Deputy is rolling out a new leave management system which is currently only available to select customers in the UK and US before being made available more widely later this year.

This article is intended for Deputy customers using the new leave management feature. If you are a Deputy Premium customer in the UK and not using the new system yet, please read Preparing to migrate to the new leave management experience.

New leave management experience rollout

What are the main features of the new leave management experience compared to the existing system in Deputy?

System Administrators can create and configure more tailored leave policies in their Deputy account with many more settings available to assist them with ensuring their team members receive their correct leave entitlements.
There are three new default UK-specific leave policies that will be loaded into your account that may assist with calculating leave for teams in the UK.
Depending on the legislation you need to comply with, it's now easier to set up leave policies that assist with accruing leave:
Depending on the legislation you need to comply with, it's now possible to calculate the average working hours per day for a team member who may work varied shift lengths over a past reference period in your organisation so that you can determine how many hours a 'day of leave' such a team member is entitled to.

Note: If you have a Scheduling-only plan, you will need to manually amend the team member's leave balance. There is no automation of leave balance accrual/deduction available.

Who has access to this new experience?

Currently, only a select group of customers in the US are on the new leave management experience. It will be rolled our to more US customers in the near future.

If you are a Premium customer in the UK and aren't yet on the new leave experience you can migrate over to it now.

How can I tell if I have the new leave management experience enabled in my account?

System Administrators can open Business settings and click on the Leave tab. If they can see the Leave Policy Builder NEW as shown below, then they have the new experience.

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If I don't have the new leave management experience enabled in my account where can I get help on leave management in my Deputy account?

Please see our collection of Leave Management help articles or contact Support.

Leave policy set up

If the leave policies already set up in my Deputy account don't fit my situation can I create my own?

Yes, see How to set up leave policies (UK only) for more information.

How do I delete a leave policy I set up but no longer want?

For data integrity purposes it is currently not possible to archive or delete an existing leave policy. This feature may be introduced in the future.

In the meantime, a workaround solution may be to amend the name of the policy or create a group called Archived Policies and categorise the unwanted leave policies there.

Can you change the leave default name eg. Annual Leave (Vacation) to just Annual Leave?

Yes, you can change the policy name but be mindful of any connected payroll systems before you consider altering the leave export code.

Requesting, approving or changing leave

Why is a leave type not showing up for an employee to request it?

If the leave policy exists in your Deputy account but the employee can not see it then either:

1. It is not assigned to them in their employee profile OR

2. The leave type is set as not visible to team members by the System Administrator of your Deputy account

When a Location Manager or System Administrator approves leave they can see all the leave policies in the Deputy account not just those assigned to the employee in their employee profile, why is this?

This is correct. This feature is available so that Location Managers and System Administrators have the discretion to assign a leave type to a leave request where that leave type may not be visible to the team members, such as bereavement leave.

If a team member requests leave and it comes up as a day, do I have to enter the times in to get the right hours or does the system do it for me?

The start and end times and shift length populated for a 'day of leave' defaults to the default shift length entered in the location setting (less the default break time) until the manager selects the leave type. Then, once the manager slects a leave type or that day of leave Deputy will look at a number of factors to suggest a standard shift time and length for this employee. These factors are discussed in more detail in Setting standard hours for a work day when managing leave.

Regardless of what shift times or shift lengths Deputy suggests for the day of leave, they can always be overwritten by the manager approving the leave if required.

If a team member submits a leave request with the wrong leave type can you change it to Annual Leave without declining and resubmitting?

The leave type that the employee submits in their leave request is just a recommendation for the manager. When the leave request is being approved, the manager can select any leave type they wish on the actual days, which is what will generate the appropriate leave timesheets.

I have an employee who works different start/finish times on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. How do I add a leave request for her so that the different hours are captured for each day? At the moment when I add multiple days it defaults to a standard 7.6 hours for each day.

There are two ways you could address this:

set up regular fixed hours for this team member so that when they request leave the shift times will be automatically populated
the manager can manually adjust the start and finish time of each shift in the leave request during approval.

