Creating a Student/Academic/Contingent Worker Position in Workday
KB06002311 •660 Views • Updated 21-Mar-2025
Purpose
This document provides HR Partners (HRPs) directions on how to create a new student, academic and/or contingent worker position in their organization.
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Keep in Mind
· As of June 28, 2021, all UChicago staff, seasonal, and temporary staff positions must have an associated job requisition in order to complete the Hire, Add Additional Job, or Change Job processes. For these positions, utilize one business process to create both the position and the job requisition. Refer to the Creating a Job Requisition and Position in Workday Knowledge Base Article for instructions on how to do it.
· Position Management is a staffing model that UChicago has adopted, and it allows for the tracking of unfilled, filled, closed and frozen positions.
· It is important to remember that a position exists in Workday independent of a worker.
· HRPs, Lead HR Partners, Academic HR Partners and Academic HR Coordinators can initiate the Create Position process.
· Run the report RPT Open Position with Previous Incumbent to ensure there is not an unfilled position that is available to edit before creating a new position.
· Key attributes assigned to a position include the Supervisory Organization, Earliest Hire Date, Availability Date, Job Family, Job Profile, Location, Time Type, Worker Type and Worker Sub-Type.
· All positions must be assigned to a Chart of Accounts (COA) string, which is a 10 segment string of numbers used to track income and spending at the University. These segments may be overridden once costing allocations are completed in the Hire, Add Additional Job, or Change Job business processes.
· The 10 segments that make up the COA string are: Entity, Organization, Account, Fund, Purpose, Program, Activity, Site, Affiliate, and Future.
· These segments translate into Workday as worktags, which have the same name except for Organization, which is called Cost Center in Workday.
· Out of these 10 segments, there are two, Affiliate and Future which are not used within Workday and therefore are not required for data entry.
· Since Program, Activity and Site are secondary segments, not all COA values will include them, as they are not required for every transaction.
· Additionally, the Account worktag is automatically generated in Workday once payroll is run and is not required for data entry.
· The Earliest Hire Date and Availability Date of a position, as well as the Supervisory Organization, cannot be edited once the position is created. All other attributes can be changed via the Edit Position Restrictions business process.
· The information required to complete the Create Position business process in Workday is:
· The name of the supervisory organization in which the position will sit.
· Positions cannot be assigned to multiple supervisory organizations. If a position is split funded, it will still need to be assigned to one supervisory organization.
· For positions affiliated with an established external organization (i.e., Argonne, Fermi Lab, Marine Biological Lab, etc.), the Affiliated Organization must be entered.
· The default values for the applicable Chart of Accounts (COA) segments that will be assigned to the position.
· Please note the following approval workflow depending on position:
· Academic positions will be sent to the Budget Partner to approve.
· Student positions typically DO NOT route for approval, except for Federal Work Study positions which will be sent to the Student Employment Administrator.
· There must be an approved unfilled position with appropriate attributes available in the supervisory organization to hire a new employee.
· For student positions, create (or edit an existing unfilled position) at the time the unit is ready to hire or move the individual into the position.
· For academic positions, the position can be created at any point prior to submitting the case file to the Provost Office and starting the Hire process.
· For job sharing, each employee must sit in a separate position. Each position will need to be listed with the appropriate attributes (i.e., part-time instead of full-time).
· Utilize job overlap to allow two individuals to occupy the same position for a limited amount of time. When terminating an employee or otherwise moving an employee out of a position, Workday will ask if the position should be made available for overlap. Check the Is this position available for overlap? box if it is anticipated to backfill the position before it is vacated.
· The Unavailable to Fill tab in the Supervisory Organization profile screen will display all positions that are in a closed or frozen status, any positions that are scheduled to be filled on a future date and positions that have an Availability Date in the future. Positions listed in this tab will not be available for HRPs/Academic HR Partners to act on. If there are no positions in the Supervisory Organization that are in an Unavailable to Fill status, the tab will not display.
· Positions can be moved from one supervisory organization to another through the Move Workers (Supervisory) business process. Closing a position is a permanent action and will cause the position to move from the Staffing tab in the supervisory organization screen to the Unavailable to Fill tab. A position can also be frozen. Freezing a position is a temporary action and can be scheduled indefinitely, or for a set period of time. See the following Knowledge Base Articles for more information: Closing a Position in Workday, Freezing a Position in Workday, and Moving Workers/Positions in Workday.
· To see where the Create Position business process is sitting, navigate to the Archive tab of My Tasks and choose any of the tasks, related to the process, that have been submitted. The View Event screen will display. In the Overall Process field, select Create Position: Position and go to the Process tab where the details of the business process history (including the step, the status, and the person who is assigned to the task) will be displayed.
