Brian:  We want to do Absence listen and learn today.  We do know we’re working on Spokane’s rules.  We’re aware that accruals are off, and we don’t want to focus on that.  We want to talk about processes, viewing data, and anything else you’re having problems with.  Opening up the floor to Spokane and Tacoma.  Maybe we can come back Thursday with some answers.

Spokane: LeeAnn is off today so we don’t have our absence person here.

Brian: We can still talk it out today, and she can address her concerns on Thursday.

Tacoma: Holiday is part of leave process?

Brian: If you mean HOL that’s Time and Labor.  If you have concerns though, says something.

Tacoma: So far as absence process goes, it’s working fine.  The biggest thing is if an employee is separated and their leave balances don’t get zeroed out.  Found out a way on their own to zero it out.

Brian: You mean like the future absence requests conflicting with holidays in the system?

Tacoma: No… we came up with our own Absence steps when employees are separating.  So, an employee separates, and they separate as of May 22.  So as we go through the month, we remove the balances using Absence Adjustment.  And after the next absence calculation then the balances show zero. Then they finalize that take, and after finalizing, they will change absence management to other with the effective date of April 30^th.  This way the person doesn’t get the May Entitlement.

Spokane: Even though LeeAnn is not here, thanks Janet for telling us your process.

Brian: Sanjiv would like to say something here.

Sanjiv: The process is fine, but you’re saying this person works 22 days in the month of May, why don’t they get the entitlement in the month of May?

Tacoma: We manually add that to the payoff.  We do this because the Off Cycle process is difficult.

Sanjiv: I understand why you do it.  You aren’t so comfortable with Off Cycle so let’s do a demo of the Off Cycle processing so you can see the future processing Off Cycle.  If someone actually does an audit there will always be more payout than the accrual.  You guys are doing fine with it.

Brian: So we’ll come up with the pros and cons of each way.  And the college can come up with the best business process based on the feedback.

Spokane: We don’t put people into Other when they separate.  We don’t go back and correct any absence systems.  We haven’t had success with Off Cycles.

Brian: We want to help LeeAnn out.  But are you saying you need a demo with separated employees.  Is that your biggest problem?

Tacoma: We actually set people to Other first and then set people to terminated after that.  Separating of employees has been the biggest issue.

Spokane: Agree that separations are the biggest issue.

Brian: So on Thursday we’ll work on separating employees.  This report that you’re talking about for separating employees, what is it?

Tacoma: It’s a separation report our manager looks at.  It’s a privately created query.

Sanjiv: We don’t have access to the private query.  We could probably build you a better public query.

Ivy: There is a public query for separated employees.

Sanjiv: If you look at reason for separation, it should be looking at Action/Action Reason not at field changes.

Spokane: There’s still other issues.

Brian: We know you’re working on entitlement rules.  And Spokane is working on their own balances.  We want to know the functional issues.

Tacoma: The email from Josie recent about the leave liability report.  She said that the leave liability report doesn’t look at terminated employees.  

Brian: Correct, the leave liability report doesn’t show terminated employees.

Tacoma: So some of the old balances, so if we ignore them will it hurt anything.

Sanjiv: No, it won’t hurt anything.  You can run the report and we can look into it.

Spokane: Setup of absences, can we associate them with employee.

Brian: We think we mostly the problem is with PTF and we think that if you use one totaled up FTE on one job for PTF.  I doubt we would be able to redo leave by person because we are one system which means the balances of colleges would mix with one another.  Would this workaround work for PTF?

Spokane: Our adjuncts can work different campus in different jobs on different job records from quarter to quarter.  So you’re saying absence management on one job, what if that job is closed for a quarter or two?

Brian: What we’ve seen is that you aren’t closing those jobs.  So you hire them in an open job forever, and FWL pays them.  

Spokane: but there’s jobs not eligible for leave.  We would like to see how it works out.  What are the chartstrings?  If they have three different jobs.

Brian: We haven’t addressed the buyout.  We’re just thinking about the bucket/collection process.

Spokane: Yeah, the cashout is off their primary job at the time.  And if they only have one option it would be easier for them.  It would work for Spokane.  We want to see it in action.

Brian: As soon as we can get it into an environment and test it then we can demo it.

Tacoma: On the last issue… there will be a lot of adjust crossover.  With the leave being under the primary job…

Brian: Job is by company, the contracts are by company, so the FTE won’t fix.

Tacoma: What about Robert Lee, his 0 is in Spokane.  His 1,2,3 are in Tacoma.

Brian: Yes, that’s right, but it’s all separated by company.

Spokane: Person you’re talking about is an exempt in Spokane.

Brian: Yeah we know about Robert Lee.  Mark did that answer your question?

Mark: So each location (each college) will have a balance?

Brian: Yes and it will be separate.  Each college will have leave.

AP: most of our PTF have only one job.  In some cases we have faculty with more than one faculty record.

Spokane: Our FTF, Exempt, CLA don’t earn PTF leave.

Brian: We’re talking about those exceptions where people get both, we’re trying to handle the majority.

Spokane: He earns his full leave here, does Tacoma give him leave also?

Tacoma: Yes!

Spokane: Does he still qualify for leave?

Tacoma: He’s getting leave… I’m going to have to look at him again.  Should we be communicating with the other colleges?

Brian: We don’t know the rules, we’re just building what needs to be built.

Spokane: We’d like to indicate that it’s the employee’s responsibility to let other colleges know.  There’s questions out there that are dependent on hire.  Employees need to let people know.

Brian: AP, when you do get the answer, let us know.  We might be able to help you out on the back end.  ERP would need to run the report.  Any more absence items to address today?

Tacoma: Will our employees ever be able to see what they accrue next month?

Spokane: Martha found a screen in self service and you can choose between comp time and leave.  If you choose leave you can see what you accrue every month.

Brian: Can you share that screen?

Sanjiv: And leave taken is all there in the history page.  Absence Request History.

Brian: On Thursday we’ll look at Absence Request History, accruals in self service, and termination processing.

Spokane: Right now absence is pushed into payroll of north America.  Can it go from T&L to Absence?

Sanjiv: Best practice is flow everything through absence and push to payroll.

Brian: We’ll get an agenda sent out for Thursday and if LeeAnn has something urgent she can send an email.