How do I manage leave policies?

Modified on Thu, 19 Dec at 12:19 PM

Managing employee leave can be a real headache, especially when your team’s growing. That’s why we’ve built a solution that makes it a breeze to handle all kinds of leave, no matter how many people you’ve got on board. Casual, part-time, salaried - whatever the mix, we’ve got you.

With Shiftie, you can easily create as many leave policies as you need, so everyone gets the time off they deserve. This cuts out the manual processes, ensures everyone is on the same page, and saves time in the long run.

Leave Policies

Go to Company Settings > Time Off > Leave Policies.

Leave policies are essential to this process, and there is no limit to the number you can create. Each employee is assigned to a specific leave policy, which determines their entitlements moving forward. You can customise each policy by naming it (e.g., Salaried Staff), setting the policy start date for each employee, and adjusting additional settings.

If the setting "Employees are entitled to Bank Holidays" is enabled, then leave taken over a Bank Holiday will not deduct the Bank Holiday from the employee's leave balance.

At the bottom of the leave policy, you can assign as many relevant leave types as needed to the policy.

Leave Types

Go to Company Settings > Time Off > Leave Types.

Leave types control the different kinds of leave that employees can request. In its simplest form, this could just be annual leave. However, leave types can accommodate as many different kinds of leave as necessary. Some other examples include:

Sick / Absences
Paternity / Maternity / Parental
Compassionate Leave
Study Leave
Unpaid Leave

When creating a leave type, you can define the entitlement for the specific leave type.

Leave types can have different types of entitlements to ensure all staffing needs are covered.

Fixed: A fixed entitlement allows you to define a set number of days or hours of this leave type that an employee receives per year.

Unlimited: An unlimited entitlement allows an employee to take an unlimited amount of the specified type of leave.

Deducts from Another Allowance: This entitlement allows you to specify whether this leave type uses some of the entitlement from another leave type, such as study leave deducting from the annual leave allowance.

Per Hour Worked: A per-hour worked entitlement allows this leave type to accrue based on the number of hours an employee works and has approved. With this entitlement, you can set the accrual rate as a percentage per hour and specify whether it is limited to a certain number of days or hours.

How to set a policy for an employee

When creating a new leave policy there are three main steps to ensure that everything is added correctly.

1. Create a new leave policy or use an existing one.

2. Attach the applicable leave types to the chosen policy (or use existing leave types).

3. Assign the policy to employees through their profiles. Policies can also be assigned in bulk by navigating to the Leave area on the team page, selecting the relevant employees, and clicking ‘assign leave policy.’

Remember, a leave type must be attached to a policy for the entitlement to be given to the employee.