For any leave type that you create, you can create one or several policies to cater to the rules that apply to different employees in the company. For example, you might want different rules for annual leave to be applied to your employees in the Thailand office versus the Indonesia office. You might also want different rules to apply to people with different job grades. Each leave policy is entirely customizable, so they can be quite different from each other.
More info on leave types here: how to create and manage leave types?
1. How to add a leave policy?
From HR Lounge, go to Leaves, and Leave Policies. Then choose the leave type for which you would like to add a policy.
Scroll down to the policy configuration section. Then you have two options:
- Duplicate an existing leave type: This will duplicate all the rules, so it might be faster if the two leave policies are similar.
- Add a new leave type: This will add a new leave policy to be configured from scratch.
2. How to configure a leave policy?
2.1. How to choose who a leave policy is available for?
Under any leave policy, the first section is called "Policy availability". This section allows you to restrict the usage of a policy to a certain group of people based on some criteria. It DOES NOT mean that all the employees that are under these conditions automatically get this policy. It just says that you are allowed to apply it to them. In other words, you still have to assign the policy to the right people (for that you can refer to: Assigning Leave Policies to Employees).
The goal of restricting the availability of a policy is to make the assignment easier. For example, if you have one policy for each office in your company, then whenever you create a new employee and assign them an office, the policy will be assigned automatically.
First thing is to choose between two options:
- Available to all employees: This means that you can assign this policy to anybody in the company.
- Only available to certain groups of employees: This means that you are choosing to restrict this policy to a certain population of employees only.
If you choose the second option, you can restrict the policy using the following criteria:
- Offices
- Departments
- Gender
- Job Grades
- Employment types
2.2 How to define the approval process of a leave?
Under the "Approval" section in your leave policy configuration.
When an employee books a leave, you can choose to have it go through an approval process. This approval process can go up to two steps. At each step, the approver will get an email notification and a task in their "pending actions" to approve the leave. These steps are sequential, meaning that the second approver can only approve the leave once the first approver has approved it.
When choosing who will be the approver (first or second), you have the following choices:
- None: The step is skipped. For example, if you only want one approver in the process, you can select none under the second approver section.
- Position/manager: This means that the manager of the employee will be the approver. If you change the employee's manager, then it will automatically be reflected in the approval process of the leaves booked afterward.
- Specific employee: You can choose any employee of your choice to do the approval.
2.3 How to define the calculation behind my entitlement, leave balance, and carry forward?
Under the "Entitlement" section of your leave policy configuration.
2.3.1. Leave entitlement
Choose first if you would like to have a leave entitlement. You have the following choices:
- Fixed entitlement: Here you will decide on a yearly entitlement for the employee. This applies, for instance, to annual leave.
- Upon request: Here you do not have any entitlement. The employee will book a leave, and it will be the decision of the approver to accept it or not. This applies, for instance, to unpaid leave, where typically the approver can be HR themselves.
If you decide to go for a fixed entitlement, you will be asked to key in:
- The entitlement amount: This is the number of leave days the employee is entitled to within the year. Please note that if you put 0 here, the employee will not be able to see the leave type at all since they cannot book it.
- The tolerance: If you enable the tolerance, it means that you are allowing the employee to book some days by anticipation. For example, if you choose a tolerance of 1, then the employee can still book 1 day if they have a leave balance of 0. This way, they will have a -1 leave balance until they earn new leaves. The way leaves are earned is described in the next section.
2.3.2. Prorated Leave
Prorated leave allows you to decide for an employee that does not work a complete year if the leave entitlement should be prorated. This situation applies to employees who join during the year, and also to employees that quit during the year.
- If the setting is enabled, their entitlement will be calculated based on the number of months/days they have worked in the company. This typically applies to annual leave, for instance.
- If the setting is disabled, the full entitlement is given to the employee no matter the number of days they worked. This sometimes applies to some special leave like a replacement leave, etc.
There are two modes to choose from:
Yearly Basis: You can select to prorate based on Started Months, Completed Months, or Partial Month.
Monthly Basis: For detailed information, refer to 'Prorate Leave on a Monthly Basis.
2.3.3. Carry Forward
Here you can set up the maximum leave days that will be carried forward from one year to the other. If you enable carry forward, the carry forward value attributed to an employee will be calculated as the minimum between the leave balance of the employee and the carry forward value you have put.
Also, the system will do the following:
- On 31st Dec at midnight, the system will automatically calculate the actual carry forward value and add it into the "initial balances" carry forward column for the new year (more info on initial balances: How to Adjust Leave Balance or Carry Forward in HR Lounge).
- An employee will be able to apply carry forward leave for next year by anticipation. Of course, it will be deducted from the current year's leave.
2.3.4. Seniority
Seniority allows increasing the entitlement of employees that have been in the company for a certain time. For example, you can decide that every 2 years, employees will have 1 more day in their leave entitlement.
In order to configure seniority, you need first to choose the effective date:
- Beginning of period: The incremental entitlement days will apply since January 1st of the year that follows the employee's anniversary date. For example, if the employee joined in Dec 2016, and their entitlement is incremented by 1 day after 2 years of seniority, the employee will have the additional day available in 2019.
- Anniversary: The incremental entitlement days will apply on the anniversary day of the employee. This means that in the anniversary year, the employee will be switching entitlement regimes during the year. Therefore, their yearly entitlement will be prorated between before and after the increment.
