Absence management

In the following article, you will learn as administrator how to set up absence and illness types, homeoffice, work schedules and public holidays, and how to edit, correct or evaluate various absences and sick leave notifications for your employees. 

Table of contents

Introduction

1. Assign administrator role
2. Basic Settings and vacation parameters
3. Create absence types
4. Allow home office 
5. Define work schedules
6. Create permanent establishments and holidays
7. Create sickness kinds
8. Import absences and vacation corrections
9. Edit absences
10. Edit sickness notification

11. Evaluate absences and create reports

12. Transparent calendar overview

Introduction

With HRworks the complete absence management runs digitally and without annoying paperwork. You can now dispense with illegible application forms and impractical Excel tables. Thanks to Employee Self Service and electronic workflows, your personnel department is relieved enormously with the introduction of the absence management software. Supervisors are automatically informed by e-mail and can immediately accept or reject applications. Holiday accounts and calendars are maintained without additional effort and can be called up by employees and superiors at any time and from anywhere.

1. Assign administrator role

First assign the appropriate admin roles to the person responsible for the absences.

Open the persons menu as master administrator at “Admin/Persons/Persons” by double-clicking on the wanted name. Once you are in the employee menu, you go to "Master data/roles and authorizations/tab"roles". Set the checkmarks of absence Administration at “Time management”. Below the roles select the organizational units, for which the assigned roles are valid. Check your settings and confirm your selection by clicking “Save”. 

2. Basic Settings and vacation parameters

In the Admin menu “Time management/Absences/Settings” you will find all the settings that were already entered during software setup. Take a look at the settings in each tab and check whether the information is up to date. These can be changed or supplemented at any time. 

If you would like to edit or redefine the holiday entitlements of your employees, open the “Types of holiday” tab. Click on the “New” button and enter the name for the new leave type. Select the country for legal regulations and confirm the process with “OK”. Now enter all the necessary information below. In addition to basic settings, you can also define an age-related and affiliation related vacation.

Age-related vacation

In this tab you can create a holiday entitlement that depends on the employee’s age. Select the “New” button and double-click in the line to enter the required information. Close the process with “Save”.

Holidays for company affiliation

In this tab you can click on “New” to define a holiday entitlement that depends on the employee’s length of company affilitation. Double-click in the line to enter the information. Close the process with “Save”.

Vacation blockages

For important occasions in your company in which all employees should participate, you define leave blocks for these days/periods. Select the “New” button in “Admin-Menu/Time management/Absences/Vacation blockages” and fill in the required information. Decide which organizational units the leave block should apply to below. Confirm your selection with “Save”.

3. Create absence types

In admin menu “Time management/Absences/Absence types”, define which absence types should be available to your employees. The translation keys are fixed for the already existing absence types. They are for export/import purposes only. The absence types can be copied, activated/deactivated or deleted with a right mouseclick. In each “Public” column, you can decide whether the absences should also be visible to other employees as soon as they are entered. 

To create a new absence type, select the “New” button. In the following window, enter the name of the newly defined absence type and specify whether it reduces the leave entitlement or the time account or not. Complete the process with “OK”.

Enable overtime reduction

With the absence type “Reduction of overtime” you enable employees to compensate their overtime with vacation. This absence type reduces the employee’s time account and can only be used by persons who record their working times digitally (see also “Time recording”). Define the criteria for the absence type in other columns and save the transaction. 

4. Allow home office

Allow your employees to work from home office. Open the menu of the employee as master administrator in admin menu “Persons/Persons” by double-clicking on the corresponding name. Then, in “Master data/Roles and authorizations”, set the checkbox “May request home office” in the “Authorizations” tab. If you want to leave the decision about home office to your employees, also select the option “Approve own home office requests”.

With this authorization, your employees can submit home office requests in their employee menu “Time management/Home office”. 

The supervisor approves the home office requests of his team same way as the absence requests. 

Your basic settings of home office are managed in the admin menu "Time management/Absences/Settings/Tab "Home office". Choose the name and limitation, if needed.

 If you would like to select a specific color for calendar view, open the “Colors of absences” tab in your admin menu “Time management/Absences/Settings” and select the desired color by clicking in the colored field.

Home office days can also be evaluated or exported via the “Absences overview” report in admin menu “Time management/Absences/Reports”. Activate the export of home office requests at the export parameters in admin menu “Time management/Absences/Settings/Tab "Export parameters” . 

5. Define work schedules

In the admin menu “Time management/Basics/Work schedules”, define which work schedules should be available for your employees. Based on the work schedule, HRworks calculates the employees’ leave entitlement. The work plans can be edited, saved as standard work schedules, newly created at any time. With the checkbox “Holidays according to working time” you can decide if the employees’ leave entitlement should be calculated from their actual hours worked. 

