Adding Time-off policies can be complicated - particularly if you manage teams across different countries with different rules. This article will explain the various options available to you to support your employees' requirements.
Getting started
Time-off is a setting found in your main Company settings which is only accessible by the Admins on your account. First, you need to create new Availability types, and then various policies can be added to these types.
Note that you can add multiple types to an employee's profile, but you can only add one policy per type to an employee's profile.
Therefore, you first need to add a new type. Click the "+ New type" button, then choose the name, emoji, and color, and click "Create". For example:
Next, you can add various policies to each availability type. This is where you have more options to consider.
Adding policies
First, click "Add policy", enter an appropriate name, and then you will have the below options.
Minimum duration
This setting sets the minimum amount of time an employee can book off when using this policy. For example, if you select "Full day", then an employee can only book time off in increments of full days.
Type - Two options
Not working (paid) - this is the most common option and means that employees can take time off but still receive payment for these days.
Not working (unpaid) - this is most commonly an option for employees who have run out of paid vacation days but still need the time off.
Working - this may be used for days when an employee is off-site, but still working, for example a business trip.
Activity period
This is the cycle in which each employee's holiday allowance runs. If your holiday calendar runs annually, you would choose January -> December, and then your policies would be refreshed at the start of each calendar year.
Allowance
If toggled off, the employee will receive an unlimited number of days' allowance for this policy. If toggled on, the employee would receive a fixed number of days during the above cycle, and the below options would then be relevant.
Balance cycle
You have two options available - annual and monthly. Note that monthly balance cycles will only work with earned allowance timing.
Annual allowance
This is a free-type numbers box that decides the number of days per cycle in which the employee is entitled. If the balance cycle is set to monthly, the annual allowance will be divided equally for each month.
Allowance timing - Two options
Advanced - with advanced allowance timing, the employee will receive the full amount at the beginning of the next cycle. For example, if your cycle runs January -> December and an employee joins in July, then on January 1st of the following year, they will receive the full allowance.
Earned - with earned allowance timing, the employee will receive a pro-rated amount at the beginning of the next cycle. For example, if your cycle runs January -> December and an employee with 24 vacation days joins on July 1st. On January 1st of the following year, they will receive 12 earned vacation days.
New hire
This setting determines the number of days of the new hire's allowance during the cycle in which they join. Here, there are four options, two for Advanced and two for Earned.
Advanced:
Prorated annual allowance from start date - this is worked out by taking the employee's full annual allowance and then dividing it into the number of days remaining of the cycle in which they have joined. For example, if an employee has 24 days and joins halfway through the period, they will have 12 days' allowance until the new period starts.
Full annual allowance - this will grant the new hire their full annual allowance, regardless of how far through the cycle they join.
Earned:
Do nothing - this means that the new hire will initially have 0 days allowance for the remainder of the ongoing period.
Fixed days - this gives the new hire a fixed number of days for the remainder of the ongoing period, before they earn vacation days for the following period. Fixed days only affect the ongoing period, not any future ones. Note that fixed days cannot be carried over.
Limit carryover
If toggled off, the employee can carry over any number of remaining days of each time off policy, which is then added to their total allowance in the following period.
If toggled on, then you can set rules on the number of days that can be carried over to the next period.
Max days
This is the maximum number of days of an allowance that can be carried over to the following cycle. If, for example, an employee has 25 days of vacation allowance and a carryover limit of 5 days, only 5 days would carry over to the following period.
Expiration date
This option allows you to set the expiration date of how long you can carry over time off allowances into following periods.