Entering Public & Bank Holidays

Did you know that you can log and Public Holiday or Bank Holiday in the HR Partner system and that those Holidays will automatically show up on your Company's calendar and the calendar for your Employee's to see?

Start by going to Time Off & Leave > Configure > Holidays. This is the screen where you will be able to add, edit and delete Holidays that your Company observes. To add a new Holiday, simply click on the green button towards the right side Add Holiday.

Adding a new Holiday will give you the option to customize a Holiday based on your Company's specific needs. Perhaps there is a Holiday that your Company recognizes that doesn't show up on a normal Banking calendar? This is the perfect area to add this Holiday.

You can also choose specific Locations that observe that Holiday. By default, all Locations will be selected, but you can easily change this by selecting a different Location in the drop-down menu.

Importing Holidays by Country

Perhaps your Company observes many standard Holidays, and it is easiest to start by Importing a Calendar from a specific Country and then customizing further based on your needs. To do this, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and you will find the Import Holidays section.

Here you can select which 'Country' and 'Year' you would like to Import and then click on Get Holidays on the right side. This will automatically Import ALL major Holidays for that specific Country. You can then choose to Import another Country, or manually add additional Holidays if there are a few that are specific to your Company or your industry.

Showing ALL Holidays

By default, the system will show you only Holidays from the current year forward, but you can press the aqua button Show All Holidays and see ALL Holidays that your Company has observed while using HR Partner. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and find this button right above the 'Import' function.

How Do Holidays Relate to Time Off/Leave?

There are many customizations that can be made inside the HR Partner system. The Holidays section is no different and was created to work in conjunction with the rest of your Time Off/Leave policies and processes.

So, by default, any Holiday that is entered into your system is counted as a day of "Leave" for your Employees. This means that any Holiday that is listed Time Off & Leave > Configure > Holidays will NOT be deducted from Leave Amounts for your Employees. These Holidays - by default - will already be days of 'leave' for your Employees and they will not have to request those days off either!

What Happens When My Employee Requests a Holiday Off?

If your Employees do end up requesting Time Off that falls on a Holiday, the system recognizes that day as a Holiday and will NOT factor it in as a Leave Day for your Employee, nor will it deduct time from their Balance.

Take a look at the screenshot below. This Employee has requested three days off in total: December 23rd through December 25th, but the system has automatically calculated the Duration of the Leave event to be 1 day in total. Why? Because this Company has dedicated December 24th and December 25th as Holidays and those days will not be deducted from any Employee's Balance.

This is an excellent way to observe Company Holidays and days off for the entire organization!

Can Holidays Be 'Separated' From Leave?

But what if you don't want the Holidays to be considered 'Leave Days'? Perhaps you want to show Holidays on the Company Calendar, but you don't want those days to be considered guaranteed days of Time Off/Leave for your Employees? You can change this setting by employing Working Day Templates.

Start by going to Time Off & Leave > Configure > Work Days. This window will let you create and edit Working Day Templates. (If you haven't set these up yet, or need assistance with this process, check out this article which will walk you through the importance of Work Days and how to set up and use a Template.)

Once you are in the Work Day Templates window, start by finding the Edit button on the right and opening up one of the Templates to edit. Scroll to the bottom of the Template and find the section called Holidays where you will find an option to select "Treat holidays as normal working days" which is not selected by default in the HR Partner system. Checking this box will ensure that any Holidays that you have inputted into the system will be treated as Working Days and not as Time Off Days.