The federal event is an internal API process that automatically creates an additional country-level gender record for employees in the United States or Canada. The federal event isn’t used for employees in any other countries.
The federal event process helps with the following:
- Provides payroll, benefits, and other downstream teams with a consistent and singular record when needed for compliance purposes.
- Resolves the challenges of establishing a single assigned sex value for employees who have a mixture of assigned sex values. For example, a combination of male or female binary assigned sex values or NULL assigned sex values.
- Resolves the challenge of employees having a state-specific non-binary value that isn’t applicable at the federal level.
The federal event is handled by the internal Dayforce API (not to be confused with the RESTful API). Whenever an employee creates a new gender record, all validation and record creation happens inside Dayforce.
The federal event applies only to employees who provide a gender record with a country of the United States or Canada, regardless of whether an administrator has created any custom configuration in HR Admin > Employee Gender Admin > Gender. If an employee provides a gender record for any other country, the federal event isn’t applicable and isn’t triggered. Most customers see little to no impact because the federal event works in the background.
Note: Currently, it isn’t possible to deactivate the federal event process.
Federal Event Automatic Record Creation Process
The federal event is an automated record creation process that checks an employee’s existing gender records across where they work or live, and creates additional records where needed:
Binary Employee: Example 1
For employees who supply a single binary (male/female) assigned sex value, the following record could be added:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Florida | Female | - |
The federal event then automatically generates the female country record for the United States, and shows a message to let the user know that this action was taken.
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Florida | Female | - | |
| United States | - | Female | - | Autogenerated, no further input required. |
Binary Employee: Example 2
The same logic applies if multiple records of the same binary (male/female) assigned sex are provided, such as in the following table:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Florida | Male | - |
| United States | Nevada | Male | - |
The federal event then automatically generates the male country record for the United States, and shows a message to let the user that this action was taken:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Florida | Male | - | |
| United States | Nevada | Male | - | |
| United States | - | Male | Auto generated, no further input required. |
Non-Binary Employee Example
For employees who provide a non-binary (not male or female) assigned sex, the following record could be added:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary |
The federal event then automatically generates the country record for the United States, but shows a message to the user to let them know that more information is needed:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary | |
| United States | - | Male | - | The user must confirm the assigned sex value for the automatically created federal record. |
After the country record is updated with the correct binary value, the record is saved successfully:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary |
| United States | - | Male | - |
“Ambiguous” Assigned Sex Employee Example
With the flexibility of the Enhanced Employee Gender functionality, employees can provide a different assigned sex values for each place where they live or work, depending on the laws and regulations of the state or province. Some states and provinces support non-binary gender legally, and some don’t. For employees with both binary and non-binary assigned sex records, the following could be added:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Nevada | Female | Non-Binary |
| United States | Florida | Female | Non-Binary |
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary |
The federal event then automatically generates the country record for the United States, but shows a message to the user to let them know that more information is needed:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Nevada | Female | Non-Binary | |
| United States | Florida | Female | Non-Binary | |
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary | |
| United States | - | - | The user must confirm the assigned sex value for the automatically created federal record. |
After the country record is updated with the binary value, the record is saved successfully:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Nevada | Female | Non-Binary | |
| United States | Florida | Female | Non-Binary | |
| United States | California | Non-Binary | Non-Binary | |
| United States | - | Female | - |
State/Province Non Collecting Assigned Sex Employee Example
Lastly, if assigned sex collection has been deactivated and the employee or administrator is unable to supply assigned sex information for a state or province, the following might occur:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | Ontario | - | Non-Binary |
The federal event automatically generates the country record for Canada, but shows a message to the user to let them know that more information is needed:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | Ontario | - | Non-Binary | |
| Canada | - | - | The user must confirm the assigned sex value for the automatically created federal record. |
After the federal country record is updated with the binary value, the record is saved successfully:
| Country | State/Province | Assigned Sex | Gender Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | Ontario | - | Non-Binary |
| Canada | - | Female | - |
Updating the Federal Record
Because the federal country record is required for compliance and reporting, there are limited updates that can be made to it:
- Record Deletion: If the federal country record is deleted, and US state or Canadian province records still exist, the record is recreated by Dayforce upon save.
- Assigned Sex: Assigned sex is limited to male or female and can be changed at any time.
- Gender Identity: Gender identity isn’t required for compliance or legal reporting purposes and isn’t sent to third parties. It also can’t be supplied to the federal country record.
Why Is the Federal Event Process Needed?
The federal event process is needed for the following reasons:
State/Province Gender Options vs Federal (Country) Assigned Sex Options
In the United States and Canada, states and provinces can define their own legal sex options other than male and female that aren’t respected at the country level. For example, California has legal frameworks in place to allow for non-binary genders, but at the country level in the United States this isn’t an option. If Dayforce reported an employee with a non-binary assigned sex in California, payroll could fail to process or the submission of an employee’s benefits information to carrier feeds could fail.
To help prevent this situation, the federal value is used when it’s required, and the state or province value is used by particular modules when it’s required. This requirement will be managed by individual modules, and by individual development teams. However, typically, if it involves local state information, the state value is used (such as with EEO-1 reporting). Any other downstream data point receives the federal value unless stated otherwise.
Challenges for Employees with Mixed Assigned Sex Options
Some employees might want to report different assigned sex values to different states or provinces. However, because many government authorities and downstream modules (such as Payroll and Benefits) can accept only a singular value, they’ll use the country value for the employee.