Additional Duty Pay
Please review requirements and considerations before completing the Salary Adjustment Request (SAR) form.
DCCE Requirements for Additional Duty Pay
For temporary compensation, the time frame should be no less than one month and no more than six months, with the possibility to extend for a maximum additional 90 days.
Retroactive increases for temporary and permanent additional duty pay are not allowed. This means the effective date of the additional duty pay can be no earlier than the first day of the month in which the SAR form is final approved and into DCCE-HR.
- Example A: SAR form effective date is 11/1/2020 – received and approved on 11/13/2020 → okay to process.
- Example B: SAR form effective date is 10/1/2020 – received on 11/13/2020 → not ok to process effective date must be 11/1/2020.
If the employee has other recent compensation changes via other SARs, reclassifications, and/ or merit, then provide additional justification to explain why multiple compensation changes are needed in a short time frame.
In general, if the duties are at the same skill level or lower skill level of the employee’s current job duties, the compensation should be lower (e.g., 3-5%). If the duties are at a higher level than an employee’s current job duties, the range may be higher (e.g., >5%). Any duties pay above 10% of an employee’s salary requires additional approvals and justification.
Calculating Additional Duty Pay
The amount of temporary additional duty pay should calculate as percent of an employee’s base salary.
- $50,000 base salary, 5% temporary additional duties pay for 3 months.
- 50,000 x 5% =2500/12 months = $208.33 per month x 3 = $624.99 total
Important Considerations for Additional Duty Pay
Before deciding to give additional duty pay, managers should consider the following:
1. Is my employee working exceptionally long hours during the week and/or more intensely during the workday on a consistent, long-term basis (e.g., not just during peak periods or immediately before a deadline)? Is my employee performing job duties at the same or higher skill level than their current job duties? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, additional compensation may be warranted.
2. Whether staff positions are non-exempt (earn overtime) or exempt (earn compensatory time).
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- For non-exempt staff, you have the option to allow the employee to accrue and pay-out overtime for additional work that exceeds the employees’ scheduled weekly hours when the employee is performing work at the same or lower skill level of their current job duties.
- Workday automatically banks OT for employees so that it may either be used as leave or be paid out. Your HR Partner will have to initiate OT pay-out.
- For exempt staff, you have the option to allow the employee to accrue and use comp time for the additional work that exceeds the employees’ scheduled weekly hours.
- The employee should have the ability to use the accrued comp time once the workload returns to normal. If they are unable to use accrued comp time in a reasonable time frame, then additional compensation could be warranted.
- For non-exempt staff, you have the option to allow the employee to accrue and pay-out overtime for additional work that exceeds the employees’ scheduled weekly hours when the employee is performing work at the same or lower skill level of their current job duties.
3. If the job duties and workload continue to increase and/or shift dramatically beyond a reasonable time frame, consider permanent additional duties or a reclassification to more appropriately reflect the workload.
4. When there is turnover, consider cost savings to the unit by not filing the vacant position and instead redistributing job duties among remaining staff and re-prioritizing service levels, which may or may not include temporary or permanent additional duty pay. Also, prior to issuing temporary duty pay to a manager/leader of a unit when turnover occurs, take into account that the job duties inherent in manager/leader positions generally include temporarily absorbing some work during times of organizational change.
5. Instead of issuing temporary additional duty pay, take a comprehensive look at all staff salaries within the unit and adjust salaries permanently, either during merit season or via an equity compensation change.
6. Consider whether issuing additional compensation will set an unrealistic expectation among staff.
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- For example, a staff member goes on FML for three months and you give additional duty pay. Six months later, another staff member goes on FML for 3 months and you give additional duty pay again. Will staff expect additional duty pay every time someone in their unit goes on FML?