

Different supervisor notifications are sent for each of these types. However, the system processes WGIs automatically for only the first and third types listed previously, Within Grade Increase and Retroactive WGI.

To understand the within-grade increase automatic action, consider what happens to an employee with this current row:

In March, the notification process identified this employee's upcoming WGI, after which you sent a notification to the supervisor. The supervisor approved the increase and didn't need to change any data.

On May 18, 2001, the WGI due date, the system processes this employee's within-grade increase. It changes the WGI Status in the old row and inserts a new row as follows:

As you can see, the system performs six actions during the within-grade increase process:

• Changes the WGI Status to Created in the row that was current when the WGI process occurred.

  If the employee has multiple rows with the same WGI due date, the system changes the status of all the rows to Created. Only the system enters a status of Created.

• Inserts a new row with nature of action code 893 and effective date equal to the old WGI due date.

• Increments the step by one in the new row, and updates step-dependent pay information.

• Calculates the WGI due date for the new row.

  This date corresponds to the beginning of the pay period following the waiting period for the new step.

• Sets the WGI status on the new row to Waiting.

• Sets both the last increase date and LEI date on the new row to the old WGI due date.

WGI increases take effect only at the beginning of a pay period. If the WGI due date is the beginning of a pay period, the pay increase occurs on that date—the employee receives the increased pay for the entire period. However, if the WGI due date falls between the beginning and ending dates of a pay period, the pay increase takes effect at the beginning of the following pay period.

In addition to changing employee records, the system edits the applicable row in the Automatic Action Control table (GVT_AUTO_ACTN) to indicate that the WGI was processed. It also creates a notice indicating that the WGI was processed.

To process automatic within-grade increases:

1. Verify all of the data required for automatic WGI processing.

   To enable the system to run WGI automatic actions, you must first set up required position and employee data. You may have already entered the necessary information when hiring the employee. Now, verify information throughout your PeopleSoft Human Resources system, at both the table level and the employee level. If the employee has multiple data rows, you only need to verify the current row. All of the following conditions must be met for the system to process an automatic within-grade increase:

   1. Selected the Pay Plan is Eligible for Auto Within Grade Increase check box on the Pay Plan Table page.

   2. Defined pay calendars for the current year plus the next three years on the Pay Calendar Table page.

   3. Ensured each step has a next step increment value in the Weeks column on the Salary Step Table page.

   4. Set the overall review rating to Satisfactory or better within last 15 months on the Employee Appraisal 1 page.

   5. Selected a work schedule of Full Time, Baylor Plan, or Part Time on the Position Data page.

   6. Set WGI status to Waiting orApproved on the Employment 1 page.

   7. Ensured that the Reports To Position field contains a valid entry on the Employment 2 page.

   8. Verified that the step isn't the highest in grade on the Compensation Data page.

      Note: If you are using the Manage Positions business process, the Report To Position field on the Employment 2 page is unavailable for data entry. To edit the field, select the Position Override check box on the Position Data page and change the position this employee reports to. You can also identify the reports to position on the Position Data – Description page. To do this, select Organizational Development, Position Management, Maintain Positions/Budgets, Update Position Info.

2. Run the 60 Day WGI Notices process from the Process Automated Actions USF page.

   This process identifies employees with a WGI due date within the next 60 days and a WGI status of Waiting or Approved. The system:

   • Adds a row to the automatic action control table (GVT_AUTO_ACTN).

     This table records the employee ID, employee record number, automatic action type, and automatic action date. This table also indicates whether the notification was sent to the specified worklist, whether the action was processed, and whether notification of the processed action was sent to the specified worklist.

   • Identifies employees who will receive a within-grade increase within 60 days and creates supervisor notifications.

     After the notices are created, the supervisor has until the WGI due date to deny or postpone the increase. If the supervisor doesn't respond, the system processes the step increase. To prevent the automatic within-grade increase from occurring, the supervisor must change the WGI status to Denied, Postponed, or N/A on the current row and insert a new row with the new WGI due date and WGI status of Waiting or Approved. The system also creates notices for employees who have a condition preventing automatic WGI processing.

   • Changes the WGI status on the employees' current Employment 1 pages to Approved, if the employees meet all of the WGI criteria.

   • Sends upcoming WGI notices to supervisor worklists.

3. Run the Load Within Grade Increases process from the Process WGI Auto Action USF page.

   In this process, the system updates records of employees previously identified in the 60-Day WGI Notices process, unless you have denied or postponed their increases.

4. View notices of upcoming WGIs on the Within Grade Incr Notice USF page.

   After viewing these online messages of impending WGI due dates, verify that the employee will fulfill all of your agency's requirements by the specified date. To prevent the WGI from occurring, you must change the employee's WGI status to Denied, Postponed, or N/A on the current Employment 1 page. Also, insert a new row with an updated WGI due date and WGI status of Waiting. You can also view notices for employees who do not receive automatic WGIs or for whom you must manually process a WGI.

Because the automatic WGI process obtains information from many pages, be aware of entering information that might affect some of the data the system uses.

• Creating a PAR for a Change to a Lower Grade.

  When you create a PAR with nature of action code 713, the system updates the WGI due date to reflect the change. However, the change may affect the WGI due date and status in many ways. You need to verify that the information entered is correct for your specific circumstances. To remind you, the system displays a warning message.

• Changing the WGI due date.

  When you change the WGI due date, the system checks that the date you entered is the beginning of a pay period. If it isn't, it issues a warning message.

• Based on the WGI due date you entered, the system suggests the beginning of the pay period in which your date falls and the beginning of the next pay period.

  You can enter one of these or keep your original date. If you decide to keep the date you've entered, the WGI process still identifies this employee as eligible for a step increase. However, if you enter a WGI due date in the middle of a pay period, the pay increase takes effect only at the beginning of the following pay period.

• Adding historical rows.

  When you insert a row with an effective date earlier than an automatic WGI that has already occurred, the system assigns a WGI status of Waiting. You probably do not want the system to process this row in an automatic WGI and should change the WGI status to N/A. Depending on the nature of action, you might need to check other information, for example step, on this and subsequent pages.

• Inserting a row with an effective date equivalent to the current WGI due date.

  The system processes the WGI after all other actions with the same effective date. It increments the sequence number of the WGI row it adds.

• If a user creates a manual WGI (NOA = 893) PAR row, any preceding rows that have a WGI status of Waiting or Approved are updated to a status of Manual to indicate that a manual WGI has been inserted.