General Workday questions

Yes. 

Workday provides world-class data protection through robust infrastructure and a comprehensive security program, in alignment with industry standards and consistently passing third-party compliance audits. Authentication methods, single-sign-on, and configurable security controls enhance data protection, and administrator tools empower effective Federation security policy implementation.

No, historical worker records were not migrated to Workday. Importantly, People and Culture retains relevant records of your past positions shall this information be required.

Federation does not use Workday for student management. However, students who currently work at Federation have a Workday profile and can log in to Workday to view their payslip and perform other tasks, just like any other employee.

Yes, it is recommended that you adjust the settings of your browser to allow pop-ups specifically from Workday. This is required to complete certain courses in Workday learning.

Find instructions for major browsers:

Supervisory organisation and positions

It depends on the case - please see below which one is relevant. The Workday team appreciates your partnership in these final stages of the data cleaning process.

Casual and sessional employees

At Workday go-live, all staff paid in the past 6 months have an active profile.

  • If they are no longer under your supervision, log a Workday Help case with specific details so that People and Culture can investigate.
  • If they are not scheduled for future work at the University, in any department, please initiate a termination task.
Fixed-term and ongoing employees
  • If a reporting line does not fully reflect your local operational arrangements, please create a Workday Help case for ‘Supervisory organisation update’ so the team can investigate.
Contingent workers

The Workday sup org includes all types of contingent workers, including associates, consultants, partner providers and honorary, adjunct or visiting academics.

  • The Workday team is partnering with leaders accross Federation to review and update this information in Workday.
  • In the meantime, contingent workers will be hidden from the default view in Workday and other systems. As part of the ITS roadmap, the team will look for alternative methods to grant access to Federation systems independently of Workday.

Workday reflects the status of your current position.

If you currently occupy a substantive position, Workday only displays the employment status of this position. People and Culture retains records of your positions and will ensure you that when your current role ends, the relevant process to revert your role will be initiated.

Approvals

Workday tasks are automatically routed to the person with authority to review and approve them, in line with their position in the supervisory organisation.

If you are a manager, you are responsible for timely reviewing and approving Workday tasks submitted by or related to your direct reports, e.g., leave requests and time entries. This includes tasks initiated by others on your behalf, e.g., a job requisition created by someone providing administrative support to your supervisory organisation. Keep in mind that the process won’t progress until you take action; therefore, it is important you delegate tasks during periods of absence (refer to the step-by-step guide Set up, cancel and manage delegations).

Managers in executive management positions are the required authority to review and approve certain tasks, e.g., to create a new position.

If you are not a manager, you may have been asked to temporarily act as a delegate on behalf of a manager. As a delegate, you are responsible for timely reviewing and approving the tasks that have been delegated to you.

If a Workday task is not actioned, it remains in the inbox of the person responsible for that task and the process will not progress.

Therefore, it is critical that managers delegate Workday tasks during periods of unavailability, namely when they are on leave.

YES. It is important that approvers, including all people managers, set up delegations before going on leave (or any other periods of unavailability).

A few tips:

  • nominate a delegate within your supervisory organisation who is duly authorised within Federation’s delegations policy/framework to fulfil the delegated tasks
  • ensure the person you nominate as a delegate is available during your absence as they won’t be able to re-delegate tasks
  • set up delegations in advance by specifying the start and end date
  • keep in mind that the delegation set up workflows to your manager for approval.

For detailed instructions, refer to the step-by-step guide Set up, cancel and manage delegations.

In approving an employee’s educational transcript or certificate, you can expect that it is provided in ‘good faith’ and therefore you are not accountable for its authenticity only that it is a true copy of a sighted original document.

Compensation and payslips

The new payslip and Workday display the year-to-date total from the NEW system only. This is a natural outcome of the transition to a new payroll system mid-way through the financial year. The University will report information for two separate registered payroll systems and as a result, staff should expect to see two Income Statements available via MyGov at the conclusion of the 2023/24 financial year. Historical payslips will still be available through the old system ESS.

Time and absence questions

You will need to complete it off-system.

This is intended functionality of Workday and our payroll engine to accurately reflect gazetted public holidays.

  • You may notice this day has itemised on your payslip. Importantly, you have been paid the correct rate for that day.
  • If you took leave on this day, please email Payroll.
  • Existing arrangements for the Christmas closure in 2023 remain unchanged. Updated conditions in the new EBA are currently under consideration by the Workday team.

The recommendation is for casual employees to enter time regularly (daily is best) and submit weekly for manager review and approval. Time that is not approved CANNOT be paid.

In general, payments are processed fortnightly and include all time approved by the Friday before pay week.

Please continue to keep an eye on any additional communications by payroll regarding timelines, e.g., regarding the end of the year closure.

Workday is currently displaying an annual leave balance for staff on annualised hours arrangements. The Workday team is investigating options to remove this balance in line with the annualised hours arrangements.

Your work schedule reflects your current time fraction and working arrangements, and are used in Workday to inform leave and time transactions.

If you are planning to increase your working hours sometime in the future, please be aware that the new work schedule will only be effective from that day.  Therefore, you can only book leave against your increased work schedule after it has commenced.

No. The way we manage and apply for TOIL has not changed with Workday; keeping track of TOIL will remain the manager's responsibility.

The absence calendar in Workday shows when your colleagues who also report to your manager are on leave (only shows approved leave). It does not display the leave type or any other confidential information. In this way, the Workday leave calendar provides similar information to the Outlook calendar when a colleague marks days as out of the office, and it can help with team planning.

All casual employees, including sessional academic staff, are required to enter time in Workday.

There is only one exception: if you have an ongoing contract with averaged payments, this method will continue to apply until the end of that contract.  After that, or if you request to conduct additional work above the existing contract, you must start entering time in Workday.  If you are unsure, please contact Payroll.

IMPORTANT: Time entries must reflect actual hours (day and time) when the work was performed.

Other questions

Workday holds employee profiles for all employee types, including researchers. These profiles are used for people management-related purposes and do not feed into IRMA or the Federation website.

Workday profiles include personal information, employment data, absence and time data, payslips, performance data and career-related information (e.g., skills, interests, projects). Many elements of the profile (including career-related) are available for employees to complete and update at their leisure. The Workday profile does not include publications.

Some elements of your Workday profile, including your career-related information, are only visible to People and Culture, your manager and upper management.

IRMA continues to hold researcher profiles, which include information that is particularly relevant to this group, e.g. publications. These profiles are used for research-management purposes.

In Workday, navigate to your profile (top-right corner) and on the blue panel, select the Career tab.
  • Add qualifications (e.g., Doctoral degree) from the Education tab by selecting Add, following the prompts, uploading evidence, and submitting.
  • Add certifications (e.g., First Aid and Working with Children) from the Certifications tab by selecting Add, following the prompts, uploading evidence, and submitting.

The process automatically workflows to your manager for review and approval.  Once approved, the new information will be displayed on your worker profile.

To help facilitate this process, PDFs are visible in ESS until the end of 2023, so you can download copies of documents previously uploaded.