· To view all the positions in a supervisory organization, run the report View All Positions. To do so type in View All Positions in the search box at the top of the screen and select the suggested report that appears below the search box.
Steps
1. Log into Workday using your CNetID and password.
2. Find the supervisory organization in which the position will sit. To do so, type in the prefix org: and the name of the supervisory organization in the search box at the top of the screen, and then press the Enter key. A list of results associated with the search criteria will populate. Select the desired result.
3. From the Supervisory Organization screen, select the Related Actions icon (the icon made of a small rectangle with three dots in the middle) to the right of the organization’s name to display the menu of available Actions. Hover over Staffing and choose Create Position.
4. The Create Position screen will show up.
a. Confirm the correct supervisory organization is listed and use the Hamburger Menu (the icon with 3 dots and 3 dashes) to the right of the Position Request Reason prompt box to indicate why the position is being created.
b. Enter the Job Posting Title. This will be visible on both the external and internal job board if the position is posted for recruitment.
i. If the position is a temporary role, the job posting title MUST contain the word “Temporary.”
ii. If the position is a Federal Work Study position, the job posting title MUST contain the indication of “FWS” or “Federal Work Study.”
iii. Due to the graduate student unionization, the job titles “Research Assistant” and “Teaching Assistant” can now only be used for student employment positions. Moving forward, to request a “Research Assistant” or “Teaching Assistant” position for anyone other than a current student, please use one of the following titles instead: “Research Associate,” “Research Specialist,” “Researcher,” “Research Analyst,” or “Instructional Assistant.”
c. Use the Number of Positions field to indicate how many positions need to be created.
i. All positions created using this process will be assigned the same attributes.
ii. When multiple positions are created at once, the positions become independent objects in Workday once approved. They will all have the same name but will be differentiated by a unique number.
d. Enter position details in the Hiring Restrictions tab. Fields identified with a red asterisk are required for submission. Make sure to only edit the fields in the Hiring Restrictions tab. DO NOT edit information on the Qualifications tab.
i. Type or use the calendar icon to enter the Availability Date and Earliest Hire Date.
1. The Earliest Hire Date is the earliest date that an individual can be hired or moved into a position. The Availability Date is the first day HRPs will be able to act on the position (i.e., initiate the Hire process or edit the position).
2. Until the Availability Date is reached, the position will sit in the Unavailable to Fill tab within the supervisory organization profile screen.
3. Neither date will have any bearing on the actual start date or effective date of the employee who will be placed in the position. It is therefore recommended to back date these fields. For example, use the first day of the current month, or even the first day of the current fiscal year. This will help prevent creating positions that are not available to use.
4. For Student Positions, select an Availability Date and Earliest Hire Date at least 1 month prior to today’s date.
ii. Leave the No Job Restrictions box unchecked.
iii. Use the appropriate Hamburger Menu to the right of the Job Family and Job Profile prompt boxes to enter this information based on the below scenarios. Note: Selecting the Job Profile before the Job Family will auto-populate the Job Description Summary field.
1. For contingent workers, indicate both the Job Family and the Job Profile. For Job Family choose Non-Employee and for Job Profile select one of the options from the Non-Employee category.
2. For academic positions, search under the Academics Job Family Group to select the appropriate Job Family.
a. If creating a position for a faculty member or Other Academic Appointee (OAA) with a 3-quarter (3Q) appointment, select either 9 over 12: Academic or 9 over 12: Visiting Academic depending on whether the faculty or OAA is a visitor or not. If neither of these 2 job families are selected, the needed payroll transactions for 3Q academics will not occur.
b. If creating a position for a faculty member or OAA with a 4-quarter (4Q) appointment select either Regular Pay: Academic or Regular Pay: Visiting Academic depending on whether the faculty or OAA is a visitor or not. All BSD academics should be in regular pay job families.
3. For student positions, search under the Student Job Family Group to select the appropriate Job Family.
a. For Federal Work Study positions, select from the Work Study job family.
b. DO NOT use the following job profiles: Fellowship Stipend (3PFS02), Pedagogical Training Assignment (3PTA00), Research Training Assignment A (3PRA0A), Research Training Assignment B (3PRA0B), PhD External - Union (3PEF02) and PhD External - Non Union (3PEF00). These profiles are for Central use ONLY, as PhD Primary Funding positions will be handled by Payroll and the Dean of Students Office.
c. For Graduate Student Lecturers, select either the Student Teaching Support (STS) Graduate - Union – 3STS0G or the Student Teaching Support (STS) Graduate Non-Union – 3STS1G job profile. The worker sub-type should be Student (fixed term).
d. Please see the List of Student Job Families and Job Profiles in Workday Knowledge Base Article for a comprehensive list of student job families and job profiles.
iv. Fill out the Job Description Summary and Job Description fields.
