When a company is implementing SuccessFactors Employee Central, the design of the position management functionality is a strategic effort that entails a lot of design decisions. These include what fields to capture on the position, who will be responsible for maintaining position data within the company, the defaulting of position child fields based on which key parent fields are being updated, and what data will be synchronized from the employee’s position to the employee’s individual record (and vice versa).

It is very important for project team members to have a clear understanding of the delivered and customizable functionality for position management in SuccessFactors. This understanding enables them to meet a company’s specific requirements and to define requirements up front that set a baseline for the overall solution. I also describe some guiding principles to follow to help ensure the solution is well integrated.

Overview of Position Management in Employee Central

Employee Central position management functionality describes the occupant of a position from an organizational management perspective and sets the foundation for how employee data is defaulted when hiring or transferring. Implementation teams from companies that are transitioning from SAP ERP HCM to SuccessFactors need to know the differences between SAP position management and SuccessFactors position management. One key difference is that SuccessFactors offers a bit more flexibility around which fields can be integrated between organizational and employee data.

The primary purposes of the SuccessFactors position management functionality is to cr

eate a position-based organizational structure within the SuccessFactors system and to provide the capability to default key attributes in an employee’s record when a position is filled. For example, a position describes key elements for an employee such as the legal entity, location, department, business unit, cost center, and the type or level of the employee (e.g., regular, full-time, temporary, or executive). Position management helps define the who-reports-to-whom question (i.e., whom the direct manager is) and if there are any open vacancies within the company that can be fed into the recruiting process. By having a view into what vacant positions are within the system, companies are able to see what their recruiting needs are based on certain attributes. For example, if an HR manager needs to know how many positions are being recruited in the USA for Division 123, they can find this information by using position management in SuccessFactors position management.

SAP Position Management vs. SuccessFactors Position Management

Position management in SuccessFactors is very similar to the SAP ERP HCM position management setup in which integration is based on the three HR structures: organizational, personnel, and enterprise. For example, a position relates to a given organizational unit (organizational structure), and is assigned a specific value for employee group or employee subgroup (personnel structure) and personnel area or personnel subarea (enterprise structure). Position management allows companies to leverage the tracking of full-time equivalents (FTEs). For example, companies can track whether a given position at a company has an FTE of 1 (a single holder) or if the position is intended for multiple incumbents. The Target FTE field in Figure 1 illustrates this functionality. Position management also serves as the foundation for companies choosing to also implement other SuccessFactors modules, such as Recruiting, Learning, and Succession Planning.

Figure 1

Sample screen within SuccessFactors showing position attributes. The crossed-out items depict the previous value–history–for that field.

Figure 2 shows an example of how position management works within Employee Central. When the user was transferred to the position, several key fields were filled in by default. For example, all the fields in the Organizational Information section of the Job Info Portlet were filled in by default, with the option to edit the employee’s record and override what was defaulted. The position selected in Figure 2 is tied to the company Ace USA. As Ace USA is located in the USA, all USA-specific fields are made applicable to the employee. In addition, other key Job Information fields are set by default so that this employee’s time zone is set up as Pacific time, the employee’s job title and pay grade fields are automatically filled in, and it notes whether the employee is full or part time.

Figure 2

Sample screen within SuccessFactors showing position attributes

Figure 2 shows just a small sample of the default field options. Many other fields can be defaulted and marked as editable or non-editable based on a company’s requirements. This is a good functionality for companies that want relevant HR-related fields to default from the position (which HR maintains) and to allow managers to enter additional data through manager self-service as needed (e.g., salary or shift information).

Synchronization of Position Data to Employee Data within Employee Central

To keep the position management and employee data synchronized, SuccessFactors offers a user interface that prompts users based on a change of their position. The prompt (Figure 3) notifies the user of the change and confirms if they want to synchronize this data to the employee’s record from the position back to the employee’s Job Information screen.

Figure 3

The Synchronize Incumbents screen prompts the user about whether to synchronize the position data to the employee

In this example, the user is the initiator of the transaction (e.g., HR user) and it is Carla Grant’s position that is being transacted. If synchronization is requested, the position is fully synchronized back to the employee data screen based on configuration, and an Event or Event Reason is then updated for reporting or interface purposes. If synchronization is not requested, the position contains different data than what is on the position holder’s Job Information record. Many companies refer to this as an employee override to the position. If synchronization occurs, SuccessFactors automatically updates the employee’s record and records a specific Event and Event Reason for reporting purposes. For example, many companies leverage an Event Reason such as Position Management Update. Companies can then report on this Event Reason to find all employee changes that resulted from a position synchronization.

When a manager (an employee with direct reports) within the SuccessFactors system is terminated, SuccessFactors Employee Central offers key functionality whereby the user is prompted for instruction on what to do with the direct reports. Once an employee is terminated from a position, a wizard appears within the given transaction and asks the initiator to choose a new manager for the subordinate employees (Figure 4). By default, the terminated manager’s manager (manager +1) field is populated (but editable). Once selected, all employee records are updated with a new supervisor ID or name, as well as an Event or Event Reason for reporting purposes. Note that each employee’s position still has the parent position of the original parent position (previous manager). This only serves as an interim employee override for supervisor so workflow and reporting capability is updated.

