Absence Policies & Reporting

Until now, attendance was always linked to shift attendance. These features allow the ability to record attendance and non-attendance without shifts.

In addition, you can create complex policies to manage attendance between your staff. For example, the system provides a policy that manages Statutory Sick Pay automatically for staff. This includes calculating ‘Waiting’ and ‘Eligible’ days. This can be managed under Dashboard > System > Absence and Breaks > Manage Absence Policies.

It will also correctly continue a single instance of sickness even if they return to work for short periods of time under the SSP rules.

Absence Policies

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 combination of contracts. 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.

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.

Under each policy entry (e.g. sickness) you then have phases. These phases dictate how the policy works; e.g. two months full pay, 6 months unpaid. And the system will automatically calculate these phases when someone is absent.

The structure is shown below:

Once you are named your new policy, you can edit the set of policies attached.

Each type of absence can have their own policy assigned. For example, the sickness policy might be made up of three phases. The first being unpaid, the second paid a full amount and a third at a smaller amount.

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.

The screenshot below will show the three different phases.

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’re also able to export the information stored here for your payroll system; please get in touch with StaffSavvy support so we can discuss how best to provide this information for your payroll system.

The Linked Period option allows you to link this phase together with a previous absence. For example, if absence happens again within X weeks then 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.

You can always Block Staff Being Assigned Shifts During Approved Holiday or Absence or just clock extra/swap shifts for staff.To use: Manage under the Shifts & Time Entries tab of each contract.

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 within Sickness.

These categories can be set for a period of absence and be used in reports for more detailed analysis.

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

Reporting Absence

You can now report absence on a shift, in advance with an absence booking and retrospectively from the 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 a staff member’s profile page who has been assigned an absence policy set (even if it’s empty).

Reporting on Absences via Absence Report

You are also able to access and adjust absences via the Absence Report found under staff member's profile under absences.

From here you can view an Absence Report. These reports will show you all instances of absence and how they are processed within the policy phases. You also have quick access to edit an absence or add an absence from the Actions menu.

You can manually set absences by the hour rather than just by days or half days. You can specify how long the day is that the staff member was off for and how much of a deduction should then be reported. This can be manually input when editing an absence, which can be reached via a staff member’s profile, under their absence tab. From here click to go into the absence report and choose to edit the absence period.

You have the option here to specify the hour they left and the hour they returned, ensuring specificity when calculating deductions.

Then, back to the absence report under duration you can see the affected days, and what that is in hours as well.

The absences will also automatically be used to calculate the staff member’s Bradford Factor:

Adding in a Time Entry for an Absence

You can change time entries between 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 absence or holiday when it should be then you can now simply change the reporting status rather than needing to remove and re-add it.

To use 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

There is a recorded entry of the number of shifts not attended, easily accessed on a staff member’s profile under Shifts > Shift Stats and will remain as part of Shift history. This will come up as Unauthorised Absences.

You can view the details of the missed shifts and can add a note about absence if there is 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 the 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 the staff 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.

‘Display confirmation requirement for sickness that has been closed’ (This will require managers to review and confirm the absence).

They cannot confirm the absence while there are outstanding Performance and Welfare forms linked to that absence.