Essentially, timekeeping is the process of tracking the time spent on work from start to finish. A variety of timekeeping systems have been put in place to facilitate this process, including clocks, timesheets, timesheets, and now specialty software.

Nowadays, most companies use a software-based timekeeping management system since it's more efficient and costs less. Those who don't, like with most on-site construction companies, use time clocks and timekeepers.

Part of the timekeeping scope of the company is the leave application.

A leave application is basically a formal way of asking for a break from work for a particular time period.

Part of the policies of the company are those involved in the leave sector.

These policies aim to:

  • Establish standard guidelines and a step-by-step process of availing all company leaves.
  • Outline the company benefits that are linked to these leave applications.


The full scope of the policies are all types of leaves, entitlement, accruals, and the whole availment process of the said leaves.

Here are the terms you will come across when talking about these policies, explained:

  • Vacation Leave (VL) – refers to the paid time off of work for personal reasons/activities with prior approval from the respective department heads/team leaders of the concerned employee.
  • Sick Leave (SL) – refers to the paid time off of work during periods of temporary illness and period of recovery with or without prior approval from the respective department heads/team leaders of the concerned employee.
  • Planned Unpaid Leave – refers to the unpaid time off work for personal reasons/activities and with prior approval from the respective department heads/team leaders of the concerned employee.
  • Unplanned Unpaid Leave – refers to the unpaid time off work with no prior approval from the respective department heads/team leaders of the concerned employee.
  • Anniversary Leave – refers to the leave with pay given to the employee for his/her work anniversary. The number of paid anniversary leave days credited to the employee is based on the count of work anniversary years.
  • Bereavement Leave – refers to the paid leave given to an employee due to the death of a family member. An employee is granted up to five days off with a regular pay.
  • Meal Allowance – a sum of money given to employees as a subsidy to the cost of their meals expenses.
  • Transportation Allowance – a sum of money given to employees as a subsidy to the cost of his/her transportation expenses.
  • Housing Allowance - a sum of money given to employees as a subsidy to the cost of renting a house.
  • Leadership Allowance - a sum of money given to employees where the employer requires the performance of leadership duties from the said concerned employee.
  • Retraction of Leave – the action of withdrawing a filed vacation or a planned unpaid leave.
  • ATU – the hotline used by the employee to notify their absence at work.


The guidelines in availing these leaves are as follows:

A. Vacation, Sick, Planned-Unpaid and Not Planned-Unpaid Leave

  1. The employee who wishes to file a vacation leave, planned sick leave, or a planned unpaid leave should notify their immediate department heads/team leaders prior to the application and after the notification, file the leave application in Sprout at least two days before the effectivity date of his/her leave.
  2. All applications for the unplanned sick leave must be filed within one business day of returning to work of the employee after the sick leave in Sprout. The employee must also attach the medical certificate stating the date which the employee was unable to work and the reason why they were unable to show up to work. This is pre-requisite regardless of the number of days the employee has applied for a sick leave (for example, even if it is a 1-day sick leave, a medical certificate is still required).
  3. All unplanned sick leave and unplanned unpaid leave applications must have an ATU notification. The employee must notify his/her immediate superior within two hours of his/her official start of shift using the ATU. If in the event that the ATU is not working, the employee must secure a text message informing their immediate superior of their absence.
  4. Probationary employees are not entitled to paid leave credits so they can file any absence as planned unpaid leaves. Furthermore, probationary employees must also follow the ATU notification process for any unplanned sick leave or unplanned unpaid leave.
  5. The department head/team leader has the choice to decline any kind of leave application. In the event that the employee still pushes thru his/her leave without the approval from their respective immediate heads, the absence is considered as unexcused and is subject for disciplinary action.
  6. In the instance where there is an emergency, the employee’s absence can be credited as a vacation or sick leave, whichever is available. The notification of emergency cases is done thru ATU.
  7. Vacation leaves must be used in no less than four hours or half day increments.
  8. All unplanned unpaid leaves without a medical certificate provision will be subjected for a record of discussion. The department head/team leaders receive a monthly summary report of the unplanned unpaid leaves done by their constituents, which are recorded via ATU, from the HR department. It is the department head/team leaders’ task to ensure that they will create records of discussion for the staff with absences, the ones recorded via ATU. The purpose of the records of discussion is to add comments on staff’s absences if the absences become consecutive, for example: the employee in question has a high number of absences in a month. The discussion will also be used to address other issues related to absences received via ATU.
  9. The employee must notify their respective department heads/team leaders if they wish to withdraw their filed vacation or planned unpaid leave. The department head/team leader has the responsibility of cancelling said filed leave in behalf of the employee.
  10. The accrued vacation and sick leave credits can only be used once the employee is regularized. Employees whose contract is extended after their six-month probationary period are not eligible to use the accrued vacation and sick leave credits unless they have signed the regularization contract.


