Pay Agreement Headers

The agreement header defines the basic attributes of a pay agreement and groups together the primary and secondary interpretation rules that belong to the agreement.

The agreement header defines the following characteristics of an agreement:

• validity dates of the agreement

• hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group to which the agreement applies

• status of the agreement

• week ending day for the agreement

• rate determinator type for the agreement

• country that owns the agreement

• compare to job schedule flag

Each of these is described below.

Validity Dates

An agreement has a validity start and end date, defining the period for which the agreement applies. The validity dates of an agreement cannot overlap with that of another agreement assigned to the same agreement hierarchy level and hierarchy value (for more information, see Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value below). The end date of the validity period can be left blank if an agreement is to remain valid indefinitely.

In order for an agreement to be applicable to a job order, the validity period of the agreement must span the entire length of the job order.

Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value

The hierarchy level determines the level of the agreement hierarchy to which the agreement belongs. The hierarchy value is the actual object to which the agreement is assigned at the selected hierarchy level. For example, if the agreement is assigned to the brand level of the agreement hierarchy, the hierarchy value is the name of the agency brand to which the agreement applies.

Hierarchy Group

An agreement can also be assigned to a hierarchy group, which is an additional, customisable category that can be used in conjunction with hierarchy levels and hierarchy values to match agreements to job orders. For example, in addition to being assigned to an agreement hierarchy level and hierarchy value, a pay agreement may also be assigned to a hierarchy group. To determine which pay agreements can be assigned to a job order, the system searches the agreement hierarchy based on a combination of hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group to find a matching pay agreement.

If a match is not found based the combination hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group, the system will perform a second parse of the hierarchy for a match based on hierarchy level and hierarchy value only.

It is not mandatory to assign an agreement to a hierarchy group and you can only assign an agreement to a hierarchy group if hierarchy group functionality is enabled in Agency Portal > Maintenance> Portal Maintenance > Country Settings > Hierarchy Group for the country to which the agreement header is assigned.

Status

An agreement header has a status flag that determines if the agreement is pending or released. A pending agreement is one that is not currently active. This state allows an agreement to be configured but prevents it from being applied by Rates and Rules until the agreement is ready to be used. Once an agreement is configured correctly, the status flag on the corresponding agreement header can be changed to Released, thereby allowing Rates and Rules to apply the agreement were applicable.

The status of any new agreement created defaults to Pending.

Week Ending Day

The week ending day marks the boundary where one week ends and a new week begins. That is, if the week ending day is set to Sunday, a new week begins each Monday and ends on the following Sunday.

Week ending days are used by Rates and Rules when interpreting weekly-based pay rules.

For example, an agreement may stipulate that a payee must be paid at an overtime rate once the payee exceeds 38 hours work attendance during any given week. If a payee submits a timesheet where the total attendance for the entire timesheet period exceeded 38 hours, Rates and Rules uses the week ending day to determine if all the attendance time occurred during the same week, and therefore the overtime condition was achieved, or if the attendance time was spread across multiple weeks.

When a new agreement is created, the week ending date defaults to Sunday but can be changed to any other day of the week if necessary.

Rate Determinator Type

It is possible to define many pay rate rules within a single pay agreement. Each pay rate rule can define a different pay rate for an agreement and each of these rules can be assigned to a different level of the agreement hierarchy. For example, the agency may deem that a certain payee to whom a certain pay agreement applies should be paid at a higher rate than other payees under the same agreement. This means that within the relevant pay agreement, there may be a specific pay rate rule specifically for that payee.

The rate determinator type determines which of the following conditions apply in relation to applying the relevant pay rate:

• Lowest Hierarchy Level – applies the pay rate defined by the pay rate rule rate rule assigned to the lowest agreement hierarchy level, where the hierarchy value matches the attributes of the job order

• Highest Rate Value – applies the pay rate rule rate rule that defines the highest monetary rate, regardless of whether there are other applicable pay rate rate rules assigned at a lower level of the agreement hierarchy within the agreement

• Lowest Rate Value – applies the pay rate rule rate rule that defines the lowest monetary rate, regardless of whether there are other applicable pay rate rules assigned at a lower level of the agreement hierarchy within the agreement.

