Archived: Appendix A: Canadian Grain Commission

Key actions currently being taken to help stabilize the pay system

Resources

• Established a pay unit (Pay Integration Unit) as of April 1, 2017 staffed with one AS03, two AS02’s and one CR04 with 30 years of combined compensation experience, reporting directly to the Director of HR.
• Providing advice and individual counseling to employees on their benefits and entitlements.
• Conducting research, extracting, compiling and analyzing pay related information from multiple sources in order to support clients, client departments, third party service providers, unions on behalf of clients and the employer. 
• Examining and analyzing requests related to compensation transactions.
• Providing education and training to employees related to pay, benefits and the Phoenix pay system, examples include: providing support and coaching to employees and managers for overtime and entitlement inputs into Phoenix.
• Implementing and facilitating training related to Phoenix, pay and benefits, such as the “HR to Pay Stabilization Training”.
• Full details of all the initiatives taken by the Canadian Grain Commission can be found in the attached Appendix B.

Data integrity

• Accurately inputting entries into the HR system (PeopleSoft).
• Job Stack mapping.
• Implementing internal processes to improve the accuracy of leave service dates and vacation accrual.
• Ensuring that employee data is accurate and up to date; sending bi-annual emails to all staff to ensure that their home address and contact information is current and up to date.

Communications/Collaboration

• Keeping employees, management and unions apprised of any pay situations, trends and changes, to illustrate, a monthly “Tips and Tricks” email is sent to all staff as well as, updates on Collective Agreement implementation as they become available.
• Established an internal generic mailbox, staffed by three experienced compensation advisors, for ease of access for employees to gain support with compensation/pay/Phoenix issues with a response time of less than 48 hours.
• Maintaining open and transparent lines of communication with Unions.
• Working collaboratively with internal departments (IT, Finance, HR, Communications).
• Attended training in Gatineau on multiple occasions to better support the Pay Center/Phoenix/department goals related to pay.
• Attending regularly scheduled collaborative conference calls with various stakeholders; PSPC – Pay Center, PSPC – Pay Center Integration Team, TBS, OCHRO, Job Stack Mapping Cluster Group, HR to Pay Stabilization Team, TIGER Team, SWAT Team, OPI, etc.
• Liaising with the Pay Center to ensure employees are accurately entered into Phoenix (Time and Labour Enrolment).
• Liaising with various stakeholders and groups regarding pay and Phoenix troubleshooting and sharing best practices (CWA Helpdesk, Job Stack Mapping Team, Pay Center, AAFC cluster group, various contacts in Gatineau and at the Satellite Centers).
• Supporting TBS, PSPC and OCHRO initiatives on training, such as “HR to Pay Stabilization Training” that is to be rolled out to employees in the coming weeks/months.
• Created internal support documentation for employees to better understand their pay ie: Time Reporting Calendar.

Metrics

• Tracking of internal metrics to identify trends and issues concerning pay/compensation and Phoenix.
  • From April 1, 2017 to September 30, 2017, a total of 1048 enquiries have been addressed by the Pay Integration Unit with an average of 43 enquiries per week. This number continues to increase each month.
• Quarterly reporting to senior management, executive management committee, local and national union; see attached Appendix B for reference.
• Work plan in place for 2017/2018 and in progress for 2018/2019 based on current priorities and trends identified by the department as well as by PSPC.
• Maintaining an internal log of employee cases pending and actioned by the Pay Center.

Future actions to help stabilize the pay system

• Commitment to maintain a pay unit in the organization with four full time employees.
• Work plan in place for future data cleansing in preparation for the next round of Collective Agreements.
• Work plan in place for future data analysis to streamline internal processes to ensure accurate data is input into the HR system (PeopleSoft) by minimizing potential errors in employee pay.
• Work plan in place to maintain data integrity with Phoenix and the HR System (PeopleSoft)

Key actions currently being taken to ensure employees are paid accurately and on time

• Manual calculations performed for position specific entitlements that are not built into Phoenix and that are not currently being calculated/managed by the Pay Center, for example the Primary Inspector’s Terminable Allowance payable on overtime.
• Prevention of employee overpayments and underpayments when proceeding on Leave Without Pay and returning from Leave Without Pay by manually tracking employee’s leave and then making the appropriate adjustments in the HR System (PeopleSoft).
• Closely monitoring any Priority Payment or Emergency Salary Advance situations that may arise and provide support to employees during that process.
• Supporting employees and manager in daily inputs into Phoenix for transactions such as overtime and encouraging that transactions be approved/monitored daily.
• Prevention of missing pay on transactions, such as acting assignments, by imposing internal biweekly blackout dates for data entry into the HR system (PeopleSoft) for any pay affecting transactions to prevent over/underpayment of employees.