Incentive Payments

US Federal HR supports the Federal Wage Flexibility Act (FWFA) reforms that govern how you authorize and administer Recruitment, Relocation, Retention, and Separation Incentive actions. You can grant incentive payments as recurring biweekly payments or nonrecurring installment payments, and also specify payment dates. After updating the actions, managers and employees can view the resulting incentive payments as supplementary earnings in self-service.

Recruitment, Relocation, Retention Incentives

The RPA simplifies the process of establishing Recruitment (NOAC 815), Relocation (NOAC 816), and Retention (NOAC 827) incentive grants. An entry window captures the payment options, payment types, and payment dates. The Total Salary field displays the amount of the incentive or, for Retention Incentives, the percent of earned pay. The Remarks section includes details about the payments.

For incentives based on service agreements, you can record the service terms in the US Federal Service Obligation RPA EIT. For biweekly Retention Incentives that require annual review, you can enter the date for that review in the RPA EIT US Federal Retention Incentive.

After updating the RPA, you can correct the resulting NPA and change the incentive amount or percent, but not the payment type or dates. For these you must cancel the original RPA action and process a new action.

See: Processing Recruitment, Relocation, and Retention Incentives

Some agencies require that employees who leave prior to completing their service obligation agreement refund their incentive payments. When you process a separation action, if the employee has pending Recruitment, Relocation, or Retention incentive payments, the application sends a notification to the worklist inbox. You can then review the incentive actions and if required take further steps, such as cancelling the incentive payment action and notifying payroll about the refund owed to the agency.

Separation Incentives

When you terminate an employee, you can grant a Separation Incentive as a secondary nature of action to the termination action. For example, you can process a dual action that includes a Retirement (NOA 302) and a Separation Incentive (NOA 825). You complete the RPA incentive information using the same Incentive window as the other incentive actions. The Total Salary field displays the amount of the incentive and the Remarks section includes details about the payments.

After updating the RPA, you can correct the resulting NPA and change the incentive amount or payment dates, but not the payment type. To change the payment type, you must cancel the original RPA action and process a new action.

See: Processing Separation Incentive Actions

Effective Dates

If you authorize multiple payments or multiple payment types (biweekly and installment or lump sum amounts) with the same RPA action, the application creates multiple assignment elements: recurring elements for the biweekly payments and nonrecurring for the installment and lump sum payments.

The effective dates depend on the type of payment. For recurring payments such as biweekly incentives, the From and To Dates are the dates that you enter in the payment date field and the end date field. For nonrecurring payments such as installment payments, the From Date is the start date of the pay period and the To Date is the end of the pay period in which the authorization is effective.

For example, if you authorize a Retention Incentive with payment option of Installments plus Final Lump Sum and enter percent amounts for two installments with effective dates of 1-May-2005 and 2-October-2005 and a final lump sum for 30 April 2006, the application creates the Retention Incentive non-recurring elements with the following start and end dates: