- Background
- To set up a leave policy that accrues leave based on your worker's regular working hours there are several steps you need to configure:
Background
To use the features described in this article, your organisation will require an add-on subscription to Deputy HR to access Leave Management+.
If you do not have a Deputy HR subscription you can still set up standard leave policies but will be limited to the basic features as described in Introduction to Leave Management.
Set up a leave policy that accrues leave based on a worker's regular working hours
There are ten default leave policies already loaded into your account.
You can use these policies as a starting point to edit and configure to suit your organisation's requirements or set up a new policy if that is preferred.
Set your accrual option
1. When configuring your leave policy you will need to select the accrual option 'Based on regular working hours' as shown below.
Note:
- The amount of 28 days per year for a full-time team member has been pre-filled for you as the default but some organisations may wish to edit this number if their team is eligible for a different amount of leave.
- Part-time team members with regular working hours assigned will receive the equivalent portion of the amount assigned for full-time team members.
- you can set up this leave policy to track in either hours or days but if you select days you will need to specify days worked per work period when setting up the team member's total hours per work period.
2. You can also choose whether this accrued leave will be released each year on:
- a specific date
- the employee's hire date
3. Once you have completed setting up the rest of this leave policy click Save.
Set regular working hours for your team members
The next step is to ensure your team members have regular or total hours set in their employee profiles.
Pro tip: You can also do this step as a bulk action for multiple employees at once if you need.
1. In the employee's profile on the Employment tab, you first need to define a work period.
2. Then agreed hours can be set as either:
- regular working hours in a period (eg. every Monday, Wed and Friday night)
- agreed total hours during a period (eg. 24 hours per week)
If you set regular working hours they may look like this example: If you set the total agreed hours per work period they may look like this example:
Note: as mentioned in the previous section of this article, if you have chosen to:
- set this leave policy up to be tracked in days AND
- enter your team member's agreed hours as total hours per period then you will need to specify over how many days within the nominated work period the team member will work these total hours.
Deputy will need this figure to be able to calculate the leave entitlement for team members set up this way.
Assign the leave policy to your team members
The next step is to assign your new leave policy to the team members you have set up regular working hours for.
Note: you need to have also set up pay rates for your team member before you can assign leave.
1. On the employee's profile, in the Employment tab, select Add Leave entitlements.
2. Select the leave policy you configured for accruing leave based on regular working hours and click Save.
Note: you will receive a warning message at this point if you:
- try to assign a leave entitlement without first setting a pay rate for this employee
- try to assign a leave entitlement that accrues based on regular working hours without setting regular working hours for this employee.
If you assign a leave policy that is tracked in days you will also be asked to nominate Standard hours which is the number of hours that represents a standard day of leave. Read more at Setting up standard hours to support leave management.
How does it work?
Once this policy is set up and assigned to your employee (who has regular working hours set up) they will accrue leave according to the following calculation:
For leave policies set up to track in days:
Leave accrued annually = 5.6* weeks (or 28* days ) x no. of regular working days set in the employee's profile. * This number can be edited by the manager setting up the leave policy and which would then obviously alter the end result. |
Example 1: Leave tracked in days when working less than 5 days per week
Felicity works 3 days per week. Her statutory leave entitlement is the lower of 28 days or 5.6 x 3 days per week, which is 22.4 days.
Therefore, Felicity’s statutory leave entitlement is 22.4 days and Deputy will accrue 22.4 days of leave from Felicity over the year.
Example 2: Leave tracked in days when working more than 5 days per week
Sidney works 6 days per week. His statutory leave entitlement is the lower of 28 days or 5.6 x 6 days per week, which is 33.6 days.
Therefore, Sidney’s statutory leave entitlement is 28 days and Deputy will accrue 28 days of leave for Sidney over the year.
For leave policies set up to track in hours:
Leave accrued annually = 5.6* weeks (or 28* days ) x days worked per week where the average working day is defined as: average working day = hours worked per week ÷ days worked per week. * This number can be edited by the manager setting up the leave policy and which would then obviously alter the end result. |
Example 3: Leave tracked in hours where the team member has fixed regular working hours
Sam works 26 hours over days 4 per week which includes 6 hours per day two days per week and 7 hours per day another two days. Her statutory leave entitlement is the lower of 28 days or 5.6 x 4 days per week, which is 22.4 days.
Sam’s statutory leave entitlement is 22.4 days.
Sam's average working day can be calculated as 26 hours ÷ 4 days = 6.5 hours
Therefore Sam's statutory leave entitlement in hours for a full year is 22.4 days x a 6.5 hour average working day = 145.6 hours and Deputy will accrue 22.4 hours of leave for Sam over the year.
Depending on which day of the week Sam takes off will depend on whether 6 or 7 hours of leave will be deducted from her leave balance.
Example 4: Leave tracked in hours where the worker has no fixed days that they come to work, just an agreement for total hours per work period
Min has an agreement with her organisation to work 20 hours a fortnight and so her employee profile has been set up with a set total hours per period of 20 hours per 2-weeks and her manager has estimated that she would usually complete these 20 hours across 4 working days per period as shown below.
With 20 hours per 2-week period and 4 days worked per period her average working day is calculated as (20 hours ÷ 2 weeks = 10) ÷ (4 days ÷ 2 weeks = 2) = 5 hours.
Her statutory leave entitlement is the lower of 28 days or 5.6 x 2 days per week (or 4 days per 2-week period) which is 11.2 days.
Min's average working day can be calculated as 20 hours ÷ 4 days = 5 hours
Therefore Min's statutory leave entitlement in hours for a full year is 11.2 days x 5 hour average working day = 56 hours and Deputy will accrue 56 hours of leave for Min over the year.
Note: Leave accrued will be released to the employee to take as per the leave policy's setting (on a specific date each year or the employee's hire date).