In today's fast-paced work environment, efficient leave management is crucial for maintaining productivity and employee satisfaction. Flowtly offers a robust suite of tools to streamline the entire process, from setting up company-wide holidays to managing individual leave requests. This tutorial will guide you through configuring holiday types, defining bank holidays, and effectively managing employee leave requests and approvals, ensuring a smooth and transparent system for everyone.
1. Navigating to Holiday Settings
To begin configuring your leave management system, you'll need to access the relevant sections within Flowtly's administrative settings. This is where you'll define the foundational rules for all types of leave.
- From your Flowtly dashboard, navigate to the Administration section. You can usually find this in the main navigation menu on the left side.
- Within Administration, look for the Settings submenu.
- Under Settings, locate and click on Holidays or Holiday Types. This is your central hub for all holiday and leave-related configurations.
Tip: If you're new to Flowtly or unsure about navigation, the
Administrationsection is typically where most global settings and configurations reside. Familiarising yourself with this area will greatly aid your setup process.
2. Configuring Holiday Types
Holiday Types are categories of leave that employees can request, such as Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Parental Leave, or unpaid leave. Defining these types accurately is fundamental to a well-organised leave management system.
- Once you're in the Holiday Types section (from step 1), you'll likely see a list of existing holiday types, or an empty list if this is your first time setting them up.
- Click the + New Holiday Type button (or similar, typically found at the top right or bottom of the list) to create a new category.
- You will be prompted to enter the following details:
- Name: Give your holiday type a clear and descriptive name (e.g., "Annual Leave," "Sick Leave," "Bereavement Leave").
- Description: Provide a brief explanation of what this holiday type entails and any specific policies associated with it. This is helpful for both administrators and employees.
- Is Paid: Toggle this option to indicate whether this type of leave is paid or unpaid. This is crucial for payroll and financial reporting.
- Deducts from Allowance: For types like "Annual Leave" or "Vacation," select this option if the leave taken should reduce an employee's total allocated leave balance.
- Requires Approval: Most holiday types will require approval from a manager or HR. Enable this if you want requests for this type to go through an approval workflow.
- Default Allowance (optional): For types that deduct from an allowance (e.g., annual leave), you might be able to set a default annual allowance here. This can be overridden for individual employees later.
- Applicable Work Calendars (optional): If your organisation uses different work calendars for different departments or regions, you might be able to specify which calendars this holiday type applies to.
- Once all details are entered, click Save.
- Repeat this process for all the different types of leave your organisation offers.
Note: Carefully consider the implications of each setting. For example, ensuring "Deducts from Allowance" is correctly configured for annual leave prevents discrepancies in employee leave balances.
3. Defining Bank Holidays (Public Holidays)
Bank holidays, or public holidays, are specific dates when the entire organisation (or specific regions/teams) observes a holiday. These are typically not deducted from an employee's personal leave allowance.
- From the Administration menu, navigate back to Settings and then select Holidays (not "Holiday Types" this time, if they are separate sections).
- Here, you will likely see an option to add or manage "Bank Holidays" or "Public Holidays."
- Click + Add New Holiday (or similar).
- Enter the details for the public holiday:
- Name: Give the holiday a clear name (e.g., "New Year's Day," "Christmas Day").
- Date: Select the specific date for the public holiday.
- Applies To: You might have options to apply this holiday to all employees, specific departments, or specific work calendars/locations. This is particularly useful for organisations operating across different countries or regions with varying public holidays.
- Recurrence (optional): For holidays that occur on the same date every year (e.g., New Year's Day), you might have an option to set it as a recurring annual holiday, saving you time in future years.
- Click Save.
- Repeat this for all bank holidays relevant to your organisation for the current and upcoming years.
Important: Public holidays directly impact
Work Schedules. Ensure these are accurately recorded to reflect non-working days for your employees and for accurate project planning.
4. Assigning Holiday Allowances to Employees
Once holiday types are defined, you'll need to allocate allowances to your employees, especially for types like annual leave.
- Navigate to the People section from your main Flowtly dashboard.
- Select an individual employee from the list to view their profile.
- Within the employee's profile, look for a tab or section related to Holidays, Leave, or Benefits.
- Here, you should see options to view and edit their holiday allowances.