You can edit work schedules below. If you want to create a new work plan, select “New” and enter the key data. Select the working hours and working days right hand by clicking in each weekday. Use the upper Save button to save all changes.

To assign the newly defined work plan to a person, open the employee´s menu “Time management/Absences” at the admin menu “Persons/Persons” by double-clicking on the corresponding name. Select the button “Work schedules”. In the following window you can change your work schedule by douple-clicking in the assigned work schedule. Select the newly created work schedule from the dropdown menu. Then enter the start date and save the process. 

If a work schedule is defined as “standard”, it is automatically applied to all new employees.

6. Create permanent establishments and public holidays

Permanent establishments

First create your various company facilities in the admin menu “Basics/Permanent establishments”. The holidays of the employees are based on the deposited state of the assigned facilitiy. Click on “New” and enter all necessary informations below.

When adding a new persons to the system, you assign a permanent establishment to the employee. 

If an employee changes to another permanent establishment, open the person in the admin menu “Persons/Persons” and double-click on his or her name. Go to the employee menu “Master data/Assignments”, select the tab “Historicized assignments” and mark the corresponding line. For a historicized assignment add a new line with a new beginn date. Then select the requested permanent establishment below and click on “Save”. 

Public holidays

For managing your public holidays open the admin menu “Time management/Basics/Public holidays” and check the holidays already stored. Here you can enter company holidays such as Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve. These can either be valid for a whole country, federal state or only for a single operating establishment. 

To create a new holiday, click on the desired country, federal state or permanent establishment and select the “New public holiday” button. Click in the line to enter the required information and save it.

If you would like to have the holiday stored for several years, click right and select the option “Copy for several years” with a right click. In the following window select the next years and execute with "Ok".

7. Create sickness kinds

In the admin menu “Time management/Absences/Sickness kinds”, define which types of sickness should be available for your employees. These can be deactivated, deleted or newly created. The key is for export/import purposes only. In the “Public” column, you can decide if the sickness should also be visible to other employees as soon as entered. 

To create a new sickness kind, select the “New” button. Click on the added line to enter all necessary information. End the process with “Save”.

8. Import absences and vacation corrections

If you want to import absences or corrections, go to the admin menu “Time management/Absences/ Vacation Import”. New types of vacation, absences, sick leave and corrections to leave entitlement can be assigned to individual persons or entered for individual persons via an import. 

Format for importing vacation types:

Personnel number/Identifier;Year;Vacation type key

Example: 5014;2003;Yes

Format for importing vacation corrections: 

Personnel number/Identifier;Year;Date;Number of days (positive/negative);Remark

Example: 5014;2003;12.05.2003;2;Weekend work

Format for importing new absences:

Personnel number;Begin date;End date;Begin date is half a day;End date is half a day;Absence deputy (several separated by commas);Status of absence;Absence type key

Example:
4711;01.07.2015;02.07.2015;H;H;4712;Requested;Yes
4711;01.06.2015;02.06.2015;;H;;Checked, OK;Yes
4711;01.05.2015;02.05.2015;;;;Entering;UU

Format for sickness notifications:

Personnel number;Start date;End date;Start date is half a day;End date is half a day;Substitute (several separated by comma);Status of sick report;Key for illness type

Example:
4711;01.07.2015;02.07.2015;H;H;4712;Reported;SWoC
4711;01.06.2015;02.06.2015;;H;;Checked, OK;SWP
4711;01.05.2015;02.05.2015;;;;Pending sickness certificate;SWiC

 

The files must be saved in CSV format without the headline with field names. 

If you have set up the import file accordingly, select the desired import type by clicking on “Upload”.

In the following window, upload the import file using the “Choose  file” button. If your file is encoded in UTF-8 format, check the corresponding box. Special traits, such as umlauts, are converted correctly. Then click on “Upload”. If the imported data have been transferred to HRworks, complete the process with “Import all”.

The vacation import data are then transferred directly to the employee’s leave account in their employee menu “Time Management/Absences”.

9. Edit absences

As an “absence administrator”, you can edit absences for employees in your organizational unit(s) or enter new absences. First open the personal absence menus of the person whose absences you want to edit. Double-click on the name in the admin menu “Persons/Persons” and open the employees menu “Time management/Absences”. 

Create new absence

To add an absence, click on “New Absence” and enter the information in the following window. If you would like to add one or more substituts this request, who must agree to the absence before it gets approved by the superior, click on the button “Add substitute” and select one college in the dropdown menu. If necessary, you can also change the status of the absence. Now close the application with “Save”.

Edit recorded absences

To edit an absence that has already been approved, select it and change the details in the following input window. The changes you have made are executed with “Save”. If a requested absence does not take place, select it and right-click on “Delete”. 

