Termination

Recent News

Tip Sheets and Other Resources

Workday Tip Sheets

• Staffing Event-Termination
• Self-Service: Resignation
• Change Job Guide
• Change Guidance for HR Analysts and HR Partners
• Glossary of Staffing Event Terms

If you are unsure of the correct transaction to perform in a termination, please contact the Penn Employee Solution Center first. This will save you time and effort in helping the Solution Center and Workday Operations undo or rescind incorrect processes.

University Policies

• Penn Human Resources Position Discontinuation and Staff Transition
• Student Employment Office Information for Managers

Termination Errors

Termination in Workday must only be used if a worker leaves employment at the University, not when transferring to another position within the University. This helps ensure the continuity of workers' University benefits.

If a school or center terminates a worker when the worker intends to change to another position in the University, the change job transaction must be used. If a worker is mistakenly terminated, the school or center must submit a request to the Penn Employee Solution Center to rescind the termination. Once central offices rescind the termination, the school/center must submit the change job transaction.

• Retirement Exception. The exception to the rehire prevention is when the employee is terminated with the voluntary reason of retirement. If initiated the next day or in the future, the rehire of the employee proceeds without triggering the critical alert.

Automatic Termination of Workers

Workers who have not been paid in recent months are automatically terminated on a monthly basis.

Eligible for Auto-Termination

• Academic workers and postdoctoral researchers and fellows who have not been paid in the past 12 months
• Staff who have not been paid in the past four months
• Active student workers who have not been paid in the past six months. In Workday, active students str defined as those who are currently enrolled in a Penn degree program.
• Inactive student workers who have not been paid in the past three months. In Workday, inactive students are defined as those who are no longer enrolled in a Penn degree program, including those who are on leaves of absence, have graduated from the program, or only enrolled in Penn non-degree or Penn certificate programs.

Additional jobs and academic appointments will be ended, although the positions will remain open. No inbox items will be generated.

Exclusions from Auto-Termination

Those who will not be auto-terminated include the following workers:

• With multiple jobs who have received pay on at least one job during the specified period
• Temporary
• Emeritus and Faculty Income Allowance Plans (FIAP)
• Union
• On leave, with a future-scheduled leave, or returned from leave within the past 60 days
• Retired-active
• With terminations or staffing actions with future effective dates
• With future effective one-time payment or period activity pay
• With a change job transaction (promote, demote, lateral move, data change) within the given search period (12 months prior for academic, four months prior for staff, six for active student workers and three for inactive student workers)
• With compensation plans starting in the future

Reports

Before:

To see in advance who may be affected, authorized users should run the Workday report “Upcoming Auto Termination Audit.”  

After:

After the auto-termination process is completed, authorized Workday security holders may run the Workday report called "Terminated Workers." For example, on April 1, enter the search date parameters for March, and select the Primary Termination Reason: Terminate Employee > Voluntary > Auto Termination.

Automatic Termination of Academic Affiliates

Academic affiliates* in Workday require an end date that is no greater than five years. In addition, six months following their academic appointment end dates, academic affiliates will be auto terminated effective on the last day of the month. This action builds on the goal to strive for consistent and accurate data in Workday.

Eligible for Auto-Termination

The following are auto terminated:

• Academic affiliates with an academic appointment end date on or before six months prior to the current date
• Academic affiliates without an appointment end date

Reports and Resources

• To see in advance who may be affected or require an update to an academic appointment, authorized school users should run the report "Academic Affiliates with Current Academic Appointments."
• Also see the tip sheets:
  • Academic-Create Academic Affiliate
  • Academic-Manage Academic Appointments

* An academic affiliate is a Workday person type who only holds an academic appointment in an academic unit and does not hold a position in a supervisory organization; an academic affiliate does not receive pay or benefits from the University.

Special Scenarios

Termination Secondary Reason

Initiators of a termination must provide a secondary reason if the primary reason is end of appointment, lack of funding, or position discontinued-PDST agreement. 

PTO Cancellation During Termination

An automatic process cancels approved, future-dated time-off requests upon termination.

A to-do step requires HR analysts to cancel or approve, as appropriate, all in-progress time-off requests before the termination date. Once submitted, Workday will automatically cancel all other outstanding in-progress time off requests that may remain on the worker's record. 

Regular full-time and regular part-time staff members who have successfully completed their introductory periods are paid for their accrued but unused PTO based on the date of separation. If unapproved time off is taken before the cancellation by the HR analyst or the automatic process, departments must complete an overpayment form.

The best practice is for managers and HR analysts to actively check for and take action on unapproved PTO requests before a worker’s termination is completed.

Termination for New Hires Who Fail to Complete Onboarding

When a new hire fails to complete the required onboarding tasks, the new hire can be terminated with the reason code of Involuntary-Failure to Complete Onboarding. 

Accurate Completion Date of Termination

To monitor or audit the completion of a worker termination (or any business process), authorized Workday security roles such as the HR analyst, HR partner, and others must examine the worker history and the process table of the Workday business process. The worker history and process tab contains the accurately recorded flow of the business process operation.

The date listed in the initiator's or approver's archive is the submission date of the Workday process and should not be taken as the official completion date.

How to access the worker history: From the worker’s profile, click Actions > Worker History > View Worker History, select the business process and view the process tab. The updated Workday tip sheets Termination and Basics: View Business Process History and Remaining Process are available for step-by-step instruction.

Terminated Workers Ineligible for One-Time Payments

One-time payments (OTPs) are provided only within effective dates for active workers. OTPs with an effective date on or after a worker's termination date are ineligible. Please submit a Penn Employee Solution Center ticket to request pay if the OTP effective date is after the termination date.

Additional Tips

• Request One-Time Payment should be used to submit a one-time, nonrecurring payment to a worker. OTP examples include acting rate non-exempt, faculty awards, relocation expense, etc. See the One-time Payment Glossary for important definitions and exclusions.
• OTP Initiators have view access into the OTP status for those workers who are outside their supervisory organizations by tracking the status via their archived inbox items.
• See step-by-step instructions in the tip sheet Compensation-Request One Time Payment.

Replacing a Terminated Primary Recruiter

An embedded analytic alerts HR partners when a termination will result in open job requisitions with no primary recruiter assignment. 

When a job requisition has one primary recruiter listed and that person vacates their position, the requisition no longer has a primary recruiter assigned. This results in candidate application tasks being "unassigned." To help address this issue proactively, Workday Operations has added an embedded analytic on the HR partner approval step of the termination business process.

Please click image to enlarge. This analytic will show any open job requisitions where the worker being terminated is assigned as the only primary recruiter.

The HR partner will have the information to know when and which job requisitions need a new primary recruiter assigned. The HR partner can then assign new primary recruiters to these job requisitions as necessary using instructions in the Recruiting-Manage Open Job Requisitions tip sheet.

Newly Hired, No-Show Workers

Indicate "No Show" for newly hired workers who fail to appear. This is a job change action – report no show. Once reviewed, the no-show business process rescinds the hire event of the worker.

This must be completed in a timely manner. If it is not completed before payroll is processed, the termination action must be used.

Other Termination Tips

• If a worker is on a leave of absence, the worker should be returned from leave prior to performing the termination transaction.
• For non-exempt staff workers who are being terminated, timekeepers receive a step to verify and approve that all time is entered. Verify this is completed to prevent missing payments or overpayments.
  
• Student worker records need special attention at the end of the term. See the Workday@Penn Supplementary Guidance-Student Worker Records at the End of the Academic Year for information.
  
• Access other tips on termination and your department's Workday data integrity.