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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-03-13
Reference: Impacts of Primary Position Designation

Reference: Impacts of Primary Position Designation

When you assign multiple positions to an employee, you need to designate one of the positions as the primary. Review the impact that the primary position can have on these functional areas:

Absence Management and Time Tracking

Component
Impact
Holiday Calendars
Workday evaluates the
Country / Country Region
field for the primary position only. For international assignees where you need to base the holiday calendar on the country of their additional position, we recommend creating separate holiday calendars. Make these calendars without the
Country / Country Region
field populated and with an eligibility rule that makes only the assignees eligible.

Absence Management

Component
Impact
Leave Types
For worker-based leave types, Workday evaluates the Country / Country Region criteria based on primary position.
Time Off Plans
For worker-based time off plans, Workday evaluates the Country / Country Region criteria based on primary position. To evaluate all positions, you can enable the
Country / Country Region Enabled for All Positions
check box.

Time Tracking

Component
Impact
Time Entry
The primary position populates in the
Position
prompt when you enter time. All positions are available for selection.
Time Code Groups
Workday evaluates the Country / Country Region and Pay Rate Type criteria based on primary position only. To evaluate all positions, leave the
Country / Country Region
and
Pay Rate Type
fields blank, and build a time tracking eligibility rule using position-based business objects.

Staffing

Component
Impact
Notice Periods
Workday evaluates eligibility for notice periods based on the Country/ Country Region for the primary position. Unless you assign custom notice periods, they’ll dynamically update when a primary position change results in an eligibility change.
Personal Information
The country for the primary position determines the:
  • Types of personal information that are available for the employee.
  • Values that you can select.
You can also add personal information by country based on a worker's additional positions.
Termination
Only security groups with permission to edit the primary position of the employee can initiate termination.

Talent

Component
Impact
Goals
You can only cascade private organization goals to the primary position.
Calibration
Workday includes employees included in calibration with their primary position.
Career Hub
Talent Marketplace
Machine Learning only considers the primary position for:
  • Connections
  • Jobs
  • Mentors
Machine Learning considers the skills of the worker for:
  • Flex Teams
  • Learning

Compensation

Component
Impact
Internal Compensation Benchmarking
The
Internal Compensation Benchmark for Workers
report returns only the primary position. Workday includes the employee in the report output if the criteria selected in the report prompts match with their primary position details. The compensation details displayed for the employee in the report are also only based on the primary position.

Benefits

Component
Impact
Insurance Rates
Insurance Coverages
Health Care Rates
Based on the primary position. Dynamically updates if you change the primary position.
Salary Source Based Benefit Credits
Enable the
Combine All Jobs for Salary Source
check box to base it on all positions. Or enable the
Combine Benefit Jobs for Salary Source
check box to base it on one or more benefit jobs.
Non-Salary Source Based Benefit Credits
Always based on the primary position. Use benefit annual credits if you can't base the benefit credits on the primary position.
Benefit Jobs
Workday considers the primary position to be the benefit job. You can change the benefit job using the
Change Benefit Jobs
task.

Workday Payroll for the U.S.

Component
Impact
Pay On Demand
You can only request pay on demand for the primary position, unless this information is the same for both the primary and additional positions:
  • Company
  • Pay group

Workday Payroll for Canada

Component
Impact
Location
Province of Employment
Payroll Reference Number
Based on the processing position. For international assignments, this information is based on the company and work location of the position in Canada.

Reporting

Component
Impact
Trended Worker Reports
Trended worker reporting includes the primary position of the employee. Workday might not include the worker in the Trended Worker Reports at all if you enable the:
  • Exclude from Headcount
    check box for the primary position.
  • Remove Exclude From Headcount
    prompt on the Trended Worker Reports.
You can treat the international assignment position as primary when you can't make the host position the primary position.
Worker-Based Reports
Standard and custom reports that use worker-based data sources return the position data of the primary position for the employee.

Various

Component
Impact
Eligibility Rules
Workday evaluates position-related report fields on the Worker business object based on the primary position. It varies per functional area whether report fields are available based on a Position business object. Assignment-related report fields are generally available. You can use calculated fields to evaluate eligibility based on the additional position.