Adjust Time Off for a Leave of Absence
How do I adjust time off for a leave of absence?
Purpose: To help you understand the process of managing time off when an employee takes a leave of absence.
Table of Contents
Pause time off accruals
Accrual policies automatically accumulate time off as an employee works for a company. However, there are instances when an employee should not accrue time, even if they are assigned to an accrual policy. For these cases, admins need the ability to pause accruals.
To pause an employee's time off accruals, click the gear icon and select Pause Accruals from the dropdown menu. The gear menu is only visible to Full Admins, and Custom Access Level users that can “Manage Time Off Policy Assignments”.
Select the start date and end date (end date optional) to pause the time off accruals. Click Save to save your changes.
Once saved, the employee will see a red notification at the top of the Time Off tab notifying them of the pause.
To edit an employee's paused time off accruals, click the gear icon and select Edit Paused Accruals from the dropdown menu. Make your edits to the start and end dates (end date optional) and click Save to save your changes.
To delete an employee's paused time off accruals, click the gear icon and select Edit Paused Accruals from the dropdown menu, and click Delete.
Click Delete in the modal to confirm the paused time off accrual policy.
Manually unassign an accruing time off policy
To manually stop automatic accruals from happening when an employee is on leave, you will need to move the employee to a manually updated policy by the effective date of a leave of absence. Navigate to the employee's Time Off tab, hover over the specific time off category, click Change Policy, then Move To Another Policy.
Note that selecting Remove From This Policy will unassign the employee from the category completely. This means that BambooHR will not track accruals, YTD usage, or time off requests for this category.
Change the employee's accruing policy to a manual policy. This must be set up in Time Off settings ahead of time. The balance will remain intact, but you need to make a manual adjustment to add any additional time.
This change will result in no accruals occurring during the actual time the employee is on leave. When the employee returns from their leave of absence, re-assign all previous time off policies to begin by the employee's return date and restart accruals.
If necessary, make a manual adjustment by adding or subtracting time from the employee's balance when they go on leave. You can do this action by hovering your mouse over the time off category and clicking the +/- button.
For example, my policy grants time off on the 1st of the year, and an employee goes on leave during the year, which means I manually subtract time from the employee's balance to reflect the portion of the year that the employee was on leave of absence.
Do not forget to update the Employment Status table with the details of your employee's leave of absence. You will want to add a new line to the table when the employee starts and returns from a leave of absence.
Navigate the employee's Time Off tab. Hover your mouse over the specific time off category and click Change Policy. Select Move To Another Policy.
Select a time off policy. Then, using the Specific Date option, set the date for when the employee will be returning from their leave. In the accrual preview, you will see the first accrual* the employee will receive upon return.
*Notice the first accrual has a prorated amount because the policy setup prorates the first accrual. The employee is returning on March 15, which is in the middle of the accrual period.
If you do not pause the time off accruals or move the employee to a manual policy, the employee will continue to receive regular accruals as they still list as an active employee.