WFM UK | Suspending an Employee

Overview

This article explains the process of creating a suspension record for an employee in the HR module, and gives guidance on actions that can also be taken in Payroll, Rota, and Scheduling modules when an employee is suspended from work. 

An alternative way of handling an employee's suspension is to use the 'Absences' functionality - details can be found at the end of the article.

Creating a Suspension in the HR Module

When a suspension record is created for an employee, the system will handle them similarly to those who have been terminated. This means that they will lose access to Workforce Management but can still access the 'self-service' area of their Fourth app, where they can view their documents (payslips, take-home amounts, P60s, etc)

This is based on a setting in the Fourth Account Service (FAS), which uses the same profile ID for terminated and suspended employees. Please reach out to your Fourth contact to have this changed, if needed.

• Go to HR > Employees > Employee List > search for and select the required employee
• Use the employee side menu and go to HR > Employee HR Info > Suspensions
• Select Create a Suspension

• Enter the details as required
  • Start and End Date of Suspension
    • The End Date can be left blank, but must be completed when the suspension ends
  • State of Suspension -  Full Pay or Without Pay
    • This state is mainly intended for reporting purposes. Manual adjustments in the Payroll module are required to prevent/continue the employee's pay - see the Payroll section below
    • Suspending this employee Without Pay will remove all of their hours, breaks and tips from all open rotas (including multiple employments) within the date range specified.
  • Outcome of Suspension - this would typically be set to Pending first and then later updated to Employee Terminated, Suspension Removed, or Other - see 'Outcome of Suspension Options' section below
• Reason for the Suspension - add information as required here in this free text field
• Then select Save

Suspended accounts are not deleted after a certain amount of time, like terminated accounts are, and will return to normal after the suspension ends, or the Outcome is set to Suspension Removed.

'Outcome of Suspension' Options

When a suspension ends (the End Date passes), the Outcome Of Suspension should be updated.

These selections will have the following effect

• Employee Terminated - select this and Save to be taken to the employee termination screen, where the employee can be terminated (this can be done at a later stage if needed)
• Suspension Removed - the suspension will no longer show on the rota, and any affected future shifts will return to normal
  • This will also happen if the outcome remains on 'Pending' when the End Date is reached
• Other - selecting this makes the 'Outcome' text field mandatory - type in notes as required

Suspensions Resulting in Termination

A suspended employee can be terminated by changing the 'outcome' of their suspension record.

• With the employee in question selected, use the employee side menu and go to HR > Employee HR Info > Suspensions
• Select the relevant suspension record
• Change the Outcome of Suspension to Employee Terminated and then Save

This will open the 'Termination Details' page.

• Follow the guidance in this article on employee termination

Scheduling Module

Payroll

Manual adjustments will need to be made in the Payroll module for a suspended employee's pay (or lack thereof).

Using Absences

Instead of creating a suspension record for an employee, customers can instead decide to create an absence. This can be set up to show as 'suspended' on the schedule, or something else if they do not want to make the suspension known to other employees. Using an absence will not restrict the employee's access to any Fourth product.

For guidance on absences, please see WFM UK | HR: Absences