TOIL (Time Off In Lieu) / Flexi Time / Rolling Hours

What is TOIL?

Time Off in Leui (TOIL) is used if you have staff who have worked overtime/extra hours and are requesting to take those extra hours worked as time off.

StaffSavvy has three options for TOIL reporting: automatic, manual and a combination of both.

Choosing the right TOIL 

Automatic TOIL

Automatic TOIL is the most common option. It allows for rolling hours between months, even in cases where staff are not permitted to take a paid day off and are simply assigned fewer shifts. To use automatic TOIL it needs to be configured under your contract settings, via Manage Contracts > Edit a Contract > TOIL. From here you can select the automatic TOIL option and choose how many hours can be rolled. This is an automated management process for flexitime/TOIL. Using expected hours and actual recorded time, the system will report on how a staff member is doing against their expected hours. 

Hours reported on
There are two options here for this calculation, you can choose whether the system tracks both, the hours the under and over reported hours, or only takes into account when hours are under expected.

Automatic TOIL is the easiest process, but requires staff to report all their hours consistently.

Combined calculation

The second option uses both automatic processing whilst still requiring manual claims.

Automatic TOIL recommendations with Manual Claims
With this option, the system can recommend a specific number of rolling hours for managers to confirm manually. The system will automatically recommend a total number of hours that should be rolled each week, but will then wait for a manual TOIL request. For example, the system might say This staff member is owed 10 hours, and your manager will then need to confirm this, edit it or cancel it.

Manual TOIL 

The Manual option allows staff to request TOIL hours to be added to their account from their profile pages. It allows a manual but managed process to track TOIL or flexitime within the system. 

Rolling Hours

When setting up TOIL options, you will need to decide how you want hours to be rolled.

• Enabled When - This setting determines when the system begins counting Time Off In Lieu (TOIL), based on the extra hours worked beyond expected hours. You can configure TOIL to accrue from the exact minute a staff member goes over their hours, or establish a threshold so that it only starts counting after they have worked over an additional 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or hour, ect.
   
• Roll time owned in blocks of - This option helps prevents too many hours from being rolled forward or back. This can be configured so that time can only be rolled over in specific block sizes. For example, if you set the system to roll hours in one-hour blocks, a user who worked 2 hours and 30 minutes would only have 2 hours rolled over.
   
• Allow rolling of hours for - This is option is only available when using one of the manual options. It allows you to specify how long rolled hours will be stored in your account. This prevents too many hours from being accrued. Time owed will expire if not used within the specified period.
   
• Limit on Rolled Hours - This allows you to put a cap on how many hours can be rolled forward/backwards. Any hours above this point should be discarded. This prevents too many hours from being accrued.*

*It is important to note that if you do not set a rolling limit, the system will automatically roll hours. This can cause a problem if TOIL is added to an existing account, as you often want to start TOIL reporting on a specific date. You might also want to reset TOIL at the start of each company year.

Viewing TOIL/TOIL requests

Once you are happy with your settings you can save. Then, staff can view automatic TOIL immediately (once processed by the system) on their profile and dashboard. Managers will receive a notification for staff who are under/over hours on their dashboard. This can be accessed via clicking the notification that says that TOIL needs to be reviewed.

For Manual TOIL Managers will also receive notifications on their dashboard for Manual TOIL requests that they will need to approve/reject. Staff can then view their approved hours and claim against their TOIL hours, with managers approving these claims similarly from this page. 

Making adjustments for Manual TOIL

Sometimes, you might need to make adjustments to TOIL, and you can do this using the Add Manual TOIL Adjustments option. This can be found under the Actions Menu under Pay > Contracts > Contracted Hours Report, then click on the contract type you wish to use. Then click View Breakdown for the contract and staff member you want to review. You can also find this page via a staff member's profile by viewing any report under the Contracts tab.

From here, you can then make changes to the TOIL hours. You can either add/subtract hours or tell the system to start the hours afresh in the next period. This means the staff member will show 0 rolled hours in the next period.

Creating a TOIL Request

Staff can make manual TOIL requests or managers can create a request on behalf of a staff member. For more detail on how to do this, go to our step by step guide to creating a TOIL request here.

Claiming against TOIL hours

Once a staff member  as hours approved, they can claim any time off against those hours. This ensures that  claims are recorded against hours earned. 

It is important that you check if there is time limit set up on when you can use the hours. If staff don't make claims against the hours in their account, they can be in a situation where the hours owed have expired, but the hours you have taken back are still valid and show your total as negative hours.

To claim against a TOIL balance, go to the TOIL report under your profile. Using the actions menu at the top click Reports > TOIL Request Report/Manual TOIL Report. On the report, simply use the Claim Against button. Or alternatively, you can also add a claim against a TOIL balance from your profile page. Go to the Holiday & TOIL tab and click Add new TOIL Request. In the box, you will see an option to claim hours back and to choose which of your balances to claim against:

Once you claim against hours, you will see a summary box at the top showing how much time you can claim back. You can only claim back up to the total hours in your original request. So, if you requested 10 hours of TOIL, you can put multiple claims in for those hours until none are left.

Note: If you need to claim more hours than are available under a single entry, then you will need to make multiple claims for the same day. This will ensure your TOIL balances are correctly recorded and accounted for.

Your TOIL request will go through the usual approval process, but you will now receive a clearer summary of your TOIL balance and your usage:

Manager Options

A manager has additional options within the Manual TOIL Report. These options allow the manager to add additional entries to a claim even if it will reduce the total below zero. They can also delete entries, edit them and connect/disconnect.

The connect/disconnect options allow entries to be assigned to each other so they display in the groups shown on the report. For example, in the image below, the 03/09/2020 entry is not connected to Tiger Day on 08/08/2020. A manager can assign that claim against the Tiger Day balance using the 'Connect' option.

TOIL History Report

You are also able to create a TOIL history report that displays a breakdown of hours for the selected period and provides the option to download to Excel as an XLSX file.

To find this, go to a staff member’s profile. Then, in the actions bar, go to Reports and in the drop-down menu select TOIL History report. From here, you can filter by date and download the report.