1. The Job Description Summary may auto-populate based on the order of selection for the Job Family and the Job Profile. Selecting the Job Profile before the Job Family will auto-populate this field.
v. Enter the Location and Time Type using the Hamburger Menu to the right of the appropriate prompt boxes.
1. Only one location can be assigned to a position. However, an alternate location can be assigned later once an employee is hired into the position. Please refer to the Managing Work Location in Workday Knowledge Base Article to review instructions on how to do it.
2. For most student positions, the Time Type will be Part-Time.
vi. Enter the Worker Type and Worker Sub-Type using the Hamburger Menu to the right of the appropriate prompt boxes.
1. The Worker Sub-Type field becomes active after the Worker Type is populated.
a. For contingent workers with an academic appointment, select Academic Affiliate.
vii. Check the Critical Job box only for positions that meet the Academic Discretion Criteria for the Local 743 – Clerical and Service Maintenance contract.
viii. Complete the Difficulty to Fill field only for academic positions that require a medical license.
ix. Enter Comments if applicable. Remember that if a posting exception is being requested, comments MUST be entered.
x. Select Submit to continue.
5. A dialog box will pop up with the next task (Change Organization Assignments) to complete. Select Open.
a. If the dialog box disappears, select the Mail icon in the top-right corner of the page to navigate to My Tasks, and then select the Assign Organizations: Create Position task on the left side of the screen.
6. The Change Organization Assignments screen will display.
a. Review the information listed in the Organizations section and select the Pencil icon to modify any of the fields if necessary.
i. A position's organization assignments must match the organization assignments of the supervisory organization in which the position sits for the Entity, Cost Center, and Purpose segments. Attempting to change these values will cause an error, preventing submission.
ii. Ensure that the appropriate values for the remaining Chart of Accounts (COA) segments are entered. If necessary, enter or update any of the following fields: Program, Fund, Activity, and Site. The opportunity to enter additional accounts or overrides will occur during the Assign Costing Allocations step of the Hire, Add Additional Job, or Change Job business processes.
1. Validation errors may occur if the values entered in these fields are not active or if the segments added are not a valid combination in Oracle. In such cases, collaborate with the department’s finance team to correct the error.
iii. If the worker is affiliated with an established external organization (i.e., Argonne, Fermi Lab, Marine Biological Lab, etc.), please indicate it in the Affiliated Organization field.
iv. If applicable, enter one or more values in the Time and Absence Management Handling field. Refer to the Changing Organization Assignments in Workday Knowledge Base Article for details on completing this field.
b. Select Submit.
7. A dialog box will pop up with the next task (Request Default Compensation for Position Event) to complete. Select Open.
a. If the dialog box disappears, select the Mail icon in the top-right corner of the page to navigate to My Tasks, and then choose the Default Compensation task on the left side of the screen.
i. For positions paid through Period Activity Pay, please leave all fields blank at this step. See the Managing Period Activity Pay Assignments in Workday Knowledge Base article for more information.
8. The Default Compensation Change screen will display.
a. Review all fields in the Compensation section to confirm accuracy. Make changes if needed using the Pencil icon or enter information by selecting the Add button.
i. DO NOT edit the Guidelines segment, because it displays the pay grade and is autogenerated by job profile.
1. If offering a pay rate that is outside (below or above) of the Total Base Pay Range, provide justification in the Comment box located at the bottom of the screen. HR-Compensation will review justification for pay rates that are outside of their base pay range.
ii. Exempt job profiles can ONLY have a Salary compensation plan. Non-exempt job profiles can ONLY have an Hourly compensation plan.
1. Under the appropriate section, confirm that the applicable Compensation Plan is selected. If needed, use the Hamburger Menu to enter the plan.
2. Only edit the Amount, DO NOT change the Currency or the Frequency.
a. If entering compensation for a worker in the Salary plan, enter a monthly amount. If entering compensation for a worker in the Hourly plan, enter an hourly amount.
3. Considering that Chicago’s Minimum Wage increases every July 1 per the Minimum Wage Ordinance, make sure to review the City of Chicago’s Minimum Wage page to ensure that the rate for any hourly paid worker is not below the appropriate amount.
4. For fixed term employees, enter an Expected End Date. To do so, go either to the Salary or to the Hourly section (depending on the job profile), and select the small blue arrow to the left of the Additional Details header to expand this segment and add the information.
b. The default compensation can be modified later during the Hire, Add Additional Job, or Change Job business processes.
c. After the review and editing is complete, select Approve. The Create Position business process is complete at this point.