Positions are the building blocks of an organization chart that may be budgeted, filled and scheduled for work. These components define the structure required to run the organization’s operation.
Positions are owned by an entity and associated with a department. They identify the need for a specific job to be done in a particular place in the organization, and the reporting relationships, requirements, work and pay rules, etc.
Positions are optional; employees may be hired using job codes only. There are, however, a number of functions of the system that are based on position codes and budgets, therefore, it is recommended that positions be defined.
Employees may be assigned to a position, either permanently through a work assignment record, or temporarily through a payroll transaction. An employee may hold one primary position and may also be authorized to perform the duties of other positions. An employee is hired into a position and the employee will inherit all the definitions from the position and job records.
One employee usually fills one position, whether it’s a full-time or part-time position. An employee may fill more than one position at a time (i.e. one-to-many). Sometimes two or more employees fill a single position, which may be known as job sharing (i.e. many-to-one).
Occasionally, many employees fill a single position where the FTE (full time equivalent) total of the position is greater than one. This type of generic position is known as a pooled position. It is only used when the position's FTE requirements vary frequently (i.e. on a daily, weekly, seasonal or semester basis), making it infeasible to maintain such fluctuating requirements on an individual position per employee basis. In this situation, the FTE factor may be ignored entirely.
A different position definition can be set up for each budgeted head count with an FTE factor of 1.00, or one position with multiple FTE’s may be defined if the information is the same. For example, the Finishing department requires six full-time supervisors with the same skills/requirements to run the 24-hour operation. This may be six separate positions each with a FTE of 1.00, or one position with a FTE of 6.00.
A position’s FTE factor is normally calculated by dividing the number of weekly hours scheduled for the position by the standard number of full-time weekly hours. An FTE factor of 1.0 indicates an employee is required to work full time to perform the responsibilities of that position. An FTE factor of less than 1.0 indicates an employee is only required to work part time to fulfill those responsibilities.
A vacant position may be considered to be a posting, a job opportunity or an opening within a department. A position is a potential commitment of resources by the organization, even if a budget has not been allocated or the position is still vacant. Position details are date sensitive. This means that as position information changes over time, a complete history of the position may be kept.
Position codes and names may be changed at any time and the effect of the changes will be seen immediately throughout the system.
Choosing a numbering scheme for position codes helps to minimize position changes when positions are upgraded, reclassified, or transferred to a different department, or when a whole department is moved to a different place in the organization chart due to restructuring.
You may build a structure within the position code but it is recommended to keep the structure as generic as possible.
For example, do not include the department code in the position code structure. If there is a reorganization and a position is reclassified to another department, you will have to change the position code and the position history will be lost since it is associated to the “old” position code.
Position codes may be automatically numbered through the sequence function or manually assigned by the user.
