Leave Module; The “goto” module when you need a break
Where To Start ?
It is recommended to understand the OrangeHRM system’s modular architecture and how it counters the most recent HRM problem before going through this article. You can refer to my introductory article to this series named Modern HRM needs and the answer from OrangeHRM.
I’m gonna discuss the needs for a leave module and how the OrangeHRM cater those needs using some of the main features developed for that module.
Introduction
Leave management processes hold an important place in organizational policies simply because paid time off has a significant financial impact on a company’s bottom line. Employers are therefore always looking for paperless, effective solutions that reduce or eliminate the margin of error in leave benefits calculations.
Complex and manually managed leave programs can be costly and may not guarantee an error free process. Therefore, automating leave management proves to be an intelligent solution. So modern HRIS must identify this need and should develop self-service portals where employees can request leaves and access leave benefits. Then managers can view and approve leave requests in real time. The system should automatically monitor employee leave requests and evaluate each request against the employee leave balances. It should also track all outstanding, approved and unapproved employee leave applications and maintain records as required.
So as a modern HRIS, OrangeHRM has identified those needs and developed the Leave module. Leave module will dictate the leave workflows of the employees in the company. Employees will have access to the module according to their user roles. We can categorize the features of this module as follows. These are based on the predefined user roles in the system. But these privileges can be overridden by creating custom user roles.
Global Admin User :
- Can view and define leave entitlements for any type of employee in any location.
- Can add company holidays
- Can view leaves taken by the employees
- Can generate leave reports.
Supervisor :
- Can view both personal and the subordinates leave entitlements and the usage.
- Can approve or reject subordinates leave requests.
- Can assign leaves for subordinates.
ESS :
- Can request leave from the supervisor
- Can view the leave entitlements and the leave usage.
The Leave Module has several subcategories under it. These can be listed as follows
- Apply
- My Leave
- Entitlements
- Reports
- Configure
- Leave List
- Assign Leave
- Leave Calendar
- Bulk Assign
Let me explain some of the main features in this module. Those features will give a subtle idea how this module provides answers for modern HRM needs.
I) Configure
Leave policies can differ from organization-wise. So modern HRIS must identify these features and should provide a way to capture them organization-wise. Increasing features with higher customizability is the best way to deliver the solutions. Because HR admins can model their policies in the system that will eventually provide higher benefits for the organization. So in order to provide a highly customizable module OrangeHRM has developed a configuration tab for the Leave Module.
Configure tab has features to define Leave periods and what type of leaves that can be taken, A special indicating tool to value the effects from leaves for the performance of the company. It also can define company holidays. All of the above features are targeted at providing a way to develop the leave policies in the system as they were in the organization. As this features are built in self-configurable manner HR admins can easily replicate the company policies in the system.
Most of the subcategories in this tab are self-explanatory. Out of them, I will explain about Bradford Factor Threshold as it is an innovative tool built to analyze the performance against the leaves taken by the employee.
i) Bradford Factor Threshold
Absenteeism is an employee’s intentional or habitual absence from work. While employers expect workers to miss a certain number of workdays each year, excessive absences can equate to decreased productivity and can have a major effect on company finances, morale and other factors. Unauthorized absences can have a really bad effect on your business. So a systematic way to interpret and analyze causes of absenteeism, the costs of lost productivity and what employers can do to reduce absenteeism rates in the workplace is important in HRM. So to aid that purpose Bradford Factor was developed.
The Bradford Factor is a mathematical formula that calculates a score based on absence patterns. The higher an employee’s score, the more problematic their absence pattern. But rather than simply scoring employees based on number of days taken off, The Bradford Factor calculation adds weight to the number of instances.
For example, if you took 3 individual sick days spread over 3 weeks, you would get a higher score than somebody who took 1 block of 4 sick days.
HR systems include an automatic Bradford Factor scoring feature. Different companies have different trigger points, and once an employee hits that trigger point, this is a sign that the company will now take action (normally a progressive series of warnings for each time the trigger point is hit). If you want to learn more about Bradford factor I will provide a link at the end of this article.
Due to above mentioned importance, OrangeHRM has develpoed this method into this module. The Bradford Factor can have different thresholds. It is different for each company. The client’s threshold values can be defined. So it can be configured according to the client’s intereest. If an employee’s Bradford Factor value crosses a defined threshold point, an email notification will be sent.
II) Entitlements
Leave entitlements mean organization defined and accepted leaves assigned to a particular employee. The organization may define these leave entitlements due to
- Legal Reasons:- To be in accordance with the company laws.
- Cultural Reasons:- Different countries have different cultures. And due to that, there are different socially accepted and the government ordered holidays. So organization must also add to their leave policies accordingly.
- Gender Based Reasons:- There are certain leaves that have to be assigned based on the gender. eg:- maternity leave entitlements for female employees.
So as we can see there are many factors that need to be consider when developing a leave policy for an organization. These get even more complicated if the organization has a global distribution. They also differ vastly from organization-wise, geographical location-wise, culture wise etc. So modern HRIS must be built considering these factors. Leave managemnt system must capture this need for heavy customization and must provide a flexible, easy way to model them inside the system.
In OrangeHRM system this features are provided in the entitlements tab in the Leave Module. It contains forms that have defined different types of leave entitlements and ways to map them to the employees. The following figure shows the form which used to add a new leave type for an employee.
III) Reports
Leave usage reports are very crucial in strategic level HR management processes. Because from a report the strategic level personnel in the organization can have a snapshot about the employee leave usage and how have they affected the organization. By extracting information from these reports they can give better, fairer and quicker decisions for both the organization and the employee. So HRIS system must have the ability to provide better reports mapping against various parameters. This is exactly the solution provides by the report tool in Leave module.
The reporting tool in leave module has various functions to provide reports based on
- Employee: Leave report regarding a certain em
- Leave type: Leave reports based on different types of leaves
- Particular period: Leave taken on a certain period by certain employees or certain leave types.
So by mixing up with different parameters HR admins can receive clearer analytical and better reports. It also has a feature to value the leave
This option also feature a way to transfer the report in CSV format. So these reports can be taken out of the OrangeHRM system to local machine for further uses. HR admins can use another tool such as Microsoft Excel to make changes to these files and to make modifications.
IV) Bulk Assign
This option is developed to cater scenarios where there is a need to assign leaves based on the department or any other common parameter. If there is a need to assign leaves due to the relevant employee’s religious reasons can be taken as an example. So the HR admins can simply filter out the relevant employees and can assign leaves not assigning them one by one.
There are many other features in this module that will help an HR admin to do his/her daily tasks smoothly. Those features are mostly self explantory and can be easily understood. If you want to have a better practical understanding about the OrangrHRM system go to the following link and download the free Open Source product of them.
Summary
Automating the leave management process can help facilitate a trouble free and more positive employee-employer work relationship, while also ensuring business productivity is not compromised. Setting up an effective leave automation system allows employees and employers to connect in a way that is more productive and engaging for all parties. Good workforce management practices implemented with HR management software can help an organization to accelerate it’s growth. OrangeHRM Leave Module is developed deliver those extensive needs. This module has a high flexibility for it’s clients providing many ways to customize it’s features. This is very crucial need if an organization needs to achieve a superior HR management process.
If you want learn more about the Bradford Factor go to the following page in the link
