Beginning July 1, 2010, the Beacon payroll and time conference call is changing to a new phone number and frequency.  The call is moving from weekly to the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month.  In addition, the call will use a “meet me” phone number assigned by the State Operator.  This number may change from time to time.  With a “meet me” phone number, no “room number” code is needed.  The first caller continues to ring until a second caller dials in.  At that point, the two callers are immediately connected.  Additional callers are then immediately connected with previous callers.  The “meet me” phone number can accommodate up to 150 callers.  After 150 connections, any additional callers receive a busy signal.

The schedule for July – September is as follows.  All calls begin at 2pm.

May Payroll
As you are aware, there are currently two payroll cycles operated by the State – biweekly and monthly. To date, these payroll cycles have not coincided under the new BEACON system, but this will change with the May 30 payroll run. On this date more than 89,000 state employees will be paid out of the BEACON system.

We bring this to your attention because we anticipate higher than normal call volumes May 28 through May 30. Although we have staffed accordingly, we want to set the expectation that there may be longer than normal call wait times. Also, because we expect higher traffic than normal to the BEACON portal on May 30, we have dedicated additional hardware resources to help minimize Employee Self Service transaction times.

The BEST Shared Services Team appreciates your assistance in informing your respective agency’s employees of the potential for longer call wait times and slower portal transaction times.

Pay Statement Information
Since the April payroll the BEST Shared Services team has received many questions about remuneration statements. The attached posters are meant to address some of these questions. You should have already received the ESS and non-ESS generated pay statement posters, but we are including them along with a supplemental poster for easy reference.