Understanding Holiday
There are two main types of paid holidays managed by StaffSavvy:
- Fixed Entitlement - This is a fixed amount of holiday a staff member receives at the start of the year and can book any time during the year.
- Earned Entitlement - This is a holiday earned per hour worked. It is either immediately paid out or stored so the staff member can claim it in the future.
Holiday rules are configured via a contract. Under the Holiday tab, you can choose the type of holiday StaffSavvy should apply by default.
- Disable holiday pay and entitlement - We'll hide holiday options for this staff member. They can still request time off.
- Pay holiday as a percentage of hours worked in wage sheets - Using the percentages and rates set under each pay element, automatically add holiday for every hour worked.
- Earn holiday based on hours worked and claim with holiday request (Earn and Claim) - Same as above, but it will not automatically add it for payment. Instead, store it on the staff member's account for them to claim with a new holiday request.
'Earn and Claim’ does not include hours already paid under a previous contract holiday mode.
When a new contract is signed, if someone was paid holiday under another type of holiday (e.g. automatic payment or yearly entitlement) and then moves to earning and claiming holiday, their total "claimed" holiday will no longer include any hours already paid out using a different method.
This means that when the new contract is started, it will not be affected by previous holidays and will be calculated based on the number of hours a staff member has worked in accordance with Earn and Claim.
To change how holiday pay is managed for each contract, go to Pay > Contracts > Manage Contracts > Edit > Holiday.
- Earn holiday based on pro-rata entitlement and claim with holiday request
Earn holiday based on expected hours per year, and the system will provide a % of their yearly holiday allowance to them based on the % of the yearly hours expected that have been worked. - Fixed yearly entitlement
A fixed number of hours or days per year that the staff member has available.Note: You can add/subtract hours from a staff member's entitlement within their account so most staff can share a contract and have adjustments added this way. - Fixed yearly entitlement (prorated)
A fixed number of hours or days per year that the staff member has available. This is adjusted down if the staff member starts or finishes the assigned contract during the holiday year. Note: You can add/subtract hours from a staff member's entitlement within their account so most staff can share a contract and have adjustments added this way. - Fixed entitlement with pay calculated on previous x weeks
This option allows staff to have a prorated holiday allowance; however, their pay is calculated on the number of previous weeks (as defined) so that their holiday pay reflects the hours per week they have recently been working.
Holiday: Simple Mode
- Holiday Options: Simple mode only deducting on days with shifts
To use, simply disable the “Ignore shifts” option when using a contract in simple holiday mode.
This option allows you to only deduct holiday allowance on working days if the staff member also has a shift scheduled. It allows you to ignore non-working days rather than needing to use the complex calculation option.
There is a max number of days per week to be deducted when using simple mode. Only days that you are contracted to work will be deducted from your holiday entitlement.
There are then various options around how a holiday is treated. You can display the holiday in days (all requests will be rounded up to the nearest half-day) or hours (this will record holidays to the minute).
Calculation Method
This option allows you to choose either a basic or complex calculation method. The basic option only assigns a full or half day per calendar day and is perfect for simple holiday policies. The complex option will use shifts to carefully calculate holiday usage down to the minute. It's much more detailed but not always desired.
Hours per day
This is important as it informs the system of how many hours a full day counts. So, if an average employee has 7 hours per day and requests 3 hours off in the morning, this would be a half day. If they requested 5 hours off, then it would count as a full day.
The Holiday Day start time
Start time is also important as it tells the system when a holiday day should start; if someone requests 12 hours off from 1 pm until 1 am but their start time is 9 am, it would only deduct 0.5 days as most of the request falls outside the regular hours.
Holiday Days and National/Organisation Holidays
These holiday options allow you to set which days should count for holiday requests. This can be overridden per request, but it's easier to configure correctly at the start.
Existing Shifts option
There are two ways the system can apply holidays: ignoring the staff member's existing shifts or using them for the calculations.
If you choose to ignore the shifts, the system will use the fixed hours per day settings to calculate how many hours a holiday request will require. If you use the existing shifts, then it will review the shifts assigned to that staff member and use their hours to calculate the holiday request.