For example, the payee John Smith has filled a position corresponding to a job order managed by the Melbourne office of the FastTrack Australia brand of the FastTrack Recruitment Agency. Within the applicable pay agreement, there are separate pay rate rules defining different pay rates for the brand, office and payee as follows:

Brand: FastTrack Australia = $30.00 per hour

Office: Melbourne = $25.00 per hour

Payee: John Smith = $28.00 per hour.

In this scenario, the following applies depending on the rate determinator type:

• If the rate determinator type on the applicable pay agreement is set to Lowest Hierarchy Level, the $28.00 per hour pay rate applies as this is the rate assigned at the lowest hierarchy level.

• If the rate determinator type on the applicable pay agreement is set to Highest Rate Value, the $30.00 per hour pay rate applies as this is the highest rate applicable to the job order.

• If the rate determinator type on the applicable agreement is set to Lowest Rate Value, the $25.00 per hour pay rate applies as this is the lowest rate applicable to the job order.

Each pay rate rule has its own validity period and therefore the rate that applies at any given time can also depend on which rules are valid according to their validity period at that time.

When a new agreement is created, the rate determinator type defaults to Lowest Hierarchy Value but can be changed to suit the requirements of the agreement.

Country

An agreement must be assigned to a country within the country/brand/region/office hierarchy. This determines which maintenance items, such as pay codes, can be applied to the agreement. For example, if the agreement is assigned to the country of Sweden, all pay codes assigned to the country of Sweden can be selected within the agreement.

Note that this is not the same as assigning the agreement to a country within the agreement hierarchy (see Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value above).

Note also that the selected country cannot be changed once an agreement has been saved.

Compare to Job Schedule

The header of an agreement includes a Compare to Job Schedule option that, when enabled, will cause the job schedule associated with a job order to be put through the primary interpretation process along with the timesheet being interpreted.

This allows agreement conditions to be applied based on the results of comparing the actual time worked with the time a payee was scheduled to work.

Filtering Attendances Available for Selection on Timesheet

By default, the attendance types that can be selected on a timesheet are derived from the employment type to which a payee is assigned. However, an option called Filter Attendances Available for Selection on Timesheet can be enabled in the header of a pay agreement so that attendance types that are available for selection on a timesheet, which is subject to that pay agreement, will be limited to those attendance types for which a pay code rule shift type condition is defined within the agreement.

The following should be noted about the Filter Attendances Available for Selection on Timesheet option:

• when the option is enabled, an attendance type will only be available on a timesheet that is subject to the pay agreement if the comparison type of the shift type condition is set to Equals

• it is not recommended to enable the option on a pay agreement if the agreement does not have any pay code rule shift type conditions or if all of the pay code rule shift type conditions have a comparison type of Not Equals because this will result in no attendance types being available for selection on timesheets that are subject to the agreement.

Use Supplementary Rates for Oncosts

A Use Supplementary Rates for Oncosts flag can be enabled on a pay agreement header to indicate that pay oncosts for pay items, which are paid as a result of interpretation against the pay agreement, can be calculated using the supplementary rates method of oncost calculation. Where this method of oncosts calculation is used, the pay rate of a supplementary pay code is used in the calculation of an oncost instead of the pay rate of the pay code that was actually paid.

The supplementary rates oncost calculation method will only be used if the option is enabled on the agreement header and all of the following conditions also apply:

• the Use Supplementary Rates for Oncost Calculation option is enabled for the oncost rate that is used in the oncost calculation

• the pay code that was paid is linked to a supplementary pay code on the corresponding timesheet end date and that supplementary pay code exists in the rates matrix for the corresponding job order.

For more information about the supplementary rate oncost calculation method, see Pay Code Maintenance.