General information

These guidelines include information regarding the four types of salary adjustments that occur outside of the annual merit process: 

IMPORTANT:

  • Do not process HR transactions in Workday related to the Salary Adjustment Request until all approvals have been obtained.

  • Do not notify employees that they will receive additional compensation until all approvals have been obtained.

  • Consult with central HR Strategic Workforce Solutions as needed.



Additional Duty Pay

Two types are available:

  1. Temporary Additional Duties:  Used to accommodate a change in work content that is limited in timeframe. This type of increase is often used in cases of turnover that result in a staffing shortage and short-term projects or surges.

  2. Permanent Additional Duties:  Permanent increases may be justifiable when the work has changed in a position for the foreseeable future, but the change does not require a change in title (reclassification). This often happens because of a redistribution of work or an organizational change that increases the accountability of a specific position.

Additional duties may fall within or outside the current scope of the employee’s job description.

Important considerations for Additional Duty Pay

Before deciding to give additional duty pay, the manager should consider the following:

1) Ask yourself, is my employee working exceptionally long hours during the week and/or more intensely during the workday?  Is my employee performing job duties at the same or higher skill level than their current job duties?  If you answered yes to any question, then additional compensation could be warranted. 

2) Staff positions are either non-exempt (earn overtime) or are exempt (earn compensatory time).  [Ask your HR Partner for a list of employee types.]

    • For non-exempt staff, you have the option to allow the employee to accrue and pay-out overtime for additional work that exceeds the employees’ scheduled weekly hours when the employee is performing work at the same or lower skill level of their current job duties. 
      • Workday automatically banks OT for employees so that it may either be used as leave or be paid out.  Your HR Partner will have to initiate OT pay-out.

    • For exempt staff, you have the option to allow the employee to accrue and use comp time for the additional work that exceeds the employees’ scheduled weekly hours.
      • The employee should have the ability to use the accrued comp time once the workload returns to normal.  If they are unable to use accrued comp time in a reasonable time frame, then additional compensation could be warranted.

3) If the job duties and workload continue to increase and/or shift dramatically beyond a reasonable time frame, the manager should consider permanent additional duties or a reclassification to more appropriately reflect the workload. 

4) For instances of turnover, consider cost savings to the unit by not filing the vacant position and instead redistributing job duties among remaining staff and re-prioritizing service levels, which may or may not include temporary or permanent additional duty pay.  Also, when turnover occurs within a unit, prior to issuing temporary duty pay to a manager/leader of a unit, one should consider that the job duties inherent in the manager/leader position include temporarily absorbing some work during times of organizational change.

5) Instead of issuing temporary additional duty pay, take a comprehensive look at all staff salaries within your unit and adjust salaries permanently, either during merit season or via an equity compensation change (see Equity section below).

6) Ask yourself, will issuing additional compensation set an expectation among your staff?

    • For example, a staff member goes on FML for three months and you give additional duty pay.  Six months later, another staff member goes on FML for 3 months and you give additional duty pay again.  Will staff expect additional duty pay every time someone in their unit goes on FML?

COE requirements for Additional Duty Pay

  • For temporary compensation, the time frame should be no less than one month and no more than six months, with the possibility to extend for a maximum additional 90 days.
  • Retroactive increases for temporary and permanent additional duty pay are not allowed - see Budget Office Review of Certain Salary Changes.  Retroactive means the effective date of the additional duty pay can be no earlier than the first day of the month in which the FINAL approver in the CSU approves the action - the final approval happens when the Dean's Office signature is obtained.  If the SAR form is received after the month in which the pay is to be effective, the Dean's Office will work with the unit to either adjust the amount of pay or revise the start and end dates.  
    • Example A:  SAR form effective date is 11/1/2020 - received and approved at the Dean's Office level on 11/13/2020 → okay to process
    • Example B:  SAR form effective date is 10/1/2020 - received on 11/13/2020 → will need adjustments
    • All additional duty pay routes to central HR for final approval.  Please keep processing times in mind when submitting requests.
  • If the employee has other recent compensation changes via other SARs, reclassifications or merit, then provide additional justification as to the reason for multiple compensation changes that have occurred in a short time frame.
  • If the duties are at the same skill level or lower skill level of the employee’s current job duties, the range should be 3% - 6%.
  • If the duties are at a higher level than an employee’s current job duties, the range should be 8% - 12%.

Calculating Additional Duty Pay amount

The amount of temporary additional duty pay should calculate as a percent of an employee’s base salary.

  • Full-time 12-month employee:  $50,000 base salary; same or lower skill set at 3-6%; temporary duties assumed for three months:
    • Example:  50,000 x 5% = 2,500 / 12 months = 208.33 per month x  3 = 624.99 total
  • For partial month amounts, use the following formula:
    Total amount of pay for the month / total workdays in the month x  total workdays in service date range = amount of partial month pay
    • Example - partial pay for 3/15/20 - 3/31/20:  $208.33 per month / 22 total workdays for March x 12 workdays for date range = 113.63 for the partial month




Before beginning, review the following:

    • HR: Salary Adjustments for university requirements
    • For college requirements, review the General Information and Guidelines tabs in this section for the type of salary adjustment you are requesting.

Important: Do not process anything in Workday or inform employees of additional compensation until all approvals have been obtained.

Process

Temporary Additional Duties and Permanent Additional Duties requests

1) Follow the instructions at COE Salary Adjustment Request form to submit the request.

      • If you plan to permanently change an employee’s job duties via the Edit Position Restrictions BP, please note – the update will overwrite current job duties, thus you will lose the historical job duty information.  It is highly recommended to save a copy of prior job duties in the employee's personnel file for future reference.

2) The COE Salary Adjustment Request form will route according to cost center:

    • For Dean's office and Academic departments (i.e. paid from core funds): All SAR requests will be routed to and reviewed by the department head, chair (for Academic department), HR director (Ayesha Shaikh), and CBO (Angie Hoffman). 
    • For Centers (not paid from core funds): All SAR requests will be routed to and reviewed by the center head, and HR director (Ayesha Shaikh).
    • If you are a center reporting through an academic department, also obtain the Chair’s signature of the academic department through which you report.

3) The unit will then process the salary adjustment in Workday.  HR Partners should:

    • Ensure the compensation matches the information on the approved request.
    • Upload the SAR form and any relevant supporting documentation to the Request Compensation BP in Workday.  Include comment: “See attached SAR request form/supporting documentation”.



Equity increases

Equity increases may be justified due to volatile swings in the internal or external markets for specific skills and competencies. These forces, which can be quantified and substantiated by survey data, often require expeditious action to ensure fairness and equity. These are often used as a retention strategy.

Process

  • For equity increases that are comparing internal compensation, email COE-HR@austin.utexas.edu to obtain compensation statistics for the college and/or university.  Justification must include this type of compensation analysis.

  • For equity increases that are comparing external compensation, consult with HR-SWS to obtain compensation statistics for external market data.  Justification must include this type of compensation analysis.


Counteroffers

  • Counteroffers may be used to retain employee talent.
  • Preemptive counter offers should be carefully considered in terms of equity within the unit.
  • Offers should be comparable, utilizing compensation analysis tools to determine amount.
  • Offers must be documented:  A written offer letter (external) or by confirmation with a department (internal).  Email correspondence is accepted.

Process

Email COE-HR@austin.utexas.edu and include a copy of the offer letter.

For pre-emptive counteroffers, forward relevant documentation.



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