- You can typically:
- Add/Edit Allowance: Specify the number of days or hours allocated for each relevant holiday type (e.g., 25 days of Annual Leave).
- Adjust Balance: Manually adjust an employee's current leave balance if needed (e.g., carry over days from a previous year).
- View History: See a log of all leave taken, approved, and remaining balance for the employee.
- Save any changes made to the employee's allowances.
- Repeat for all employees. Flowtly may also offer bulk actions or integration with
Benefitssettings for mass allowance assignments.
Tip: Regularly review employee leave balances, especially at the end of the financial year, to ensure accurate carry-overs or expiration of unused leave days according to company policy.
5. Employee Leave Requests
Flowtly empowers employees to easily submit their leave requests, ensuring transparency and reducing administrative burden.
- Employees can typically initiate a leave request from their Home dashboard or within their People profile view. There might be a dedicated "Request Leave" button or section.
- Upon clicking "Request Leave," employees will be prompted to fill out a form:
- Holiday Type: Select the desired type of leave (e.g., Annual Leave, Sick Leave).
- Start Date & End Date: Specify the duration of the leave. Flowtly will often calculate the total number of days/hours automatically.
- Half-Day Option: If applicable, employees can select if the start or end day is a half-day.
- Comments/Notes: A section for employees to add any relevant details or justifications for their request.
- Attachments (optional): For specific leave types (e.g., sick leave requiring a doctor's note), employees might be able to attach documents.
- Before submitting, employees can usually see their current leave balance for the selected holiday type, helping them manage their allowances.
- Once all details are entered, the employee clicks Submit Request.
Note: Clear
Emails & Notificationssettings are vital here. Ensure employees receive confirmation of their request submission and that managers are notified of pending approvals.
6. Approving/Rejecting Leave Requests
Managers and administrators play a critical role in reviewing and acting upon leave requests. Flowtly centralises this process for efficiency.
- Pending leave requests typically appear in the Action Center for the designated approver (usually the employee's direct manager or an HR representative). Approvers may also receive an email notification.
- Navigate to the Action Center or the Holidays section (under Administration) to view pending requests.
- For each request, you will see:
- Employee's name
- Holiday type
- Dates requested
- Total duration
- Employee's current leave balance for that type
- Any comments added by the employee
- Click on the request to review it in detail. You'll have options to:
- Approve: Grant the leave request. This will update the employee's leave balance and often their
Work Schedule. - Reject: Deny the leave request. You will usually be prompted to provide a reason for the rejection, which will be communicated back to the employee.
- Request More Information: If you need further details before making a decision.
- Add any internal comments for your records if necessary.
- Once you make a decision, the employee will receive an
Emails & Notificationsupdate on the status of their request.
Best Practice: Encourage managers to review
Peoplecalendars or teamWork Schedulesbefore approving leave to prevent critical staffing shortages or conflicts. Flowtly often provides a calendar view that shows approved and pending leave for teams.
7. Monitoring Leave Balances and Reports
Effective monitoring of leave is essential for compliance, resource planning, and employee well-being.
- Individual Balances: As an administrator or manager, you can always check individual employee leave balances by navigating to their profile in the People section (as covered in step 4).
- Team/Company-wide Overviews:
- The Holidays section (under Administration) often provides an overview of all leave requests, both pending and approved, across the organisation. You can usually filter by holiday type, department, or date range.
- The People Dashboard might offer summary reports or visualisations of leave taken and remaining for your team or the entire company.
- Reporting: Look for a Reports or Analytics section within Human Resources or Holidays. Here you can often generate detailed reports on:
- Leave taken by type, department, or individual.
- Remaining leave balances.
- Absenteeism trends.
- These reports are invaluable for HR planning, payroll, and ensuring compliance with labour laws.
Tip: Use the reporting features to identify patterns in leave requests. This data can help you better forecast staffing needs and refine your leave policies.
Summary and Next Steps
By following these steps, you have successfully configured Flowtly to manage your organisation's holidays and employee leave efficiently. You've set up various holiday types, defined bank holidays, learned how to assign allowances, and understood the process for requesting and approving leave.
Your next steps should involve communicating these new processes to your employees, ensuring they understand how to submit requests and what to expect. Regularly review your holiday configurations and employee allowances to ensure they remain accurate and aligned with your company policies.
