Background

The CSU must have functionality that supports gender neutrality regulations. Effective July 1, 2017, the California Fair Employment and Housing Council adopted regulations addressing this (excerpts from the regulations are as follows);

“If an employee requests to be identified with a preferred gender, name, and/or pronoun, including gender-neutral pronouns, an employer or other covered entity who fails to abide by the employee's stated preference may be liable under the Act, except as noted below.

An employer is permitted to use an employee's gender or legal name as indicated in a government-issued identification document only if it is necessary to meet a legally-mandated obligation, but otherwise must identify the employee in accordance with the employee's gender identity and preferred name.”

Under certain circumstances, liability is created for employers that do not comply with requests to be identified with a preferred gender, name, or pronoun (unless there is legal mandate to use a legal name). The full document can be found in the Appendix.

In addition, employees may wish to use a name different from their legal name;  Professors may publish under a name different from their legal name and desire to be known by that name, or employees going through a divorce may request a Preferred Last Name because they want to begin using a different name before the divorce is finalized.

Employee Self-Service (ESS) in CHRS will include the ability for employees to update some of their personal information. This position paper details how the employee’s Preferred Name will work in CHRS Self-Service.

Historically, there were many name types available in PeopleSoft such as Legal, Degree, Maiden, Other, Former, Diploma, etc. CHRS will allow two name types; Primary (also known as the “Legal” name), and Preferred Name (defined as how the employee would like to be addressed).

Issue

Not all campuses update employee names the same way; some only allow paper or email request processed by HR; others use self-service (via a campus mod). Custom modifications allow updates  to Preferred Name in PeopleSoft 9.0 to part of the name (first and/or middle) or the entire name, however, these campus mods will not be carried forward into CHRS.  There will need to be functionality and consistency in CHRS around what parts of the employee name can be updated.  

PeopleSoft 9.2 does not deliver Preferred Name in Self-Service.   Campuses would like to have it as a Self-Service function.

Analysis

To determine what campuses want, a series of questions was asked of the Campus Data Coordinators in 2019 and 2020 regarding updates to Employee Name in their current environment. Even though the questions below touch on update to Primary Name, it is outside of our current scope.

1. Do you allow updates to Preferred Name?
2. If so, what portion of the name can be updated (either through Self-Service or manually)?
3. If Self-Service is used, what portion of the name can be updated?
4. What portion of the name can be updated if Self-Service is not used?
5. If available, would you use Self-Service to update the Primary and Preferred Name?
6. If Preferred Name is updated in Self-Service, do you have an approval process?

In summary, the majority of respondents were in favor of allowing updates to the entire Preferred name via Self-Service (First, Middle, Last).  

Detailed results can be found in the Appendix. 

Recommendations

There will be a new Preferred Name page in Self-Service that will allow updates to first, middle, and last name.  There will not be a pre-approval process;  instead, updates will be automatic.  There will be an audit query supplied so that campuses can review and follow up as needed.  

Preferred Name will be visible only by the employee in Employee Self-Service and by managers in Manager Self-Service.  It will also be available for other campus systems to pull in and use as per their local requirements. No official business processes (e.g., Payroll, Benefits) will use Preferred Name.

Considerations

 Some things to consider regarding how this will work in PeopleSoft 9.2:

• Campuses will not be able to configure Self Service to their own specs; it must be consistent.  Therefore, some campuses will need to change their procedures, campus-specific forms, documentation, etc.
• In PeopleSoft, if 'Preferred' Name is blank, the Primary (Legal) Name will be shown.  Some campuses have a customization in 9.0 that will auto-fill any blank Preferred Name with the Primary Name for ease of reporting; however, this will not be carried forward. 

Cross-Functional Impacts (Positive / Negative)

• Benefits Administration: N/A
• Labor Cost Distribution: N/A
• Workforce Administration: N/A
• Time & Labor: N/A
• Absence Management: N/A
• Temp Faculty: N/A
• Recruiting: N/A
• Campus Solutions (CS): there will be bi-directional sync with HR. (Note: There will be an Integrations Position paper that will address this in detail).

CHANGE IMPACT

To be filled out by BSA (from Change Impact Tracking log):

The following items will be answered / addressed by Change Management:

1. Areas of potential change resistance to proposed HR process / policy changes?

   Campuses may resist changing to a consistent process that may not fit their needs as well.

2. Potential resource needs in order to plan, engage, prepare, and/or deploy the change?

   Communication/change management, possible system configuration.

3. Associated costs relative to the scope of the change to requirements requested?

   This will require approximately 80 hours of programmer time.

4. Training needs or if a straightforward change?

   This is a straightforward change.

5. Implication on any other related process / functions?

   Possible impact to third party interfaces that expect this data.

6. Union impact? Additional comments (from Labor rep)?

   No union impact. And no reasonably foreseeable impacts within the scope of bargaining identified at the time of review.

REVISION CONTROL

Revision History

Review/Approval History

APPENDIX

California Fair Employment and Housing Council regulations 

End of Article