Accessible to Admin, Account Admin, and HR Partner roles

Freshteam allows you to easily customize each Time Off type and set up rules on how it should be accrued, carried over, requested, and so on. Let’s see how that’s done. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. Go to Settings > Time Off > Time Off Setup > Policy



2. You would see a list of Time Off Policies that have been set up by you. Click on the Time Off Policy that you want to change the rules for. 



3. On the Policy details page, scroll down to the bottom part of the screen to find the Time-off Rules section. 




4. Click on the Time Off type you’d like to edit. You will see 4 separate tabs, namely

  • Accrual rules
  • Balance rules
  • Request rules
  • Additional rules

Let's go through these options one by one. 


Accrual Rules 

1. Under Accrual Rules, choose the type of Accrual. 


a. It can be a fixed amount for an accrual frequency 

b. It can be increased based on the tenure of the employee. While doing so, provide the starting balance and tenure milestone after which extra days are added. 

c. It can be unlimited!

 

2. Choose the accrual frequency. If it is Once, the Time Off type would be provided once a year. You can further allow employees to break this time off in Parts, and set a usage limit such that employees cannot use it after the set limit during their tenure. For instance, some companies allow male employees to avail paternity leave of 10 days twice during their tenure. Each time they can break this time off into two parts: 3 and 7 days of time off. If they fail to utilize the 10 days, the remaining days will lapse. 

 


You can also set the accrual frequency for every month, quarter, or year, and allow proration if need be. This will ensure that the leave balances are accurately mapped to employees at the start and end of their tenure. 



Balance Rules

  1. You can choose to set a limit on the Time Off balance.
  2. Allow employees to request time off for a certain number of days after exhausting their time off limit. For instance, if they have exhausted their sick leave limit, they can still apply for sick leave for another 6 days. 

 

Allow the carryover of time off to the next year. You can also add an expiry date by when the carried-over balance should be used.

 

Request Rules


  1. You can set a limit on back-dated time off requests that your employees can apply for. This is particularly important during payroll processing, in the case of unpaid leaves. 
  2. Restrict the number of days for which time off can be granted at a time
  3. Enable auto-approval for time off that is yet to be approved for a certain number of days.

 

Make attachments/medical records mandatory for time off requests of more than a certain number of days. 


Additional rules




  1. Set up a waiting period during which employees cannot place time off requests. For instance, if you do not want new employees to use casual leaves for the first month, you can set up a waiting period of 30 days after which the accrual would begin. 


What's next?