Figure 4

Transfer Direct Reports screen prompting to user to choose new manager and transfer date

When a manager is hired and put into a position that has direct reports (based on the position management settings of Position to Parent Position), Employee Central then prompts the user that the direct reports of the position will be automatically updated based on the organizational structure. Once the vacant position is filled with a replacement and the hire-or-rehire transaction is processed, the system updates the subordinate employees’ records with the new manager and stores an Event or Event Reason on each employee’s record for reporting purposes. The newly back-filled manager is then recorded as the supervisor ID for the direct reports.

Common Ways to Customize Position Management in Employee Central

Several fields (standard or customer specific) can be associated to the position within SuccessFactors and can be customized with additional fields as needed through configuration. Once the lists of fields are defined on a position, companies then can define how a field is to be populated on a position. Two ways to populate position data are to default a field automatically based on a parent field or to maintain a field manually. A common method for automatically defaulting data onto a position is to base it on the parent field Job Code. For example, based on a chosen Job Code being selected on a position, the job title, job level, and pay grade are automatically defaulted onto the Position record. Some fields, however, cannot be defaulted automatically and have to be maintained manually, such as the Full-Time Equivalency (FTE) field. This is because a position could have a FTE of 1 or 2+ and this can’t be defaulted based on any other fields.

As mentioned above in the FTE example, it may not be possible to default a value as there isn’t always a way to derive a value for a field. If it’s not possible default an exact value based on a parent field, companies can also set up an association (i.e., set up a restriction of possible values) in Employee Central. An association allows a company to restrict certain drop-down options based on a parent field. For example, through configuration, you could restrict the possible Location values to show only those based on a specific Legal Entity.

Say that a company has 10 locations in the USA, but 100 locations in total. Through configuration, an implementation can define which locations should show up with which Legal Entity (as a Legal Entity is always related to a given country). In this way the company can restrict the possible values for data integrity purposes. This is always the preferred way because a company can prevent users from accidentally choosing a location of France, for example, when the employee sits in the USA legal entity.

Synchronizing Fields

Through configuration, project teams also have the ability to set which fields to synchronize to the employee’s record based on changes to the position. In a similar fashion, SuccessFactors also allows the employee data to synchronize back to the position (if configured) to ensure that employee and position field values are always in sync (for example, if you update the field Job Code on employee record, you could configure SuccessFactors to automatically update the employee’s relevant position). With this functionality, however, companies need to carefully consider whether a given field is maintained directly on an employee’s record or at the employee’s position. This can cause problems, for example, in companies that have positions that are only maintained by HR. In this case, if a manager updates an employee’s data in manager self-service and this data synchronizes back to the position, you essentially are allowing a manager to override HR-related information.

Figure 5 shows an example of a configuration rule that has been set up to default only specific data to an employee based on position changes. In this example, when a position is changed on an employee’s record through a given transaction, the fields in the screen are automatically defaulted on the employee’s record.

Figure 5

Sample position synchronize rule (Pos2Job) from position to employee job information screen

The Pos2Job rule in Figure 5 shows that when a position is changed for an employee (moving from one position to another), the following fields are defaulted in an employee’s record:

Additional fields can also be added to the rule to default additional fields as necessary. Many companies choose to add additional fields such as Employee Class or Employee Type (typically used to explain if an employee is an executive, salaried, or hourly), or a full-time regular or temporary indicator.

SuccessFactors allows companies to assign security role-based permissions on whether a given user can update positions, view or edit specific fields, or delete positions. Careful forethought for setting the security permissions on the position is very important as it ultimately dictates the segregation of duties (i.e., HR can create, edit, or delete positions, and managers can only view positions).

SuccessFactors Position-Based Workflow

SuccessFactors also offers the capability for workflow to be associated with positions as they are being maintained. Employee Central can trigger workflow on a position based on any field changing or based on certain criteria at an individual field basis. For example, if the Pay Grade is being changed for an executive position, the company may have a requirement to have a workflow automatically sent to the executive compensation review board to review the request and approve or reject it. To do this at the field level, a configuration rule must be configured on the specific field on the position to flag a particular workflow.

Tips for Using SuccessFactors Position Management Successfully

Having a good understanding of the capabilities of position management ensures that project managers are addressing the right decisions up front on a given project. Putting off making position management decisions until toward the end of the design phase of a project can easily create issues with having to make last-minute changes to the security design, employee data configuration, and testing. Designing the position management based on a company’s requirements within Employee Central is, for the most part, possible through configuration, but this flexibility requires that project teams need to focus early on how data is to be maintained—either through the position or an employee’s record.

Mark S. Jackson

Mark Jackson has been working with SAP ERP HCM for more than 12 years and specializes in SuccessFactors Employee Central and the SAP ERP HCM Personnel Administration and Organizational Management modules. He has had numerous experiences with implementing and leading SAP ERP HCM and SuccessFactors globally and is a subject-matter expert in defining global templates for SAP/SuccessFactors implementations.

You may contact the author at Mark.S.Jackson@gmail.com.

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