Maintaining Incumbents Assigned to Positions

In Employee Central, data is stored for employees on the employee file. The Job Information object links key details about the employee to the organization. In this case, the Job Information object is important for recording information related to Positions. In the Job Information Object, there are fields, such as Incumbent of Parent Position, and Position, that are related to Position Management. The assignment of a Position to an employee is on the Position field. Commonly, when an employee is assigned a position, details from the position record can be copied onto the employee file, such as Company, Department, Supervisor, Job Classification, Job Title, FTE, Employee Class, etc.

You can think of an employee’s Job Information as the combination of the Position and Job Classification for each employee. Most importantly for Position Management, the Job Information record is responsible for assigning employees to positions.

Employee’s Job Information can be modified in several areas, including:

• Through manager self-service transactions (MSS UI) using Take Action→Change Job and Compensation Info or navigate to the block in the employee file and select the Pencil icon to edit.
• Using the History of the Job Information block to Edit, Delete, or Insert New Record into the past, present of future.
• Directly on the Position Org Chart, select the incumbent to open their Profile Preview, and navigate to the Actions menu.
• Adding information for new hires through the Add New Employee tool.
• Using an import file through Import Employee Data, with the Job Information entity.

You can edit the employee’s Job Information by navigating to their employee file. Here you can either use the Take Action menu to initiate a transaction window, or select the pencil icon on the Job Information block. When editing the Position, you can select from a list of positions in the system. If configured, you can restrict options to only vacant positions. Additionally, you can easily reference the location of the position on the Position Org Chart/Position Hierarchy by selecting the org chart icon.

Additional settings can be configured when editing the Job Information, including defaulting fields, propagating fields from the Position record, and setting the Supervisor as the parent position incumbent.

On the employee file, you can maintain the Job History. When maintaining from history, you might require to provide an event and event reason if inserting a new record (Insert). If editing an existing record (Correct) the existing event/event reason can be modified, if the reason for the change should be classified differently. Some settings do not work in this tool, and it is designed to be used strictly by administrators.

Some validations, like Position Status, Multiple Incumbents validation or FTE validation, will be carried out in the Job History edit or import using Centralized Services. You can find more information in the following resources:

In the Implementing Position Management guide: Validations in Position Management.

In the Implementing Employee Central Core guide: Centralized Services in Employee Central

When looking at the Position Org Chart, you can see the names and profile pictures of incumbents of positions. If you click on them, you can open up the Public Profile view. You can select All Actions and display a menu with the available transactions based on your permissions over that employee to view and change their data.

Users can easily access employee’s Job Information record from the Position Org Chart to make changes. This makes administration of records and assignment of positions much easier as it doesn’t require you to navigate to another tool.

When using the Position Hierarchy as the leading hierarchy, here are some scenarios when an employee’s supervisor changes and the impact that it makes:

• If there is a change to an employee’s parent position in the position record or Position Org Chart, this results in a change to the supervisor.
• If an employee’s supervisor changes in the employee’s Job Information, then the Position hierarchy does not get updated correctly, and leads to data inconsistency between the position org chart and the reporting structure.
• If an employee's position changes in the employee’s Job Information, then the supervisor field is automatically filled with the next available supervisor in the position hierarchy.

When the manager (or supervisor) field is updated in an employee’s job information, you will see an option to move the currently assigned position below the new manager’s position. This will automatically reflect on the Position Org Chart when the slider is set to Yes. If the Position assigned has multiple incumbents, then by choosing Yes, all incumbents will be moved to the new supervisor.

• The Option to move Position to New Manager on Job Info Change permission must be set under Manage Position in Permission Settings.

• Users making this change in the job information must have the View Current permission for the Position object. Otherwise, the Move Position button does not appear in the Job Info.

• The position hierarchy must be the leading hierarchy.

• The employee is assigned to a position and the position assignment isn't changed.

• The employee's new supervisor is assigned to a position.

• The supervisor change is done in MSS.

• The supervisor field is configured, using Manage Business Configuration, as part of the job information section.

If an employee gets a new manager, users with the relevant permission are asked to decide whether the employee's position should also be moved to the new manager.

• If the user decides Yes, the position is transferred along with the employee. All lower-level positions of the position are moved as well, including their incumbents. If the position to be moved is a mass position or shared position, all incumbents are moved at the same time.
• If the user decides No, then the employee is moved but the position is not.

When editing an employee’s Job Information, it is possible to synchronize changes made to the Job Information to the Position record. This is called "Synchronize Job Information to Position" and is a business rule that can be defined.

Administrators can define a rule to specify which common fields between the Position object and the Job Information object are synchronized when changes are made in the Job Information object that the system regards as a Position Reclassification or Position Transfer.

Many organizations have employees performing more than one job concurrently, and this should be controlled and maintained through Position Management. One person can have more than one active employment at the same time. In Position Management, an employee can be assigned to more than one position using Concurrent Employment. If an employee is concurrently employed in Position Management, they have a primary position assignment, and secondary position assignments in their employment information.

