To create a currency-based program, navigate to Compensation Home→Add Spot Award Programs→Manage Programs. Select the + icon on the bottom of the screen to add a new spot award program. There are six sections comprising a spot award plan.
Every Spot Award program has categories/levels, guidelines for planners to follow, and a means for determining who are eligible for awards. Spot award budgets are optional. In addition, there needs an approval process for the award recommendations. This approval process is done via workflow.
This section displays the plan name, functional currency, currency conversion table, effective dates, Employee Central (EC) integration, override message, and active advanced settings. An image can be uploaded as a program photo for employees to easily recognize and choose the spot award program from the nomination screen.
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Budgets are optional. When enabled, a Spot Award plan displays a budget which planners use in awarding their employees. The budget amount is assigned as a fixed amount by user ID. The budget is always in the functional currency of the plan. As a group of planners award employees, the amount of the award is deducted from the total.
Budgets are created in a CSV file with two columns:
Budgets can be added to an existing budget or replaced entirely. This budget is determined when importing the file.
Categories are used to define the area of contribution for which the employee needs to be recognized. These are typically aligned with the behaviors that you want to reinforce in the organization and encourage employees to display. Lots of companies will base the categories on the values and passions that are already defined for the organization.
Currently, the system supports up to 20 categories. Some examples of categories could be Product Innovation, Customer Success, Teamwork, and so on.
Custom images can be uploaded to accompany categories and levels to better reflect the organization’s goal and identity.
Levels are used to define the level of contribution of the employee and these levels can be used to determine the payout in combination with the category. Currently, the system supports up to 20 levels.
Categories and levels combined are used to define an amount that can be set as a guideline to the nominating manager.
Guidelines provide the following benefits:
- They take the guesswork away from the nominator, who wants to recognize an employee, but is not sure of the amount to allocate. Based on the category and level, the system can suggest an amount to the manager.
- They help HR standardize payouts across the organization by category and level. As some managers can be more generous with the payouts and other managers less so, this results in some level of parity in amount.
- They help managers nominate employees across other geographic locations, without having to research the amounts that need to be paid in the local currency. For example, a manager located in the US can reward an employee in India without having to go into the currency conversion or Purchasing Power Parity calculations across multiple countries.
Guidelines are created using CSV files. The CSV files look like the following figure.
You can download a blank CSV file from the Guideline page.
Defining guidelines supports the following scenarios, when there is no matching guideline amount for the selected category and levels.
Eligibility makes it easy to create business rules that work as filters to determine who belongs to which group and the groups are eligible for spot awards.
No employee is eligible for a spot award by default. By using these eligibility rules, the manager will be able to see the eligible employees on the nominate screen.
Eligibility for spot award can be created by using Dynamic Groups or Business Rules.
Once you have completed setting up Spot Awards program, you will now need to set your workflows. By configuring the workflows, you are essentially setting up the approval process for a spot award.
There are two types of workflows: Standard and Dynamic. Dynamic workflow uses information to determine which of the standard workflows to use.
Workflow - Standard
Standard Workflows are created by going to Manage Organization, Pay and Job Structures from the Admin Center and choosing Workflow. You can edit existing workflows here or create a new one. Multiple workflows can exist for spot awards but with Standard Workflows, only one can be used.
After creating the workflow, you must assign the workflow to the Spot Award object. This is done by navigating to Configure Object Definitions tool. Select Object Definition and finally Spot Award. The workflow is associated to the object by selecting the workflow name in the Workflow Routing field.
Business Rule for Dynamic Workflows
A business rule must be created for dynamic workflows. The business rule will be the means by which to test certain conditions and select standard workflows based on the results of the test. Business rules are created by selecting Configure Business Rules from the Admin Center. You must select the Base Object field as SpotAward when constructing this business rule. When setting up your rule, make sure to set the wfConfig property to point to the workflow that you need. You can use multiple if-then-else depending upon the number of programs that you have or how complicated the approval process needs to be.
Once the business rule is defined, the rule must be applied to the workflow. Like in standard workflows, you navigate to Configure Object Definitions, selecting Object Definition and finally Spot Award Program. The Workflow Routing must be left blank. In validateRules section, choose the business rule you created specifically for the dynamic workflow.
Eligibility - Dynamic Groups
To create Dynamic Groups, type Manage Employee Groups in Action Search. The employees defined as part of the group are considered eligible for the program.
The following figure shows an example of a dynamic group called Spot Award Eligible Employees.
Eligibility - Business Rules
The eligibility can be created using business rule scenarios. Business rule scenarios provide the following benefits:
- Providing guidance on which base objects can be used for creating the rule
- Listing supported parameters for creating the rules
- Automating the execution that will take place on the THEN part of the rule
- Help customers understand if the rule is already being used using Where-User feature
- Forbid rule deletion if the rule is in use, thus avoiding accidental deletion of active rules
After creating the rule from Configure Business Rules, go back to Rewards and Recognition admin interface to assign the rule in the spot award.
An administrator may enable the use of automated email notifications to be sent to the recipient of a spot award. Note that this setting is optional as managers may want to send their own personalized emails.
The prerequisites are as follows:
- Intelligent Services is enabled.
- If you select the optional Use Document Generation templates for Emails, then Employee Central is required.
To enable the automated emails, follow these steps:
- Navigate to Admin Center→Reward and Recognition.
- Select Manage Spot Award Settings.
- Select Send emails automatically to employees.
- Optional: Select Use Document Generation templates for Emails (requires Employee Central).
- Save.
Once configured, emails will automatically be sent to those that will receive a spot award. There is a template setup by default that can be further customized in Admin Center→E-mail Notification Template Settings. Locate the Spot Award Notification & Thank You award notification; you’ll find the default template that can be modified.
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