All employees should request their future time off
Before the cycle ends, all your employees should request the vacation days they want to take in the current cycle, so that no changes need to be made retroactively. And since we're talking about requests: we suggest this is also a good opportunity to remind your employees of your vacation policies and the carryover of vacation days.
Follow these steps to ensure you pass on the correct information about the carryover configurations set for the current cycle:
Go to Time Off > Settings and click on one of your time off types to check whether they include carryovers.
Click the three dots next to the time off types that have carryover days to check the details.
Check under Policy settings > Balance the date by which the carryover should take place and the maximum number of days your employees may take.
Note:
If you want to change this configuration before year-end, keep in mind that changes to policies may affect active employees in this cycle.
Best practice
Use Kenjo's announcement feature to inform and remind employees about time off management policies.
Simply add a Description and a Date from when the post should be visible, and all employees will be informed.
Here is a short example:
Hello,
We are on the home stretch for this year. If you still have vacation days left that you would like to take this year, please remember to submit your time off request BEFORE *DATE*. After this date it will no longer be possible to submit absences for the current year via the system. We would also like to remind you that you can carry over a maximum of XX days to next year and use them by XXX at the latest in the coming year. If you haven't done so yet, it's time to plan your vacation. You can submit it in Kenjo under Time Off > Vacation.
Best regards,
Your HR team
Note:
Please note that this general message about vacation days is not sufficient from an employment law perspective.
Add custom public holidays for next year
Review the calendars and add new custom public holidays for next year
Remember that custom public holidays are not automatically renewed for the following year, so repeat this process for all calendars you have.
Best practice:
Create a workflow to remind all managers (and yourself) to approve open time off requests.
Email template
Hello,
If you still have open time off requests, please remember to approve them promptly. The year is coming to an end and all requests must be approved before *DATE*. Simply click here to view all open requests.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Your HR team
Workflow configuration:
Adding a workflow action:
Create time off restriction
With the time off block feature in the Time Off Settings, you can automatically and transparently define periods during which some or all of your employees cannot request time off. Add these now for the coming year. You can select which time off policies the block should apply to.
Go to Time Off > Settings
Select RESTRICTIONS in the vertical menu and click Settings
Click ADD RESTRICTION
Check time off approvers
Review your Settings for time off approvers and delegated approval. You can make changes to time off approvers per employee in their employee profile in the Time off approver field.
If you haven't yet set up additional time off approvers, delegated approval, or two-step approval, you can do so under Time Off > Settings in the left menu.
Assign time off policies for next year
Have new policies for the coming year? Remember that you still need to assign them to the relevant employees.
Go to Time Off and select any policy to assign it in bulk using the Assign employees function.
Check your current policy settings
Keep in mind that we have added many new features to policies, many of which affect the transition to a new cycle. Please review your default time off policies, particularly regarding additional entitlement, proration, and deduction.
Extra Allowance
In the next step, you can configure the rules for additional allowance. These rules automatically increase the base allowance depending on how long an employee has been with the company. You can add an additional rule by clicking (+) ADD RULE FOR ADDITIONAL ALLOWANCE.
Length of employment (years): Duration in years, calculated from the employee's start date
Additional allowance days/hours: Allowance in addition to the base allowance
Example:
Annual cycle: 1 January
Allocation method: Once at the start of the cycle (1 January)
Base Allowsance: 24 days
Rules | Timeline & allowance allocation |
Rule 1 Length of employment (years): 1 Additional allowance days: 1 Total allowance = 25
| 15 Mar '24: Employee's start date
1 Jan '25: Employee receives 24 days (base allowance)
15 Mar '25: Employee receives 1 additional day (Rule 1)
1 Jan '26: Employee receives 25 days
15 Mar '26: Employee receives 1 additional day (Rule 2)
Note: Additional days result from the difference
Total allowance Rule 2 - Rule 1
1 Jan '27: Employee receives 26 days
15 Mar '27: No additional allowance rules
1 Jan '28: Employee receives 26 days |
Rule 2 Length of employment (years): 2 Additional allowance days: 2 Total allowance = 26 |
|
Proration
Proration refers to the proportional calculation of allowance such as vacation or time off, based on the employee's working time compared to full-time hours.
Check that your settings are correct.
For all options:
Start of vacation year: 1 January
Allocation method: Once at the start of the cycle
Base vacation: 24 days
Full-time definition: 40h / week |
Option 1: Based on the employee's start date at full time: 24 days
Start date: 15 March 2024
Full-time vacation allowance: 24 days
Type of adjustment | Calculation | Result |
No adjustment | Full vacation allowance, regardless of start date. | 24 days |
Day-accurate adjustment | Days from 15 March to 31 December: 292 days | 19.14 days |
Monthly adjustment | Full months from April to December: 9 months (March not counted) | 18 days |
Option 2: Based on the contract end date
Contract end date: 22 August 2024
Full-time vacation allowance: 24 days
Type of adjustment | Calculation | Result |
No adjustment | Full vacation allowance, regardless of contract end. | 24 days |
Day-accurate adjustment | Days from 1 January to 22 August: 235 days | 15.4 days |
Monthly adjustment | Full months from January to July: 7 months (August not counted) | 14 days |
Option 3: Based on the work schedule - e.g. for part-time employees
Full-time reference: 5 working days/week or 40 hours/week
Employee work schedule: 3 working days/week or 20h/week
Full-time vacation allowance: 24 days
Type of adjustment | Calculation | Result |
No adjustment | Full vacation allowance, regardless of working hours. | 24 days |
Adjustment by working days/week | Employees work 3 out of 5 days/week | 14.4 days |
Adjustment by hours/week | Employees work 20 out of 40 hours/week | 12 days |
Deduction
To customise this time off policy as much as possible, you can define the days on which employees under the policy are absent and not working. A classic use case would be employees on a 4-day week who don't work on Fridays, for example.
Use the dropdown to select whether the deduction rules are based on the employees' work schedule, on calendar days, or on a custom work week that you define here.
With a custom work week:
Define working days by clicking on the days of the week the employee works.
Define working hours by specifying the number of hours per working day.
Click SAVE
When an employee under this policy submits a time off request in the future, days that are not working days will be shown as non-selectable. In our example, Monday and Friday are shown as Non-working day and therefore cannot be selected in a time off request.
Check repeating workflows
If you have created repeating workflows during the year, please remember that a repeating workflow repeats every year without any new settings required. It is therefore a good idea to check whether you want these workflows to be triggered again in the next year.
Go to Settings > Workflows
Workflows listed under Object as repeating workflow are the ones to pay attention to.