Absence policies

Absence Policies are the group of different rules that you can assign to a contract. You can have as many different policies as you like and assign them to any contract. This allows you to have different policies for different types of employment and also adjust policies over time while maintaining your older policies for staff employed at that time.

Why do we need seperate Absence Policies?

You might need to have different policies for different types of staff. For example, you might have  permanent staff who receive occupational sick pay (OSP)/maternity pay etc, and they would need a policy to encompass all of that. Then, you would need a separate policy for your casual staff who only receive statutory sick pay (SSP) and don't have the same benefits of OSP as permanent staff.
Having Absence Policies, allows you to separate this out in your contracts, so casual contracts can have an absence policy that only includes SSP, and permanent contracts can have the more typical full policy that also includes entries for maternity, paternity, compassionate etc.

You can manage your policies under System > Absence and Breaks > Manage Absence Policies. Add a new policy under the Actions menu.

Each policy holds Policy Entries for different types of absence. So you can have a set of rules for Sickness and a different set for Maternity under a single policy.

Building a policy

First you will need to create a policy. It will need a name and to know whether it should use the Bradford Factor calculation.  Once you have named your new policy, you can edit the set of policies attached. Add all the policy entries that will be required under the contracts you are wanting them to be tied to. Each absence reason (i.e. sickness, training, maternity) can have its own policy assigned. 

Additional absence reasons can be added at the top of the Absence Policies list. This will allow you to add any custom reasons you wish to your policies. You can then expand these custom reasons with detailed policies. 

Phases

Under each policy entry (e.g. sickness) you then have phases. These phases dictate how the policy works; e.g. two months full pay, six months unpaid. And then the system will automatically calculate these phases when someone is absent. For example, a sickness policy might be made up of three phases. The first unpaid, the second paid a full amount and the third paid a smaller amount ect.

This structure is demonstrated below:

The screenshot below shows how that would look once created in StaffSavvy.

You can have as many phases as required and each phase can have different durations and pay items. The pay items instruct the system to add one of those pay items into the payroll system on those eligible days. For example, there is a SSP pay item that will pay a full-day of SSP when someone is absent and eligible.

We can also export the information stored here to your payroll system; please contact StaffSavvy support so we can discuss how best to provide this information.

The Linked Period option allows you to link this phase with a previous absence. For example, if the absence happens again within X weeks, the system will continue this phase rather than restarting the phases.

In addition to simply having one set of phases, you are able to have different sets of phases for different lengths of service. This allows the system to offer different amounts of paid absence depending on how long the staff member has worked at the time of the absence. This is based on their Continuous Employment Start Date.

Absence Reasons

When using absence policies you will also need to have already created some absence reasons. These absence reasons will need to cover the main reasons staff take absences. However, you are also able to add your own custom absence reasons by creating a new absence reason. 

Under your absence type you can set whether it relates to a holiday or an absence. If it relates to an absence you will be able to add it to your absence policy. You can also decide whether this type of absence can be overwritten by other requests.

Additionally, you can make this type of absence only requestable by managers. If this option is enabled staff members will not be able to submit requests. This will only go into effect once you disable the allow self requests option under each relevant reason.

Remember, you are able to edit your own absence reasons at any time but you cannot edit system reasons.

Absence Reason Categories

In addition to the absence reasons, you can add different categories within that absence reason to further break down all reasons for absence. For example, you might have different medical reasons for Sickness.

These categories can be set for a period of absence and can be used in reports for more detailed analysis. You can also enable the ability to make absence reason categories required. This means that an absence must have a category set or you will not be able to add the absence. To do this go to Global Settings > Staff & Contracts > Scroll down to the Absences tab and enable the Require categories to be set if they are available option.

Then, to create a category, simply view the absence policies and use the Manage Absence Reasons, in the Actions menu to view all absence reasons. Then use the Edit Reporting Categories to manage the categories for each absence reason.

You can also decide if you want to add to set it up, so that the system automatically creates and absence record and/or a sickness time entry when that absence reason is used. Under the absence reasons

Reporting absences

You can now report an absence in advance with an absence booking and retrospectively from a staff member’s profile page.

The screenshot below shows the popup where the line manager can quickly add a day of absence. Access this under any staff member’s profile page who has been assigned an absence policy set (even if it’s empty).

Additionally, multiple absence types can be added within a single day. This might be used if a particular kind of absence covers some of a staff member’s hours. 
For example, with maternity pay, if a staff member is transitioning back to work and working half days, this is covered by maternity/paternity leave. But if a staff member is ill during this time, half the day they were off would be covered by maternity/paternity, and the other half might be covered by sick pay.
 

It is important to note that multiple absence types cannot be input in bulk. The two different types of absences must be entered individually for each day. 

This feature can be implemented when reporting an absence from a staff member’s profile page. When inputting the times for each absence type, ensure they do not overlap; otherwise, the absence will not go through. 

Additionally, the system can now automatically calculate part-day absences, ensuring that a holiday that is less than a day is calculated as such.

Reporting on absences via absence report

You can also access and adjust absences via the Absence Report, which can be found under a staff member's profile under absences. These reports will show you all instances of absence and how they are processed within the policy phases. Under duration, you can see the affected days and what that is in hours as well. For more information on how the absence report works visit our article on Absence Reports.

It is worth remembering that this page also gives you quick access to edit an absence or add an absence. 

Adjusting a time entry for an absence

You can also modify time entries for absence, holiday or normal time entries if there is an absence period in place. If you have a time entry in the system already but it is not reported as an absence or holiday (when it should be) you can now simply change the reporting status rather than needing to remove and re-add it.

To use this you must make sure the time entry is covered by an absence or holiday period. Then, edit the time entry. You will be able to change the reporting option at the top of the time entry.

Note: You will only be able to change it to the correct reporting type that matches the period; e.g. if they are on holiday then you can change the time entry to a holiday time entry. If they are absent then it can be changed to an absence time entry only.

Non-attendance record

You can see a record of all unattended shifts via a staff member’s profile under Shifts > Shift Stats. This record will remain in the system under Shift History (will appear as an unauthorised absence). 

You can also view the details of the missed shifts here and can add a note about an absence if you have any relevant information about the absence.

If a valid explanation is given for the unexplained shift absence and changed to sickness it will be removed automatically from this record.

Past sickness confirmation process

If a staff member that has been sick and submitted it after a period of absence, it will automatically display within the notifications panel for any managers who have permission to review their absences.

Each absence will be shown with the type, reason and category (if applicable). It will include the dates and the number of working days affected.

It is worth noting that managers cannot confirm an absence while there are outstanding Performance and Welfare forms linked to that absence.

It is important to note that the system will automatically recalculate absences if changes are made to contract settings, staff contract history, or absence policies.