If a team member usually works Tuesday and Friday but wants to take two weeks' leave off do they have to submit a leave request for each day separately or can they just submit a leave request for the two weeks?

They can just submit a leave request spanning the two weeks and then select all the days in between in as 'Non working Days' and then Tuesdays and Fridays as leave.

If you are pre-approving leave for the future why is there not a meal break section?

Leave timesheets are created and exported as the shift length less the usual meal break as there is no meal break while on leave.

If the schedule is already built and published but the team member subsequently requests leave which is approved - does this open up the scheduled shifts for that employee so that we're notified to schedule someone else into that open shift?

If the shifts are already created and published Deputy will give you the option to either open the shift up, find a replacement, leave the shift empty or delete it when you are approving the leave request.

How do I enable/disable team members from changing or cancelling leave once it has already been approved?

Team members can change or cancel approved leave only if System administrators allow it.

When logged into the website Systemen administrators can click on the drop-down menu under their name and select Business Settings.

Click on the Leave tab and Toggle ON the Allow Employees to amend or cancel their approved leave request.

Then click Apply Changes.

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I've set up a leave policy to calculate average working hours but Deputy doesn't seem to be calculating the average hours yet. Why?

If you have set up a leave policy to calculate average working hours for employees on zero-hour contacts, then Deputy will calculate the length of the average working day and will display this for the employee when requesting leave or the manager when approving leave. If you find that Deputy is not displaying this as expected, please confirm:

you've added the relevant leave policy to the employee's profile
the employee has a minimum of five (5) timesheets that are pay approved.

Viewing leave

Who can see the Leave Management dashboard?

Only a Location Manager or System Administrator will be able to see the Leave Management dashboard.

Can you make annual leave visible to employees and bereavement leave not visible?

Yes, you can make individual leave types visible for employees and others not visible. You configure visibility settings in the leave policy builder.

How can managers see leave in the schedule?

There are two ways you can see leave while in the schedule page:

Select the "Team member view" in the Schedule and it will show you all leave & unavailabilities for the locations and date period you have selected.
Select the "Area view" in the Schedule to toggle on and off leave and unavailability visibility as an Area at the top of the Schedule.

Approving leave

What happens if the manager doesn't approve a leave request? Why did my leave request auto-decline?

If a leave request is not approved by a manager, then it will be auto-declined by Deputy once:

1. the leave request has not been modified in the past 30 days AND

2. the end date of the leave request has now passed.

Leave balance

Does the Deputy reduce accrued leave (or the leave balance) once a paid leave is taken?

Yes, it does but only after the leave timesheet is approved and the leave date has passed will the leave be deducted.

What is the difference between leave balance and leave remaining?

Leave balance is the total balance of leave that is in the system for this leave entitlement. This would be the amount that is owed to the employee should they decide to end their employment tomorrow.

Leave remaining is the indicative balance of leave that is left allowing for leave that has been taken as well as future leave that has been requested and approved, but is yet to have been taken.

Can my employees view their leave balances?

Employees are able to see their approved leave requests and their leave balance but System Administrators can disable this option is required in Business settings on the Leave tab.

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What happens if I manually update the leave balance for an employee first and then later approve a timesheet from last month and that triggers a 'per hour worked' accrual of leave as well? Which leave amount will be applied to the employee?

The manual update of the leave will apply and the accrual is overwritten as Deputy considers the manual update today as the most up-to-date entry for the leave balance.

To avoid confusion, it is recommended to ensure all relevant timesheets are approved and all leave accrual applied before manually updating an employee's leave balance.

Why are employees' leave balances not seemingly showing the 'correct' number of hours when calculating leave in days?

If you have enabled the option to calculate average working hours for a leave policy you will find that the same number of 'days' leave does not equal the same number of hours for every employee. This is because the standard hours for each day of leave will be different for each employee based on their average working hours.

Let's look at a worked example: Sally and Xavier both have 5 days leave for a leave entitlement with average working hours enabled.

