Employment history and salary history records: overview

This topic explains a basic choice your organisation can make regarding whether to use employment history records as part of employees’ HR records. It also illustrates the level of integration offered by the system when you use employment history.

Deciding whether to use employment history records

When you establish details about your employees in Jane HR, and your organisation does not use salary grades and scales, you can decide whether to use employment history records and functionality. If your organisation uses salary grades and scales for its employees, you must set up employment history records for your employees. This is because, to establish employees’ salaries, you must use employment history records to link employees to their appropriate salary grades and scales. By using employment history, you can keep a record of the activities or job roles performed by employees.

When you use employment history functionality, the system enables you to record and maintain a complete job history of employees. Some employees might perform multiple roles in different departments or teams, and you can use employment history to record their activities. As employees’ careers’ evolve, you can use employment history to maintain a full record of all the past and current activities performed by employees during the course of their employment in your organisation. To establish employment history records, you must set up activity definitions, because activities are an integral part of employment history records. By assigning an activity to an employee, you set up the employment history for that employee.

If you decide not to use employment history records, you cannot record and view the complete job history of employees, but you can record and view employment details about employees by using the Terms window (HR Record > Employment > Terms).

If your organisation decides not to use employment history records initially, but subsequently decides it wants to keep full records, including past activities, you can set up historical records retrospectively, after you first create the activity definitions.

You can also use the employment history functionality to establish the salary, which might or might not be based on a salary grade and scale. A salary scale, otherwise known as a wage or pay scale, is a record of the rates of pay for some, most, or all the employees that work in an organisation, from the most junior and least experienced, to the most senior and most experienced. Sometimes a pay scale is “harmonised”, because it replaces a set of scales, so it applies to all employees in an organisation or employment sector. An organisation’s salary scale includes employees on the various salary grades in the organisation, and each salary grade occupies a range of points, called scale points, on the scale. For example, an organisation’s scale might start at scale point 1 and end at scale point 80, and one group of employees might earn salaries in the salary grade that occupies scale points 30 – 40 on the scale.

If you use employment history records to establish salary grades and scales, but you do not have the Personnel module, some fields (such as Location, Department, or Line Manager) are visible on windows but you cannot use them.

Activity definitions

Activity definitions describe the job roles in your organisation. An activity includes details such as a description of the activity, the location, department, and line manager, the number of established posts,  and how many are full time equivalent (FTE). The system detects and keeps track of the number of filled posts. For example, if there are two established posts in one activity, and the established FTE is 2, there can be three filled posts: one filled post has an FTE of one, and two posts are part of a job share, with each post being 0.5 FTE.

Other details include the activity terms, such as the number of hours per week, and can include salary grade and scale details, if your organisation uses salary grades. For more information about activity definitions, refer to Activity. When you establish these activities, you can then use them to create and maintain the employment history records for your employees. If your organisation uses salary grades and scales, you must set up salary grade definitions so you can assign them in activity definitions.

Many organisations use a harmonised grade and scale, with sub grades, for the job roles in the organisation.  In this case, you set up a salary grade definition for the harmonised scale and a salary grade definition for each of the sub grades. In each salary sub grade definition, you link the definition to the harmonised scale and also set the minimum and maximum salary points that are on the harmonised scale. For more information about setting up salary grades, refer to Salary Grade.

Creating employment history records

When you create and maintain employment history records, you record the activities employees perform. Inevitably, some employees change activities during the course of their employment.

In an employment history record for an employee, you record the activity the employee performs by selecting an activity definition. The employment history record includes details provided as defaults from the activity definitions, such as location, department, and line manager. The activity definition acts like a template, and provides information that fills several fields in the employment history record, but you can use the Employment History window to change the details provided. The employment history record also includes other details, such as the start date of the employment, the payment frequency, and the activity status. The employment terms are part of the record, and include details such as the whole time equivalent (WTE), the working pattern, the number of weeks per year, and the hours per week, and whether there’s a salary bar.