Refer to the charts below for the process flow:


A. Vacation Leave and Planned Unpaid Leave



B. Sick Leave and Unplanned Unpaid Leave

B. Bereavement Leave

The full objective of this policy of the company is to establish standard guidelines of availing bereavement leave and the equivalent cash assistance benefit of the said leave.

This policy covers from the time a request for a bereavement leave and cash assistance is made until the benefit is availed.

Here are the terms you will come across while dealing with the said policy, explained:

  • Bereavement leave – a leave taken by an employee due to the death of a family member.
  • Bereavement cash assistance – a monetary benefit to be given to the employee who have availed the bereavement leave or the employee who have dealt with the death of an immediate family member.
  • Sprout – the payroll assistant used by the company.
  • Xero – the online accounting software which is used primarily by the finance department for the acquisition of funds.
  • CEO – stands for chief executive officer or the highest body in the company.


The guidelines in availing the bereavement leave and cash assistance benefit are as follows:

  1. The bereavement leave pay is calculated based on the base pay rate at the time of absence of the employee and it does not include any special form of compensation such as incentives, commissions, bonuses, overtime, or shift differentials.
  2. The employees who wish to avail the bereavement leave are allowed up to five consecutive days off from their regularly scheduled duty with a regular pay in the event of the death of his/her immediate family member.
  3. The employee may be granted a bereavement cash assistance in the amount of three thousand pesos only for every deceased family member upon the approval of the application.
  4. The employee must present a death certificate as proof of death and relationship to be eligible of the bereavement leave and the equivalent cash assistance.
  5. For the single employee, the immediate family member may refer to his/her siblings, parents, child (single parent), and grandparents.
  6. For the married employee, the immediate family member may refer to his/her spouse, child, and parents (not including in-laws).


Here are the procedures in availing the bereavement leave and the cash assistance benefit:

I. Application of the Bereavement Leave

  1. The first thing the employee needs to do is to inform his/her department head/team leader that he/she will avail the bereavement leave.
  2. The department head/team leader then lodges a ticket in the HR Freshdesk about the application of the bereavement leave of the employee under their department or team.
  3. After the notification from the department head/team leader or the lodging of the ticket in Freshdesk, the HR department then provides bereavement leave credits for the employee in Sprout. Once the credits have been given to the employee, the HR department will proceed to resolve the lodged ticket in Sprout.
  4. The department head/team leader will be the one to notify the staff that the bereavement leave credits have been added in Sprout and they can file them as they wish to.
  5. Subsequently, after the notification, the employee files for bereavement leave in Sprout. It is up to the employee how many days they will avail the bereavement leave but the maximum is 5 days. After the application, the department head/team leaders will be the one to approve the filed leave of the said employee.


II. Application for the Bereavement Cash Assistance

  1. There is a provided bereavement cash assistance form by the company which the employee who wishes to avail of the benefit has to accomplish. The form can be found through this link: https://forms.office.com/r/XtbEFEBdsZ
  2. After the form has be completed and sent by the employee, the HR department then secures an approval from the department head/team leader of the employee in question.
  3. The department head/team leader will be the one to approve the bereavement cash assistance application of the employee. Following the approval of the respective department heads/team leaders of the employee, it is the CEO’s turn to approve the bereavement cash assistance application.
  4. Once approved by both the CEO and the respective department head/team leader, the HR department will send the approved application request to the finance department for the acquiring of funds via Xero.
  5. Along with the receiving of the application request by the HR department, the finance department then processes the request through Xero. If the request has been handled already, the finance department will inform the HR department when the cash assistance will be reflected on the employee’s account.
  6. Once reflected, the requesting employee receives the bereavement cash assistance.


