Common questions and scenarios in Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment

When you add a higher duty or temporary assignment for an employee, you must understand the different scenarios available and how to workaround potential issues.

A temporary assignment is when an employee works for a specific period temporarily within the boundaries of their existing contract for at least 1 day. When the temporary assignment position is of a higher classification or grade, it is termed as higher duty.

The following scenarios depict the available configurations in higher  duty or temporary assignment, potential issues, and ways to workaround the issues.

Higher Duty Allowance and reference salaries are not shown when we create higher duties

When you add a higher duty or temporary assignment, in Job Information, when you add the pay information such as the pay scale level:

• the Higher Duty/Temporary Assignment Reference Salary Information and Nominal Reference Salary Information sections do not display the reference salary for the higher duty/temporary assignment or the nominal assignment.
• the Compensation Information block also does not display the higher duty allowance.

However, after you click Submit to create the higher duty or temporary assignment, you can view and modify the salaries and allowances of the higher duty employment on the People Profile page.

Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment is not automatically terminated

When you provide the planned end date for a higher duty or temporary assignment, the higher duty or temporary assignment does not automatically get terminated on the provided planned end date.

You can configure admin alerts and set up alerts so that the admin gets notified about the planned end date and can take the necessary action.

In the integrated Employee Central Payroll system (Australia payroll), overpayment does not occur. Even if the higher duty is not manually terminated, the provided planned end date is taken as the actual end date for payroll computation.

Position information in the Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment and Job Information blocks

The Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment block has a field named Higher Duty/Temporary Assignment Position. This is the position for which you want to create a higher duty or temporary assignment.

The Job Information block contains a field for the incumbent position details. The values for the position fields are defaulted from the position information provided in the Higher Duty/Temporary Assignment position field. This occurs only for the Full Responsibility type of higher duty or temporary assignment.

Validations are put in place on the save of the higher duty or temporary assignment. These validations ensure that the Position Information in the Job information block:

• Is not populated for the Individual Contributor or Delegation Only type of higher duty or temporary assignment. You cannot populate the Position Information in the Job Information block for the Individual Contributor or Delegation Only type of higher duty or temporary assignment.
• Has the same value for the Position field in the higher duty or temporary assignment position field for the Full Responsibility type of higher duty or temporary assignment

Maintenance of cost distribution must be done in the nominal assignment

You cannot directly specify cost distribution for a higher duty or temporary assignment. To apply cost distribution for a higher duty or temporary assignment, you can provide the cost distribution for the corresponding nominal assignment.

Maintenance of time profile must be done in the nominal assignment

The Time Off fields cannot be maintained for the higher duty or temporary assignment.  To maintain time off fields for a higher duty or temporary assignment, you can provide the time off details in the corresponding nominal assignment.

Leave requests when the employee is on higher duties – approvals

If you have a nominal assignment and a higher duty or temporary assignment, you cannot apply for leave against the higher duty or temporary assignment. You must apply for leave against the nominal assignment. However, leave approval requests are sent only to the manager of the nominal assignment, not to the manager of the higher duty or temporary assignment.

If you want the leave approval requests to be sent to the manager of the higher duty or temporary assignment, then for the employee holding the nominal assignment, you can go to Actions > Change Job and Compensation Info and select Job Relationship. Next, edit the job relationship of the nominal assignment and add Manager as the Relationship Type field, and add the manager of the higher duty or temporary assignment in the Name field.

Then, when the leave request is sent from the nominal assignment, it goes to both the manager of the nominal assignment and the manager of the higher duty or temporary assignment.

Multiple higher duties for a single substantive at the same time is not allowed

For a nominal assignment, you can have more than one higher duty or temporary assignment, but only if the dates of the higher duty or temporary assignment do not overlap. Only one higher duty or temporary assignment can be active at any given time.

People cannot report to themselves in Higher Duties

If an employee reports to a manager in their nominal assignment and takes up a higher duty or temporary assignment for their manager during their absence, then checks are put in place to ensure that the employee does not end up reporting to themselves (the manager of the nominal assignment) if the responsibility type of the higher duty or temporary assignment is Full Responsibility. In such a scenario, the manager of the nominal assignment is elevated higher in the position hierarchy so that the employee does not report to themselves.

To summarize, we covered the different scenarios available in higher duty or temporary assignment and how to workaround potential issues.
For more details about implementing higher duty or temporary assignment, check out the Implementing Higher Duty or Temporary Assignment guide.

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