Compensation Boss: 13th Month Pay Calculator Employees Version

As defined by law, “personal information” refers to any information whether recorded in a material form or not, from which the identity of an individual is apparent or can be reasonably and directly ascertained by the entity holding the information, or when put together with other information would directly and certainly identify an individual.

Further, “sensitive personal information ” refers to personal information:

(1) About an individual’s race, ethnic origin, marital status, age, color, and religious, philosophical or political affiliations;

(2) About an individual’s health, education, genetic or sexual life of a person, or to any proceeding for any offense committed or alleged to have been committed by such person, the disposal of such proceedings, or the sentence of any court in such proceedings;

(3) Issued by government agencies peculiar to an individual which includes, but not limited to, social security numbers, previous or current health records, licenses or its denials, suspension or revocation, and tax returns; and

(4) Specifically established by an executive order or an act of Congress to be kept classified.

As a rule, the processing of sensitive personal information and privileged information is prohibited. There are exceptions under the law, to wit:

(a) The data subject has given his or her consent, specific to the purpose prior to the processing, or in the case of privileged information, all parties to the exchange have given their consent prior to processing;

(b) The processing of the same is provided for by existing laws and regulations: Provided, That such regulatory enactments guarantee the protection of the sensitive personal information and the privileged information: Provided, further, That the consent of the data subjects are not required by law or regulation permitting the processing of the sensitive personal information or the privileged information;

(c) The processing is necessary to protect the life and health of the data subject or another person, and the data subject is not legally or physically able to express his or her consent prior to the processing;

(d) The processing is necessary to achieve the lawful and noncommercial objectives of public organizations and their associations: Provided, That such processing is only confined and related to the bona fide members of these organizations or their associations: Provided, further, That the sensitive personal information are not transferred to third parties: Provided, finally, That consent of the data subject was obtained prior to processing;

(e) The processing is necessary for purposes of medical treatment, is carried out by a medical practitioner or a medical treatment institution, and an adequate level of protection of personal information is ensured; or

(f) The processing concerns such personal information as is necessary for the protection of lawful rights and interests of natural or legal persons in court proceedings, or the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, or when provided to government or public authority.

While it appears that in an employer-employee relationship, the information obtained from the employee is in relation to such employment, there is a need to have a clear consent to process the information on the part of the employer. Hence, if the information is shared by the employee with the medical facility and the results are generated, the employer can be authorized by the employee to have such copy.

This should be in the form of an express consent since an individual’s health is a sensitive personal information under the law which can only be processed if there is an express consent by the data subject.

Thus, the sample template will be very helpful where the employee gives consent for the company to process the sensitive personal information obtained by the health provider in an HMO setting.

This form is better used with the document proving authority of the company to its duly authorized representative to obtain said information and all other records in relation thereto.

Thus, when dealing with probationary employees, the company should have:

1. Reasonable standards
2. Made known such standards at the time of engagement
3. Performance measures
4. Periodic evaluation
5. Clear rating plan, form, and template

With the right tools, the life of the employer would be bearable and the risk minimized to manageable level.

It is indeed a nerve-wracking exercise to devise the reasonable standards from scratch. However, this is made easy by the new products of LVS Rich Publishing known as the Probationary Employment Evaluation Packet Super 5.

This new soft copy product provides the proposed standards required for probationary to perform to qualify as regular employee. There are metrics with ratings and weights. There is a sample evaluation form where the employee rates himself and his superior then an average of the two ratings is obtained.

The rating system covers Performance, Punctuality/Attendance, Behavior, Teamwork, and Initiative. The total weight is 100%. If the probationary receives an average weight below 75% in one month, it shall be deemed as failure to meet the standards which may be ground for dismissal based on failure to qualify. Of course the buyer of this product can change the weight and rates according to what is considered applicable and necessary.

Performance metrics representing 30% of the total weight is based on Business Knowledge, Output/Production, Resourcefulness, and Teamwork.
Punctuality/attendance is one of the tricky areas to measure. The template though considers this as already 100% of its weight. It is given 20% weight subject to deduction of 3% for every instance of tardiness and 4% for every instance of unauthorized absence.

Behavior is another matter of the same level of difficulty. To rate this, it is already pegged at 20% subject to deduction for every citation or violation of company rules, such as:

• Written warning – less 2%
• Stern warning – less 5%
• Written reprimand – less 6%
• 1-day Suspension – less 7%
• Longer suspension – less 10%

As to Performance metrics, sample rating spread can be seen in the Performance Review Template Excel File under the “Performance Weights” Sheet.

The rating system provides the following:

Outstanding Performance (OP) – Highest performance rating Reserved for individuals who continually achieve outstanding results and utilize their abilities in making contributions beyond their primary areas of responsibility.
Commendable Performance (CP) – Performance is above the expected level for the position making contributions beyond expectations in completion of assignments.
Effective Performance (EP) – Performance consistently meets supervisory expectations of the position requirements in making a valuable contribution to the overall objectives of the Group.
Marginal Performance (MP) – Performance does not consistently meet normal expectations and position requirements, improvement is required.
Unacceptable Performance (UP) – Performance fails to meet normal expectations and position requirements. Termination should be considered unless improvement is demonstrated in a short period of time.

The buyer can Print Sheet 1 of the Performance Review Template Excel File entitled “Proby Metrics” Sheet as form in Performance Review where ratings shall be filled in. This will be used to tally the evaluation results based on performance metrics.

The Evaluation Packet comes with the Evaluation Guidelines file in Word document that will guide the user on how the evaluate the probationary employee using this product.

To further make this exercise easy, a sample evaluation of probationary employee is provided just to give the user a complete picture of how it will be done.

Upon purchase, the following files will be sent to the buyer’s email account from LVS’ Gmail Account:

1. Contract of Probationary Employment for Daily Paid Employee (in Word document file)
2. Description of the Contract of Probationary Employment for Daily Paid Employee (in Word document file)
3. Evaluation Guidelines – Template (in Word document file)
4. Performance Review Template (in Excel File)
5. Sample Probationary Evaluation Template (in Word document file)