Refer to the charts below for the process flow:


A. Bereavement Leave


B. Bereavement Cash Assistance



C. Anniversary Leave

  1. The hired date of the employee will be the basis of the employee’s anniversary date.
  2. An employee who got terminated and rehired at a later time will start his/her employment over with a new hire date and that new hire date with be the employee’s anniversary date, not the previous date when they were first hired.
  3. A paid leave will be granted to the employee for every year of service rendered. The usage of the anniversary leave is subject for the immediate head/team leader’s approval.


D. Allowances

  1. An employee is only entitled to receiving a housing and leadership allowance if it is stated in their respective contracts. If the employee is on a paid leave, he/she is still subjected to receive the aforementioned allowances.
  2. An employee is only entitled to receiving a meal and transportation allowance if it is stated in their respective contracts. If the employee is on a paid leave, he/she is not subjected to receive the aforementioned allowances.
  3. All unpaid leaves are not subjected for any kind of allowances.
  4. An employee who is not working on a holiday, regardless of any type, is not subjected to receive any allowances.


How many days are entitled for every kind of leave there is in the company?

  • Vacation leave – regular employees are entitled to seven days of paid leaves in a year or unless stated otherwise in the respective employment contracts of every employee.
  • Sick leave – regular employees are entitled to five days of paid leaves in a year or unless stated otherwise in the respective employment contracts of every employee.


Accruals

A. Vacation Leave and Sick Leave

  • Employees amass vacation leave credits at the rate of 0.58 days per month equivalent to 7 days for 1 calendar year or unless stated otherwise in the respective employment contracts of every employee.
  • Employees amass sick leave credits at the rate of 0.42 days per month equivalent to 5 days for 1 calendar year or unless stated otherwise in the respective employment contracts of every employee.


B. Anniversary Leave

Refer to the table below for the accrual of anniversary leave credits:


Anniversary leave credits are reflected in Sprout labelled as anniversary leave on the day of the employee’s work anniversary. These anniversary leave credits can be monetized or rolled-over at the end of the year.


Rolling-over of Leave Credits

  • All unused sick leave credits for the year will be rolled over onto the next year. There will be no cash conversion for the unused sick leave credits at the end of the year but instead it will be included in the final pay at the end of employment of every employee.
  • All unused vacation Leave and anniversary leave credits for the year can either be converted to cash or rolled over to the next year. An employee must retain three leave credits to be rolled-over to next year. The three rolled over unused vacation leave or anniversary leave credits are used to cover for client holidays in the first two months of the year, regardless of how many client holidays there are. After the first two months of the year, the employee can still use up any remaining leaves from the three that were rolled over.

For example, an employee has a total of 7 days unused vacation leave or anniversary leave credits, 4 of which can be monetized and the other 3 will be rolled over to next year.


Process of Rolling-over/Monetization of Available Leave Credits

  1. The HR department creates an action in Strategy X for the staff who wish to roll over or monetize their leave credits.
  2. Those employees who wish to roll over or monetize their leave credits must accomplish a form provided by the HR department, in which the responses will be generated and calculated by the HR department as well. The link will be provided by the HR department through an email blast.
  3. After generating responses, the HR department then prepares the summary of the list of employees who choose to roll-over or monetize their available leave credits.
  4. The HR department subsequently creates an action in Strategy X after preparing the summary of the list of employees and assigns the action to the CEO for the acknowledgement and approval the list of leave credits monetization with budget and the schedule of releasing.
  5. Once approved by the CEO, the HR department will process the roll-over of leave credits in Sprout and the monetization of leave credits in Sprout as part of the payroll adjustment.
  6. An email blast will be sent by the HR department informing the employees of the schedule of the releasing of the monetization credits. When the schedule comes, the monetized leave credits will be credited to each of the accounts of the employees on the list.


Refer to the link below on the SOP on filing for a leave: https://hoithr.freshdesk.com/a/solutions/articles/63000266879