Maintaining employment history records: an example

An employee might perform two different activities, in two different departments. In one activity, the employee works 24 hours, and in the other the employee works 12 hours. When you create the employment history records for the employee, you use HR Record > Employment > Employment History to create the employment records. You create the record for the employee’s main activity, and because this is the employee’s main job, you assign it the status of Primary Active. When you use employment history, every employee must have at least a primary active record. For the second activity, you create another employment history record for the activity, and assign it the status of Active.

When an employee changes activities in your organisation, on the Details tab of the Employment History window you can set the end date for the activity and change the status of the record to Historical. You can then create the new employment history record, and record the start date of the new activity. When employees change roles in your organisation, you can use the employment history functionality to keep historical and current records of the activities they perform, and have performed, in your organisation.

WTE definitions and salary grades and scales

The employment history record includes the whole time equivalent (WTE) definition referenced in the activity definition. The WTE defines the full-time details for an employee group who perform an activity. A WTE definition includes the number of hours per week and the number of weeks per year.  You assign the WTE in the Whole Time Equivalent field on the Terms tab of the Employment History window.

Some organisations use a harmonised salary scale that has several sub grades. Different categories or groups of employees can have different terms and conditions and their salaries are therefore based on different WTEs. For example, for two categories of employees on the same sub grade, on the same annual salary (£12000 per annum), and on the same number of hours per week (20 hours), the salaries paid to the employees in each category differ because of different WTEs. The employees in one category have a salary based on a WTE of 35 hours per week, and the employees in the other category have a salary based on a WTE of 37.5 hours per week. One category has 20/35 (0.571) of salary (£6857.14 per annum) and the employees in the other category have 20/37.5 (0.5333) of salary (£6399.99 per annum). You need one WTE definition for each group of employees carrying out activities with different terms and conditions. You set up WTE definitions by using Personnel > Terms and Conditions > Whole Time Equivalent.

Actual and notional values

Alongside the Whole Time Equivalent field on the Terms tab of the Employment History window are the Actual and Notional fields. When you create the employment history record, the Notional value reflects the WTE in relation to the number of weeks per year and hours per week you record for the employee’s activity. For example, if the WTE definition included in the activity is 52 weeks per year and 37 hours per week, and you record 52 in Weeks Per Year and 37 in Hours Per Week fields on the Terms tab of the Employment History window, Notional shows 1. If you set the values in the employment history record lower than the WTE, the notional value decreases to less than 1. The notional value tells you the fraction of the WTE for the employee’s activity.

If the WTE operator you use in the WTE definition you specify in the Whole Time Equivalent field is Entered, you can set the value for the notional WTE. You can then use Salary to apply the salary, and you can do this for a salary based on a grade and scale, or for a salary you enter yourself, which is not based on a grade and scale.

The Actual field is initially set to 0. When you use the Salary Grades wizard to apply the salary and create the salary history, the Actual value is set to the Notional value. For information about using Salary and the Salary Grades wizard, refer to Creating salary history records based on salary grades.

Salary history records

Salary history records show the full salary history for the employee. Just as an employment history record can show all the activities, past and present, performed by an employee during the course of their employment, the salary history records show the salaries paid to the employee. During the course of an employee’s employment, the salary inevitably changes, and the records show what salary was paid to the employee in different periods.

You can establish the salary and salary history by using salary grades, scale points and values, and the WTE from the employment history, or you can enter the salary.

The employee’s current salary record has an Active status. When an employee’s salary changes and you record the change, the status of the record of the previous salary is set to Historical.

Creating salary history records based on salary grades

If your organisation uses employment history records based on salary grades and scales, you can use Salary on the Employment History window to automatically create the salary for the employee. When you use the employment history functionality, the system maintains a history of employees’ salaries.

