HCM Compensation Package

Overview

Compensation refers to the various components that make up an employee’s total remuneration package, such as base salary, bonuses, allowances, and other incentives. Workday Compensation is a module that enables organizations to manage and administer these compensation elements effectively.

Key Terms

Models – the tables and schemas in the Data Warehouse that contain this data

Packages – data source packages used as the basis for reporting and/or dashboards in Cognos

Sourcing

Our Data Warehouse uses an API (application programming interface) to bring in the Workday compensation data into the Warehouse. Workday supplies the Compensation data in two sections: Detail and Summary.

Models / Packages

The Compensation models in the warehouse accordingly follow Detail and Summary models.

Key Point

The Compensation data provided by the Workday API only provides the primary job compensation for the worker. For secondary jobs, see below.

Following are some important things to know as you analyze and report on this data:

‘Detail’ model/Cognos package:
  • Compensation / Annualized Compensation amount for the hourly or biweekly worker is not presented as the monthly or annual amount. Instead, it is listed as the hourly/biweekly amount in the Compensation / Annualized Compensation fields.
  • Compensation Frequency shows if it is hourly, biweekly, or annual (salaried).
  • For Salaried, the Annualized Compensation Amount shown is only the Base Pay, and Allowance amounts (if present) are not added or calculated into the Annualized Compensation Amount.
  • The Detail Cognos package lists out all the compensation plan elements for a worker, so expect multiple lines per worker, per compensation effective date.
  • We cannot add up Compensation Amount across all lines by Worker to get the Compensation Amount for Salaried workers, since Allowance amounts are listed as a monthly amount, while Salary is listed as an annual amount. Example:
    • Salary: Compensation Amount = 73960 & Compensation Frequency of Annual
    • Allowance: Compensation Amount = 2027.69 & Compensation Frequency of Monthly
    • Total Compensation is to be calculated as Salary + (Allowance *12) = 98292.28
    • Adding the Compensation Amounts will result in incorrect total compensation.
  • Important detail about Secondary jobs: some workers have more than one job or hold more than one position, with one being tagged primary and the others secondary. The secondary job compensation detail was included into the Detail model/package using a special Workday Report.
  • In the case of secondary jobs, the Annualized Compensation Amount field does calculate the appropriate annual allowance amount (multiplies allowance amount by 12).
    • This causes a difference in how the primary and secondary job rows present Annualized Compensation Amount and this should be considered while creating reports.
‘Summary’ model/Cognos package
  • Summary data provides a summarized set of data by worker, by Compensation Effective Date.
  • Only Primary Job is available in Summary
  • No Position level information (since it is summary)
  • Total Salary and Allowances fields are annualized
  • Summarized Pay Group is by Total Base Pay or Total Salary & Allowances
    • Pay Group indicates Monthly or Biweekly

Overall, the data provided in these models and packages are helpful to data consumers who are in the business of compensation/salary planning and extend reporting capabilities beyond those of Workday reporting. For example, Workday only reports on one person at a time, whereas utilizing the Warehouse model or Cognos package empowers the analyst to look at groups and aggregations. Additionally, historical compensation data can only be accessed via the Data Warehouse or BI tools such as Cognos, enabling longitudinal/time-based analysis.