10. Edit sickness notification

As an “absence administrator”, you can edit or create new sickness notifications for employees in your organizational unit(s). First open the personal absence menu of the employee whose sick certificates you want to edit. Double-click on the name in the Admin menu  “Persons/Persons” and open the  employee menu “Time management/Absences”.

Create new sickness notification

To enter a sickness notification, click on “Report sick” and enter the data in the following window. In the case of sickness notification with sickness certificate you can upload this certificate by using the “Attach” button. If you would like to add a substitute to this notification, select the person from the available drop-down menu. To inform the colleagues in the employee’s team about the absence by e-mail, click on “New” or “Add own team”. With those options all employees with the same superior are notified of the colleague’s sick leave. 

If required, you can change the status of the sick notification. Once you have entered all the details, complete the process with “Report sick”.

Edit reported sickness notification

As an administrator, you will be informed by e-mail about the sickness notifications of your employees:

Managethe sickness notifications of your employees individually via the button "Edit"in the e-mail. 

In the menu “Inbox/My to-do’s” you will find all submitted sick reports under your administrator tasks. By double-clicking on the task, you will be forwarded to the corresponding menu for editing. In this menu you receive an overview of all recorded sick reports of your employees. The messages with the status “Reported” still have to be checked.

By clicking on the corresponding line, you can edit the sickness notification below. Check the data and the attached sickness certificate and confirm the message with “Checked, OK”. 

If a sickness notification is submitted without sickness certificate although it is required, select the “Pending sickness certificate” button. The employee will be informed by e-mail:

You can also manage sickness certificates yourself by opening the “Manage certificate” menu:

Assign sickness notification to sickness pay marks

If one of the employees becomes ill frequently or for a long time, check the number of sick days reported. If the sickness-related absence exceeds 42 days, contact the health insurance fund responsible to find out whether the employee is entitled to sickness pay mark. If you receive confirmation that the employee was ill for the same health reasons, you can assign the sick certificates to a sickness pay mark. Then apply to the relevant health insurance fund for payment of continued sickness payment.

Open the admin menu “Time management/Absences/Sickness payments” and select the person from the dropdown menu. Select the corresponding sick certificates by holding down the control key (Ctrl) and right-click to select the option “Assign sickness pay mark”. 

Then you receive the following message:

Define the sickness pay mark here and complete the assignment by clicking on “Save”. If further sickness certificates are added in the future, use drag & drop to move them from the unassigned view to the area of the stored sickness pay mark.

Evaluate employee sickness days

Use the Health Management function to evaluate the Bradford factor and the sickness days of all employees in the last 52 weeks. The statistics are automatically updated every week or can be re-evaluated daily.

Bradford-Factor

Employees with frequent, short and unplanned absences achieve a higher score and are marked with different colors.

The function allows to highlight the disproportionate disruption of the performance of an organizational unit caused by short-term absences compared to individual cases of prolonged illness.

Interpretation of the Bradford factor:

Score 1 to 200: There are no signs of absenteeism and therefore no need for action.

Score 201 to 449: There are first signs of motivation-related absenteeism.

Score from 450: There is an urgent need for action.

Sickness-Heatmap

The sickness days are displayed from Monday to Sunday. The background color of the individual days varies between green and red. 

Light green means that the employee was never absent due to illness or did not have to work on days when he was on sick leave. 

Dark red means that the employee missed at least 20% of his planned working days due to illness.

To make the illness statistics also visible for superiors, activate the same named option in the admin menu “Time management/Absences/Settings” in the “Sickness notifications” tab. 

11. Evaluate absences and create reports

With few steps, you receive informative evaluations of your employees’ absences. Thanks to exports to time recording systems, absence management can be optimally integrated into your existing software landscape and organizational structure.

The following reports are available in the admin menu “Time management/Absences/Reports”. The available reports are: Absences export, Absence overview; Attendance by months; Absences export; Sickness notifications by months; Sickness payment; Unplanned days overview; Vacation overview; Vacation certificate.

Select the desired report and file format from the available dropdown menus. In the next tabs, determine which organizational units, persons and which period should be taken into account for the evaluation. Please note, to activate the correct status in the same named tab. "Checked, OK" equals approved absences. Finally click on “Start report”. 

If the status below reads “Created”, download the report by clicking on “Download” or by double-clicking.

12. Transparent calendar overview

Absences and vacation days are automatically entered in the calendar and posted to the employee’s vacation account. The travel expense reports are also marked in the calendar. Date overlaps or staff shortages are recognized early and planning errors can be prevented. 

You can view the calendar overview in the “Company calendar” menu either on a weekly basis or by organizational unit or superior.