When you click Salary, the Salary Grades wizard is displayed. The wizard asks you for the date from which the salary takes effect and the reason for the salary change. The employee’s new salary is calculated using the salary grade, scale point, and whole time equivalent from the employment history. The selected employee’s salary history is updated and the resulting salary is visible on the employee’s salary history window (HR Record > Employment > Salary History). After you use the Salary Grades wizard to create the salary, the Whole Time Equivalent Actual value is set, and the Salary Actual and Notional values are set.

When an employee performs multiple job roles and therefore has multiple employment history records for the activities (one Primary Active record for the main activity, and an Active record for each other activity), the salary shown in the salary history record shows the total salary accumulated from the salaries of all the activities.

The major benefit of using salary grades and scales is that they enable you to increment and reallocate salaries easily, by using the system’s wizards (Uplift Salary Scales, Salary Grades or Apply Grade or Apply Grade Changes) to calculate the new salary data based on the employees’ employment terms and conditions. When an employee’s terms and conditions change, such as when an employee changes the number of hours per week they work in an activity, after you record the change in the system you can easily generate the new salary by using a wizard to automatically update the employee’s salary history.

Creating salary history records that are not based on salary grades

If your organisation does not use the employment history functionality or use salary grades and scales, or some employees are not on a salary grade, you must establish salaries by entering them, or you can import them. When you do this, you bypass the employment history functionality to create the salary.

When you use an employment history record that does not include a salary grade and scale, you can create salary records and update the salary history for an employee by using the Salary Grades wizard available from Salary in the Employment History window. In this case, when the Salary Grade and Scale Point fields in the Employment History window are empty, you can set the notional full-time salary and salary. If the WTE operator you use in the WTE definition you specify in the Whole Time Equivalent field is Entered, you can also set the value for the notional WTE. You can then use Salary to apply the salary.

When you establish a salary for employees that is not based on a salary grade and scale and you do not use the Salary Grades wizard, but you still use employment history records, on the Employment History window the WTE Actual field, and the Salary actual and notional fields remain at 0, because the employment history functionality is not used to establish the salary. You can establish the salary by using HR Record > Employment > Enter Salary or Personnel > Utilities > Apply Manual Salary  or Payroll  > Functions > Apply Manual Salary, or you can import the salary history details for employees by using Payroll > Functions > Global Salary Import. You can also use New, Edit, and Delete under Maintenance on the Salary History window to create and maintain salary history records.

System definition parameters that impact employment history

There are numerous parameters that impact the employment history functionality. For a list of those parameters and for information about them, refer to System Setup > Housekeeping > System Definitions > Employment.

Setting up fixed payments/deductions as allowances in an activity

In an activity definition, you can automatically set up payroll elements as recurring, fixed payments for the payroll. This means that when you create employment history records and establish the salary, employees are automatically set up in the payroll. For more information, refer to Allowances.

Associating training needs with an activity

You can assign training needs in an activity definition. This means when you create an employment history record, the training needs can be automatically set up for the employee. For example, if you use the Recruitment module to recruit and appoint new employees, the training needs for new employees can be automatically set up when the system creates a new employee record.

To automatically assign training needs, you assign the training course on the Training tab of the activity definition. When you click New to set the training requirement, the Requirements window is displayed, and you select the training course in the window.

You can set up training course definitions by using Personnel > Staff Development > Training Course or Staff Development > Setup > Training Course. When you click New to create a new training course definition, the Training Course window is displayed. To assign a training need for the induction for new employees, you can select Yes in the Induction field on the Rules tab. When you create an employment history record that uses an activity with the assigned training course, a message is displayed that tells you there are training needs associated with the activity. You are asked if you want to assign them to the employee. If you click Yes to confirm, the training needs are assigned to the employee. You can view the training needs by using HR Record > Credentials > Training Needs.

Reports

You can use two reports to help you monitor and review the activities and staff in your organisation.

Use the Post Review report to find out any discrepancy between the number of established and filled posts. Click Personnel > Analysis > Post Review to view the report.

Use the Establishment report to list all the employees in your organisation, or a subset of the employees you can define by using a selected query. Click Personnel > Analysis > Establishment to view the report.