Using the existing shifts is perfect for someone on a complex working pattern using the regular repeating shifts feature. Ignoring the existing shifts is perfect for most operational staff, who won't know their shifts until a few weeks before and holiday requests are scheduled much further in advance.
Detailed Breakdown of Holiday Calculation
You are able to view a summary of every staff member’s holiday allowance and breakdown. A more detailed breakdown of the holiday calculation was added to show how the total was generated. This allows you to see the calculation for a full-time contract and then for the individual person based on their shortened year or less-than-full-time status.
You will see “Breakdown” buttons within the holiday summary boxes throughout the site making it easy to find and view.
National and Organisation holidays
You can view National and Organisational holidays by going to the schedule creation calendar. To view a list of the registered National and organisational holidays in the system, go to System > Absence & Breaks > Organisation Holidays. Here, you can add new organisational holidays and view the National Holidays already implemented by the Staff Savvy system.
Go to Shifts > Schedule Creation > Manage Schedule to view these holidays. Here, you can see both National and Organisational holidays. They will come up at the top of the day they are scheduled for
Automatic Holiday Shifts
Holiday Shifts are created in three ways:
- Existing shifts - Any existing shifts within a holiday request are converted to a holiday shift when the request is approved.
- Manually added - Holiday shifts can be added beforehand or afterwards by adding a holiday shift on the Manage Shift Week view and Weekly Timesheets.
- Estimated Holiday Shifts - These use information saved in the staff member’s contract to quickly create holiday shifts. This is the recommended method for permanent staff as it reduces a lot of admin time.
All three options can be used together as needed.
Estimated Holiday Shifts
Under each contract, you can set how many hours are in a “day”. This should be how many hours are considered an average working day. Following this, you can set which days of the week should be used to calculate holidays. These should be the days of the week that the employees are expected to work normally. Finally, you can set a start time.
With this information, StaffSavvy will calculate the number of days of holiday a request needs and will ask the approving manager to confirm the holiday shifts.
In the example below, the request covers just under two weeks. The employee is expected to do 7 hours each day, starting at 9:30am. The employee does not work weekends.
StaffSavvy has estimated the shifts from 9:30am to 4:30pm (breaks are not applied to holiday shifts so they are shorter than a normal working day).
The manager can leave all of the days checked to have these holiday shifts added automatically. If one or more of the days should not count as a holiday, then they can be unchecked.
Holiday shifts can be edited in the same way as a normal shift once they are created.
Requesting Holiday as a Staff Member
Requesting a holiday as a staff member is a simple process.
Step 1
First go to My Account > My Availability > Request Holiday. The screen will now ask for broad information about the request; is it less than a day, a single day or a longer period. To implement this you just need to go to your availability and put in a new holiday request.
This allows the system to then offer further options specific to the dates requested so that part day and half day requests are much easier to enter.
Another updated feature is that when requesting to take part of a day off, you can specify whether this will be the morning or the afternoon. This adjustment will make absences that much easier to keep track of, ensuring the smooth running of your business regardless of absence.
The process will consider the staff member’s specific contract configuration and offer relevant options. For example, a staff member who is only allowed to book half or whole days will have options limited to those choices. Additionally, if a staff member has Earn & Claim holiday allowance you can choose how much time you want to take off down to the hour.
This allows the system to then offer further options specific to the dates requested so that part day and half day requests are much easier to enter.
Another updated feature is that when requesting to take part of a day off, you can specify whether this will be the morning or the afternoon. This adjustment will make absences that much easier to keep track of, ensuring the smooth running of your business regardless of absence.
The process will take into account the staff member’s specific contract configuration and offer relevant options. For example, a staff member who is only allowed to book half or whole days will have options limited to those choices.
Step 2
Once you have specified the period of time you are going to be away from work, you can also include a reason for absence for your manager to see. Once the details of your absence have been decided, you can go on to review your request.
Step 3
Finally, you will have the chance to review your request. here, you can double-check that you have booked off the correct days and that you are ensuring your planned absence is within the limits of your available holiday. You can also see how much holiday you will have left over once your request is confirmed. To finalise your request, click 'confirm holiday request'.