	Days leave	average working hours for a day (calculated by Deputy based on previous 52 weeks)	Hours of leave displayed in leave balance
Sally	5 days	5.5 hours	27.5 hours
Xavier	5 days	7.5 hours	35 hours

Read more about how Deputy determines the length of a standard day for the purposes of determining a day of leave.

Leave accrual

Is leave accrued in hours or days?

That is up to the System Administrator to decide when configuring the leave policy.

Note: once you create a leave policy in either hours or days and assign it to a team member to begin accruing leave it is no longer possible to switch between tracking in hours or days. If you have found you have made a mistake in this respect you will need to set up a new leave policy and assign it to the team member and remove the incorrect tracking one.

What is the leave accrual rate?

System Administrators can configure a leave accrual rate per hour worked or a fixed leave accrual according to the leave entitlement legislation they need to comply with, or their business needs.

Can I set up a leave accrual to reset after a fixed period?

Yes, System Administrator can configure leave policies that reset on a specific date such as 1st January or on the anniversary of team member's hire date.

Can I set up a maximum accrual amount for a leave entitlement?

Yes, System Administrator can configure leave policies with a maximum leave balance amount so that team members will no longer accrue leave once they reach this amount.

If I have set up a policy where a fixed amount of leave was released on 1st January this year and then I have a new employee start in February, will they automatically accrue leave for this leave policy?

Yes, if you have configured the leave policy to allow this. Please read Set up a leave policy with pro rata leave assigned for employees that join part way through the year.

I have set up a policy where fixed amounts of leave are accrued on 1st January, why weren't my team members' leave balances updated?

If you set up a policy to accrue leave on a specific date, then it must be set up BEFORE that date passes otherwise the leave will not be automatically accrued for that fixed period and you will have to manually update the leave balances for that fixed period. The NEXT time that date comes around then the fixed amount of leave will be automatically accrued.

eg. On 5th January, a manager sets up a leave policy to accrue 2 days of leave for all his team members every year on January 1st. Deputy will not add any leave to team members this year and the manager will have to manually update their team members' leave balance with 2 days of leave for this leave year period. However, next year on 1st January Deputy will automatically accrue 2 days of leave to all team members with this leave policy assigned.

Do archived team members accrue leave?

If you decide to archive a Team member, then all leave accruals and deductions based on:

per hour worked
fixed release accrual
agreed hours

will no longer be applied to the archived team member.

Managers may still amend an archived Team member's leave balance as long as they are entitled to the leave.

Tenure-based leave accrual

What date does Deputy use to calculate the Tenure-based accrual rules?

If you have set up a leave policy that accrues leave at different rates according to tenure then you need to ensure that any team member with this leave entitlement assigned in their profile also has an accurate Hire date recorded in their profile as this is the date Deputy will use to calculate tenure.

What happens if a team member is working an overnight shift that straddles a tenure date?

In the case where a team member works an overnight shift where the tenure date is achieved at midnight during the shift all hours in the shift will accrue leave at the higher accrual rate. This is because Deputy uses the date of end of the shift to calculate tenure-based leave accrual rates for all hours in the shift.

When configuring a leave policy that is accruing fixed amounts of leave with tenure-based rules activated, what are the units of time I can measure tenure in?

The answer to this will depend on what unit of time you have chosen to release the fixed leave when setting up the accrual:

If you are releasing fixed amounts of accrued leave weekly, you can set up tenure-based rules that calculate tenure in either months or years.
If you are releasing fixed amounts of accrued leave monthly, you can set up tenure-based rules that calculate tenure in either months or years.
If you are releasing fixed amounts of accrued leave quarterly, you can set up tenure-based rules that calculate tenure in years only.
If you are releasing fixed amounts of accrued leave yearly, you can set up tenure-based rules that calculate tenure in years only.

Public holidays

Does Deputy pick up public holidays automatically?

No, not automatically, due to all the different countries that we operate in. You can add public holidays manually in the schedule.

How does the leave accrue if an employee is working a public holiday?

If you are using a 'per hours worked' or 'fixed' accrual rate setting in your leave policy, it will accrue leave the same as any other worked day and does not differ based on the type of day worked.