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. Pausing accruals will apply to all time off policies the employee is assigned to. There is no way to pause accruals for only one policy.
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.
If an employee's time off is paused and then unpaused in the middle of an accrual period, the accrual prorated based on the Time off Policy's settings. In the Some Fine-tuning section of the Time Off Policy settings, there are two questions that will determine if accruals are prorated when paused: Employees' first accrual should be... and Employees receive accrued time.
Clicking the question mark icon for Employees' first accrual should be... will show a modal that explains the different options of prorating the first accrual or awarding the full amount if an employee is hired in the middle of an accrual period. When pausing accruals, this will determine if the employee will receive a prorated amount upon their return.
Clicking the question mark icon for Employees receive accrued time will show a modal that explains the different options of when the employee will receive the accrued time, either at the start of the period or at the end of the period. When pausing accruals, this will determine how the employee will receive a prorated amount upon their return.
The system will prorate the accrual if the employee is terminated and rehired. In this case, we'll use the policy first accrual setting (since they've been "rehired," that setting would apply again).
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, as the Specific Date is selected.
Proration of accruals will depend on the initial set up of the Time Off Policy, dependent if the policy is manual pause or a termination-based pause.
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.
If the employee is reassigned to the original time off policy after they have been manually removed, in the middle of an accrual period, the accrual will not be prorated and will resume at the start of the next period.
If an employee is terminated and then rehired, the system will use the Policy First Accrual setting , in the Some Fine-tuning section of the Time Off Policy settings. This only applies to the first accrual after a policy is assigned. Rehiring an employee does not trigger the First Accrual setting; this would need another reassignment to the policy.