Add holiday on behalf of an employee
You can grant permission to certain managers so they can create holiday requests on behalf of their staff. See the permission called “Add holiday / Time off requests on behalf of staff”.
This allows requests to be added via the staff member’s profile page. Just click on Actions > Holidays and Absence > Add Holiday Request.
*Holiday requests will be automatically blocked if they would leave a negative balance.
This can be disabled under each contract's settings for contracts that come under Fixed yearly salaries, with a set holiday limit measured annually. To find this, go to Pay > Contracts > Manage Contracts > Choose the contract you want to edit > Holiday.
The request is in two steps: provide the basic information, such as reason and dates, first and then confirm the request and holiday shifts.
From this request, StaffSavvy will suggest a series of holiday shifts. Un-selecting the shifts will recalculate the holiday required and holiday remaining totals at the bottom.
Requesting Partial Days
You are also able to clearly and succinctly request to take only part of a day off rather than the whole day or a single day. The screen will now ask for broad information about the request: Is it less than a day, a single day, or a longer period? To implement this, you just need to go to your availability and put in a new holiday request.
This allows the system to offer further options specific to the requested dates, making part-day and half-day requests much easier to enter.
Another updated feature is that when requesting to take part of a day off, you can specify whether this will be the morning or the afternoon. This adjustment will make absences that much easier to keep track of, ensuring the smooth running of your business regardless of absence.
If a staff member has an Earn & Claim holiday allowance, you can choose how much time they will take off down to the hour.
To help with pay calculations, the system will now be able to ignore expected breaks. This means that the system will not consider expected breaks that might happen once the team member has left for the day.
You can choose whether to calculate their breaks or simply deduct the exact hours requested.
Tentative Approval
When approving a holiday, if the staff member has shifts and they are not cancelled or reposted for cover* (so the shifts remain assigned to them), then their holiday will be marked as tentatively approved.
It will automatically change to 'approved' when they find cover for those shifts.
(If a holiday is cancelled, it will then restore any regular repeating shifts that were cancelled for the holiday. This will restore their previous regular repeating shift pattern.)
*Shifts can also be offered to staff rather than automatically becoming extra shifts. Please note this change can be made by a manager.
Cancelling a Holiday Request
You can easily cancel a holiday request by going to holiday requests and clicking cancellation request. However, it must be approved first.
By default, most companies will need you to cancel your request before it starts. However, you are also able to cancel holiday requests retrospectively. This option is useful if you want to allow staff to cancel a holiday that has already started. By default, they cannot request cancellations for past holidays. However, you will need to set this up in Global Settings first by going to the Staff & Contracts tab of the Global Settings. Change “Allow retrospective holiday cancellation requests” to “Yes”.
Holiday Calendar
There is a holiday calendar view that can display any combination of staff holidays (casual, permanent, venue staff, etc). This can be found under Reports > Staff Reports > Absence Calendar.
Each holiday will be shown as a coloured bar across the page; the colour is taken from the staff member’s default skill so you can see how the skills crossover.
Absences that are still ‘open’ are now shown with a dotted line to indicate that they are ongoing. This will change automatically once the staff member has returned or indicated when they will be returning.
Approving Holiday
Once a staff member has made a request, it will appear as a holiday request needing approval on a manager's dashboard. Holiday Requests needing approval can also be viewed via Reports > Staff Reports > Holiday Approval. Then, you can choose whether to approve or reject a shift. You will see you have the information about how much holiday has already been booked, how this will affect skills and whether this affects any scheduled shifts.
Managers can also choose the order in which they view all holiday requests they must approve. The default is in order of start date, but you can also choose the oldest request first and several other options, including name, length, and end date.
Viewing Absence Calendar
You can also set viewing and altering the absence calendar to restricted personel by managing permissions. This will allow staff to view the absence calendar without access to manage the absences of any staff.
You can also restrict access to the absence category and reason by enabling the privacy option within the absence type.
You can filter by absence type as well, which can be helpful when looking for absences or TOIL requests specifically. These have all been colour coded to simplify visibility.
The calendar view also shows the time of day the request starts and finishes so you can see who is available at any one time and if there is a period when staff are not available.
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