Position Management Key Terms

The following terms are important to understand as you use Position Management:

Business Unit

Business units form the functional structure of the organization that keeps track of filled and vacant positions. You can build a business unit hierarchy that represents a functional structure that is separate from actual locations.

Department

A department is a generic area that can exist across your organization, like Finance, Marketing, Sales, and HR. Departments are set up in Org Setup > Organization, in the Departments tab.

Job

A job is a general set of duties that employees can perform, such as Analyst, Director, Coordinator, and Manager. Jobs are grouped based on responsibilities and can usually be applied to multiple departments. Jobs are assigned a pay grade and are configured in Org Setup > Jobs and Job Assignments.

Job Assignment

A job assignment is an instance of a job in a specific department. Job assignments were previously called positions in Dayforce. A job assignment combines a department and a job, and it can be linked to work assignments. Job assignments also have locations for which they apply. For example, if a Sales Associate job assignment is valid only in the US, and it’s in the Sales department, then the job assignment applies to any location in the US that contains a Sales department. Job assignments are configured in Org Setup > Jobs and Job Assignments.

Location

Locations, also known as sites, represent the places where people are employed. A location can be a physical building, a collection of buildings, a town, a city, a province or state, or it can be virtual. Locations are defined in a hierarchy structure and are used to group workers for scheduling or other purposes. Locations are set up in Org Setup > Organization, in the Organization tab.

Position

A position is a unique approved head count (by business unit and job) in the organization. A position can usually have only one employee occupying it, except in situations where an employee has resigned and their replacement starts before they have left.

Positions are shown in a hierarchy that represents the managerial structure of the organization. When an employee leaves or moves to a new position, their former position remains in place, and the next occupant fills the existing position. Vacant positions can be created to track hiring needs. Positions are configured in Organization Designer > Positions.

Work Assignment

A work assignment is a combination of the position and the location where an employee works. Work assignments are used in various areas of Dayforce such as scheduling and payroll. When an employee occupies a position, a work assignment is generated for each location listed for the position, and these work assignments are linked to the position. When the employee leaves the position without moving into a different one, a snapshot of the current work assignments is retained with no link to the position so that the data is frozen as of the date the employee left. In addition, subsequent position changes don't affect employees who have vacated the position.

Work assignments are created directly in employee profiles in the Work > Work Assignments screen of People or through forms. The initial primary work assignment is populated when employees are first hired.