WFM UK: Reopening Sites - Holidays

Overview

This article contains guidance on reopening sites in Fourth's HR & Payroll product, relating specifically to emlployee holidays. 

This guidance was provided for customers in response to the covid-19 pandemic/lockdown.

Follow this link to return to the Workforce Management Reopening Checklist.

Holiday Allowances

When reopening a site, it is advisable to review employees' accrued holidays and days remaining, as there may be limited time available for them to take their accrued holiday before the end of your holiday year.

Holiday Reports

The 'Holiday - Year To Date Report' can be used to show days allowed, days accrued, days taken, and days remaining for each employee.

• Go to HR module > Reports > View Reports > Holiday - Year To Date
• The Select Holiday Date field will typically be the current date, as this will produce the most accurate year to date results

To see which dates have already been booked for the remainder of the year, the 'Holiday Status Report' can be used.

• Go to HR module > Reports > View Reports > Holiday Status
• Select the Location or Division required and the relevant date range

Once run, the report will display the holiday request dates as well as the statuses. The report be exported as a CSV file and then filtered as required in Excel.

Another way to see which days employees have booked is to use the Holiday Calendar.

• Go to HR module > Holidays and Absences > View Calendar
• Select a From date and a required Duration, and then Search

Fig.1 - Holidays and Absences > View Calendar

 Fig. 2 - Holiday Calendar

This will produce a calendar view of any holidays booked within the selected period.

Unauthorised Holidays

Any holiday requests that have been created but not authorised or declined will remain in the holiday authorisation section on the HR module home screen of the person that employee reports to. While these holiday requests will not affect the employee’s entitlement, it could prevent requests from being seen and authorised in the future. Therefore, it is recommended that any unauthorised requests are either deleted, declined, or authorised as appropriate.

• The easiest way to do this is to go to HR > Holidays and Absences > Employee Holidays
• Select a relevant date range and for the Holiday Status, select Unauthorised
• Select Search

Fig.3 - Searching for unauthorised holidays

• Using the tick boxes to the left of the requests, Authorise or Delete the holidays as required

 
Fig.4 - Authorise or Delete holiday requests

• Alternatively, open an individual holiday request, and change the Status as required 

 Fig.5 - Changing the status of an individual holiday request

Deleting Authorised Holidays

There may be holiday requests that were created and authorised prior to employees going on furlough, which may need to be deleted so that they are added back to the employees’ entitlement.

• These can be deleted following the same steps as above: Go to HR > Holidays and Absences > Employee Holidays
• Select a relevant date range and for the Holiday Status, select Unauthorised
• Select Search
• Using the tick boxes to the left of the requests, Authorise or Delete the holidays as required

If there are too many requests to be managed manually, please reach out to Fourth to see how we can support.

Holiday Accrued for Casual Employees

Unlike full-time, part-time and flexible employees, casual employees do not have an annual holiday allowance but rather accrue holidays based on hours actually worked at 12.07% of each hour. While sites have been closed, these employees will not have been working. Therefore, no hours will have been scheduled and they will not have accrued any holiday during this time.

Employers may wish to add holiday hours that would have been accrued to casual employees' entitlement.

To do this:

• First calculate the number of hours that would have been worked -  this could be based on average or agreed hours
• Multiply the number of hours by 12.07% to get the number of holiday hours accrued
• These holiday hours can then be added to the hours accured by creating holiday requests with negative values, thus adding to the hours remaining while allowing the hours accrued to continue to calculate once the employee returns to work.

This can be managed by Fourth customers for each employee. Guidance can be found in the following article: WFM - Carrying Over Holidays: Hours

Alternatively, Fourth can do this via a chargeable data load. Please reach out to your Fourth contact to discuss cost and lead times.

Carrying Over Holidays

It may be decided for employees to carry over some of their accrued holiday into the next holiday year, in line with legislation. Fourth will be developing functionality to allow for this.

However, if a customer's new holiday year starts before this functionality is released, holidays can still be carried over.
As with holidays accrued for casual employees, this can be done by creating holiday requests with a negative value. These 'negative' requests will be added onto employees' holidays remaining without altering the allowance. Doing it this way allows the holiday allowance for flexible employees to continue to flex according to their working patterns, and avoids further additional administration to remove overrides at the start of the next holiday year.

A step-by-step guide on how to do this for individual employees can be found here: WFM - Carrying Over Holidays: Days

Alternatively, Fourth can do this via a chargeable data load. Please reach out to your Fourth contact to discuss cost and lead times.

Booking and Paying for Holidays

It may be necessary to process holidays for some employees while they are on furlough. Given that rotas would not be in use, these holidays would not be managed in the normal way by authorising the request in HR then pushing through to payroll on submission of the rota. Therefore these will need to be managed separately in HR and Payroll, bypassing the rotas.

The holidays will need to be created in HR, in order for them to be recorded as days taken and therefore deducted from their days remaining, and the payment for the holiday will need to be calculated and uploaded directly into payroll.
If there is small number of employees to book holidays for, Fourth recommends creating and authorising the holiday requests for the individual employees in the normal way:

• Go to HR module > Employees > Employee List > search for and select the employee > select Create Holiday Request > select dates > save > authorise > save

If there are multiple employees to book holidays for, Fourth can do this via a chargeable data load. Please reach out to your Fourth contact to discuss cost and lead times.

To pay the employees, a payment upload template will need to be completed and sent to your Payroll Specialist to process in the next pay run.

• The upload template can be downloaded by going to Payroll > select Upload Payments (quick link) > select Download Sample File
  

If you do not use Fourth's Bureau service, this file can be uploaded in the same Upload Payments screen.

Some reports may need to be run to calculate the holiday payments, or to find out how many days employees have accrued and taken to date. Below are some reports that may be useful:

Holiday Accrual Journal

• Payroll > Reports > Exports > Holiday Accrual Journal
  This is a year to date report so will display values for days allowed, days accrued, days remaining and taken effective as of the date selected. It includes employees’ salaries and hourly rates, as well as values for holidays accrued but not yet taken, and taken holidays that haven’t yet been accrued

Holiday - Year To Date

• HR > Reports > View Reports > Holiday – Year To Date
  This will show employees’ holiday allowance, days accrued, days taken, days booked and days remaining effective up to a specified date. When run in excel, it will also display employees’ salaries and hourly rates, as well as employment status and FTE

HR Customised Report

• HR > Reports > Customised Report > Create Template > enter Description > select Report Type: Holiday Data > Save > select required fields > Save
  The fields available to be selected include days allowed, days taken, days accrued, as well as average days, average hours and holiday day rate for flexible employees. This will help to identify flexible employees’ current holiday day rates, which can then be used in the payment upload.

Please be aware that an effective date cannot be select for this report, so the data returned will be accurate as of the date it is run.

Holiday Status or Holiday Status Export

• HR > Reports > View Reports > Holiday Status OR HR > Reports > Exports > Holiday Status Export
  This can be run for a specific date range to show all holiday requests booked within this period. It will open as a CSV file so can be easily filtered, and includes fields such as request date, date authorised, paid/unpaid, status, salaried/hourly.

As you think about re-opening readiness, we know that the safety of your staff and guests will be paramount. Fourth has developed an in-app survey for your team members to declare they are well and able to work ahead of starting their shift. This will be available from the 18^th of June, don’t forget to express your interest!

Also, explore what additional functionality is available from Fourth on Workforce Management and all of the Workforce Management Editions available from Fourth!