Employee groups are used by large organizations to identify employees with common roles and simplify maintenance and tracking. The easiest way to define groups is by reviewing the organizational structure, with union groups being a good starting point. Personnel groups should mimic the organizational structure and be organized by benefit plan eligibility or work tasks. Correctly identifying groups simplifies programming and communication requirements.
Large organizations often use groups of people as a way to define different types of employees. The development of this term is closely related to the adoption of human resource information systems (HRIS), which have revolutionized human resource business processes across a wide range of companies. An employee group is used to meet three management needs: create a method to identify employees who have specific roles in common, allow for easier maintenance and testing, and track activities by group.
When defining a group of people, the easiest way to do this is to review the organizational structure at a high level. Union groups are an easy place to start, as within a union group all employees will have specific terms of employment in common. This can include vacation entitlements, overtime calculation rules, union dues and seniority requirements.
The nomenclature used to define a group of personnel varies and, depending on the HR software in place, there may be limitations on the number of characters. Typically, most organizations use the union acronym or major position description to identify groups of employees. While a numerical sequence can be used, it can quickly become too complex for human resources staff, data architects, and others who need to manipulate the data.
Once the union groups have been allocated a dedicated staff group, the next stage is to define groups for the remaining employees. There are different methodologies used for this purpose, depending on the complexity of the organization. Look at different positions or job descriptions and identify commonalities that span multiple employees. These commonalities should be items for which the company will need to create unique reports. Vice President and senior executives are usually grouped together in a staff group.
Avoid creating a group of employees by location or similar reporting structure. These commonalities are already identified through mailing address, location indicators and job numbers or title. Instead, look for a higher level, focusing on benefit plan eligibility or similar work tasks.
Personnel groups should be organized into a structure that mimics the actual organizational structure as closely as possible. Options should exist to allow reporting to different branches of the organizational structure, bringing together various groups of people as needed. Summary reports are usually programmed to use a hierarchical structure to meet these needs and can be incorporated into report selection screens.
It is important to correctly identify groups of people, as any change to group similarities can be changed once and applied to all employees in that group. For example, if all unionized personnel are eligible for an annual salary increase, that change can be applied to the specific personnel group. This greatly simplifies programming, testing, and communication requirements.
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