Archived: Annex A: Extensive overview of past and ongoing, as well as future actions to be undertaken by the Department of Justice to help stabilize the pay system and ensure our employees are paid accurately and on time
From: Public Services and Procurement Canada
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Past and ongoing efforts and initiatives to support PSPC in stabilizing the pay system
Justice completed periodic detailed reconciliation exercises between actual pay and the Salary Forecasting Tool which provides information to focus efforts on pay issues.
Departmental Claim Office (DCO). Although this is a TBS initiative, Justice has exercised its full discretion in reimbursing claimants the maximum possible as well as represent the claimants’ best interests in dealing with their cases with TBS.
The Department of Justice is currently working with OCHRO/TBS for the offering of four (4) online Phoenix training sessions for employees, managers, Section 33 approvers and departmental timekeepers. These sessions should be made available to departments around the middle of November 2017.
HR put in place regular HR Fit Labs for Staffing Professionals to bring up and resolve entries/issues that are problematic in the integration process between the HR Management System (Peoplesoft) and the Pay System (Phoenix).
HR has performed residual tasks (tasks not centralized by the Pay Centre) since the Pay centralisation in Dec. 2015:
- Changes in hours of work
- Leave year end processing including the calculation of mandatory payouts
- Performance Pay (60% of employees in Justice Canada)
- Certain administrative tasks in the HR system such as amending the marital status or name changes which flows to Phoenix
- Ensuring requests are compliant with terms and conditions of employment prior to sending pay documents to the Pay Centre
HR has, since October 2015, assumed additional compensation tasks in order to reduce amount of work going to the Pay Centre and to ensure faster service to clients (entries in the HR system which integrate with Phoenix):
- Long Term Leave Without Pay (stops pay)
- Return from Leave Without Pay (re-starts pay)
- Terminations of employment (stops pay)
- Paid Leave in HR system for employees who cannot use self-service (over 1,000 entries per year)
- Correction of Critical to Pay fields and ensuring Phoenix receives the information
- Worker’s Compensation Employer reports (3-day legal obligation is met)
- Post-payment verification on behalf of Finance for payment accuracy and overpayments based on HR regulations
Since “boot camp training” HR has carried out special projects in Phoenix to expedite payments to clients:
- Salary and Terminable allowance adjustments for the LC group
- Resolving outstanding problem cases
- Intervention on an ad-hoc basis based on a decision tree
- Processing some performance pay transactions in Phoenix.
Process to access emergency payments has been clearly and will continue to be actively communicated to all employees.
Monitoring of the HR-to-Pay PSPC Dashboard
Communication and key updates to various key committees (ex. Business directors, extended management committees, Departmental Claim Officer) that play a role in reaching out to employees and in educating employees on government initiatives in addressing issues and how best to raise their own personal issues. Although they have limited ability to help, they have provided resources, advice and guidance to the best of their capacity. This has been greatly appreciated by those affected.
Justice sent 4 resources (former compensation advisors with over three years of experience) to the extensive 12 week boot camp training session from May to August 2017. Resources are now able to access pay information and provide better services to employees by resolving cases.
Efforts in progress and to come
Establish an HR-to-Pay working group to formalise and facilitate the on-going collaborative work between HR, Finance, IT, and Communications within Justice.
Pilot project with PSPC to explore and assess the benefits of integrating all data sources relevant to pay (SFT, PeopleSoft, Phoenix, IFMS, Phoenix Discrepancy Reports, and staffing log). This project may include many other great benefits such as just-in-time dashboards to inform managers and DMO on progress, and streamlined accounting, reporting and pay reconciliation activities.
Suggestions for consideration by PSPC
HR could take on more, such as the following:
- DI/LTD employer reports completion (HR can get this done in 5 business days) with access to Phoenix to confirm information
- Providing information to employees on their eligibility to benefits and procedures to follow (this is happening informally to a certain extent)
Access to Phoenix reports specific to JUS would allow the department to complete in-depth analysis of data between the HR system and Phoenix and flag problem cases early for prompt resolution before it gets reported formally by the employee.
Allow HR to view Tax Slips in order to mail them to former employees who no longer have access. This would reduce the number of calls to the Pay Centre.