More information about this type of employment can be found in the SAP Help Portal. Configuring Concurrent Employment

Global Assignment enables organizations to manage expatriates. Employment data is maintained in home and host assignments.

The prerequisites to use Global Assignment in the organization are:

1. Enable Global Assignment Management in Manage Employee Central Settings.
2. In Manage Business Configuration→globalAssignmentInfo, enable the following HRIS fields:
   • assignment-type
   • planned-end-date
   • company
   • end-date
   • start-date
3. The global_assignment_type picklist should be created, if not already. Including the following values: Short-term assignment and Long-term assignment. the Picklist ID is linked to the assignment-type HRIS field in globalAssignmentInfo..
4. These additional events are needed for the event picklist. Likewise, the event reasons tied to each of these events will be created in Manage Organization, Pay and Job Structures:
   • Add Global Assignment (GA)
   • End Global Assignment (EGA)
   • Obsolete (OGA)
   • Away on Global Assignment (AGA). This event will be tied to the event reason with the same name, and will be used when an employee is on global assignment on the host assignment.
   • Back from Global Assignment (BGA). This event will be tied to the event reason with the same name, and will be used when an employee is back to their home assignment.
5. These additional values are needed for the employee-status picklist.
   • Discarded
   • Dormant. It is the recommended employee status for an employee that is away on a global assignment.

Global Assignment Details can be added to the Position Card Details on the Position Org Chart.

The term "right to return" describes a situation where an employee on global assignment or leave of absence can return to their original position.

It might happen than an employee in your business has to leave his/her current position, not permanently, but for a period longer than a vacation. For example, sick leave, leave of absence, and global assignment. In this circumstance, an administrator can decide whether that employee should have the right to return to his or her current position when the global assignment or leave of absence is over. This makes it clear that a position is being held for someone who is temporarily absent.

If an employee has the status of "right to return" their position is marked with an icon, as highlighted in the image. If you click on the icon, you can view detailed information in the side panel under Right to Return Details.

Position Management Settings: Right to Return

Right to return is an employment practice that guarantees an existing position for an incumbent after a defined period away.

In Position Management Settings, you can determine the settings for Right to Return from a leave of absence or global assignment, where you can add rules and event reasons for the transactions.

In Global Assignment a position can be held in the home assignment so that an employee can return to their home country at the end of global assignment. When creating a global assignment, the system automatically transacts on the home assignment record and creates a right to return tag.

In Leave of Absence, on return from leave of absence, the employee may have a right to return to his or her original position. As part of the leave of absence transaction, the position is unassigned and a right to return tag is created. On returning to work, the employee returns to the original position that they had the right to return to.

Note

There are some considerations about the Right To Return to a Position:

• If you change the leave of absence or global assignment start date for a user with the right to return, the start date in the Right to Return object is changed as well.

• If a user is unassigned from their position due to a leave of absence or global assignment, they will still report to their existing supervisor.
• If a supervisor is unassigned from their position due to a leave of absence or global assignment, their direct reports will report to the next available manager according to the position hierarchy for the duration of the supervisor's leave of absence or global assignment. If the reporting line is the leading hierarchy, the reporting line remains unchanged.
• If a supervisor is unassigned from their position due to a leave of absence or global assignment and the start/end date of the leave of absence/global assignment is changed later, the hierarchy will NOT be reset with the new start date.

A transition period occurs when an employee leaves a position and a successor is appointed to that position before the incumbent leaves it. This means that the position would be overstaffed during that time. The transition period would allow for this scenario to happen.

To configure transition period, navigate to Position Management Settings, and open the Transition Period tab. You can use options on this tab to determine whether a transition period for positions is allowed or not. With a transition period, you can define a period in which a position can be overstaffed by incumbent or FTE. This means that you can assign a successor to a position while the employee who is leaving the position is still assigned even if the position is overstaffed as a result.

You can specify how long the transition period should last by entering a number in the Period field and choosing either Months or Days in the Unit field.

If this option should not be set globally, but for a group of positions only, you can use Position Types. More information available here: Position Types

• The incumbent's data can be modified in different ways, like Manager Self-Service transactions, from the Job History, or via Import Employee Data. Any actions that will result on Job Information changes, might affect the Position attributes. Positions can be reclassified accordingly with the assistance of the synchronization business rule from Incumbent to Position.
• A change of Supervisor from the Incumbent's job information (Position Transfer), is generally not recommended. The manager change should be initiated from the Position Hierarchy instead.
• Employees can have more than one position at a time if multiple employments are enabled. In case of a Global Assignment, where a home assignment and a host assignment exist, a Right to Return to a position can be maintained, to indicate that the employee on a host assignment will be returning back to their original position.
• Transition periods can be maintained in Position Management, globally or based on group of positions (Position Types), which would allow positions to be overstaffed temporarily. An example is when an employee is retiring, and a new replacement is hired for the same position.