The second thing to choose is the increment mode:
- Fixed increment: You can define an increment and a frequency that will be applied. For example, 2 days every 1 year. In this option, you can also set a maximum. For example, increment until you reach 10 days of increment.
- Variable increment: You can set how many days you want to add after a certain number of years. For example, 2 days after 3 years, 1 day after 4 years. In this case, someone having more than 4 years of experience will have 2+1 = 3 incremental days.
Here is an example illustrating of the two modes of calculation methods:
2.3.5. Rounding
When this option is enabled, the system will adjust values according to specific rounding rules.
For more information on rounding, refer to: 'How to Calculate Entitlement with the "Rounding" Option Enabled'
2.3.6. Link to Another Leave Type
This setting can be used when different types of leave share the same entitlement.
For example, if you link Emergency Leave with the Annual Leave setting, when an employee applies for Emergency Leave, it will also deduct from the Annual Leave entitlement.
For more details on linking Emergency Leave with Annual Leave, refer to: 'How to Link Emergency Leave with Annual Leave Balance in BrioHR'
2.4 Advanced configuration
2.4.1. Use working days
This setting is used to determine which days can be booked:
- If enabled, only working days will count when booking a leave. Working days are based on the employee's office location. So if an employee does not work on weekends based on their office's configuration, if they book a leave from Friday to Monday, they will be deducted 2 days.
- If disabled, all days count when booking a leave. So if they book a leave from Friday to Monday, they will be deducted 4 days. This option is used for exceptional situations such as hospitalization leaves.
2.4.2. Allow Booking Half Day
This setting determines whether the system allows employees to book half-day leaves:
- If enabled, employees will have the option to choose between full-day and half-day leaves.
- If disabled, employees will only be able to apply for full-day leaves in the system.
For more information on booking half-day leave, refer to: 'How to Manage Half-Day Leave for Employees'
2.4.3. Allow employee to apply leaves in the past
If enabled, employees will be able to apply for leaves on past days. This option can be used for medical leaves, for instance, when employees are not necessarily anticipating taking the leave.
2.4.4. Allow Employees to Modify Past Leaves
This setting determines whether employees can modify the details of past approved leaves within the current year. When enabled, employees can adjust the date, justification message, and attachments associated with their previously approved leave.
For more information on modifying past leaves, refer to: 'How to Enable Employee Leave Modifications for Past Approved Leaves in BrioHR'
2.4.5. Set a limit of time for leaves to be booked in advance
i. Minimum Limit - If you select 'Yes, set a limit,' input the value and select the period (day/week/month) from the dropdown. For example, if you set it to '7 days,' employees must apply for leave at least seven (7) days in advance. If employees attempt to apply for leave with less than 7 days' notice, the system will not allow them to proceed.
ii. Maximum Limit - If you select 'Yes, set a limit,' input the value and select the period (day/week/month) from the dropdown. For example, if you set it to '1 month,' employees are allowed to apply for leave up to a maximum of 1 month in advance.
For more information on setting time limits for leave bookings, refer to: 'How to Set a Time Limit for Leave Booking in Advance'
2.4.6. Set a limit to the period that can be booked at a time (consecutive days)
If you select "Yes, set a limit" you can set a limit to the number of days that can be booked in a single leave application. For example, if you select 3 days, then a leave which duration exceeds 3 days (excluding non-working days) will not be allowed.
For more information on setting limits for consecutive days leave booking, refer to: How to Set a Time Limit for Leave Booking in Advance
2.4.7. Set a reminder for leave balance
You can use an option to send a notification to all the employees about their leave balance. This can be useful to incentivize users to consume their balance throughout the year. For this, you need to:
- Enable the option.
- Choose a frequency. Once you choose, an orange message will tell you on which day it will be sent.
- Decide starting at which leave balance level you would like the email to be sent. For example, if you put 1, then only people who have a leave balance of 1 and above will receive the email.
2.4.8. Notification for leave approval
Here you can add a list of emails and mailing lists that you would like to have notified every time a leave in this policy is approved. It can be useful, for instance, if you would like the HR team to receive a notification for every leave approval.
If you choose to do so, you can also decide to attach a calendar invitation together with the email. This way, you can easily add the calendar event to your own calendar to remember when employees will be on leave.
2.4.9. Mandatory attachment and justification message
If any attachment or justification mandatory to be attached or fill up by employees prior to submission, you can tick the checkbox at the setting as per below. If these checkbox is ticked, employee not able to submit the application if they didn't attached any supporting document or if no justification message wrote in the field.
2.4.10. Custom fields
Custom fields are additional information that can be asked of the employee when booking a leave. This information will be communicated to the approver to make their decision.
You can decide the type of information:
- Text
- Number
- Date
- Select: in this case, you can give some choices to the employee to choose from
2.5. Custom configuration
Some of the settings of the policy are customizable at the employee level under this section. This is useful if you have an exception to the rule. For example, if an employee has an extra day of entitlement than their colleagues. Another example is if an employee has a special leave approver because they are working on a special project.
The available customizable options are the following:
- Entitlement: value and tolerance
- Prorata
- Carry forward: value and expiry
- Past application
- Max application in advance
- Max consecutive days
- First approver
- Second approver
Click on a customization type to start the process. For any customization, you will follow the same process:
- Select the employee(s) to customize and click next.
- Choose the value or setting you would like to apply to them.
- Check the impact of your customization and approve.
NOTE:
If you change someone's policy, all customizations applied to them are lost.
For more details on setting up Leave Custom Configuration, refer to: 'How to Set Up Custom Leave Configuration in HR Lounge'
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