When an employee returns from a leave of absence, you must update employee status and benefit enrollment information. If you are using Time Off, you must also update attendance information so the employee can once again start accruing time. The Return from Leave of Absence task enables you enter the employee’s return date as well as review the employee’s attendance plans and transactions. Sage HRMS automatically resumes accruals when you return an employee from a leave of absence.
To Return an Employee from Leave of Absence
Note: Sage HRMS adds a new record to the employee’s Job History file when you return them from a leave of absence. The Actual Return Date is the effective date for the Job History file.
- Select Employees > Tasks > Return from Leave of Absence.
- Find the employee you want to return from leave of absence. The steps page opens and lists the steps for returning an employee from leave of absence.
- Select the steps you want to complete. Complete each step now or schedule steps for yourself or another user to do later. Note that Leave Information is a required step.
- Click to start moving through the steps.
If you also use Time Off, Allocate Leave to Other Plans, Review Absence Transactions, and Review Attendance Enrollment appear as additional steps.
Steps for returning from leave of absence
Leave Information
The Leave Information page contains information identical to the information you provided when you placed the employee on leave of absence.
You can change any information on this page. However, to ensure you correctly return the employee from the leave of absence, you must:
- Enter the date the employee returned to work in the Actual Return date field. Sage HRMS resumes attendance accruals as of the beginning of this day.
- Enter the amount of time the employee remained on leave in the Hours Away field (or Time Away field, if your employer uses Days as Absence Units).
- Select the appropriate Employee Status. Normally, you change the Status from LOA to Active. The employee’s Job History file updates when you change the Status.
- Select the appropriate Employee Type. Normally, you change the Type from Leave of Absence to Regular Full-Time.
- Determine whether or not you want to create an absence transaction for the leave of absence (if you are using Time Off).
- Click when you finish to move to the next step.
Allocate Leave to Other Plans
When you return an employee from a leave of absence, Time Off can create absence transactions to record the leave. In such cases, the Absence Reason is identical to the Leave Reason. You create absence transactions only if you did not previously enter transactions.
Time Off also allows you to allocate specific time to employees' attendance plans. For example, an employee takes five days of FMLA leave. The accrued time available for the employee is four days. Your employer’s policy dictates you charge the employee’s available vacation and illness time to FMLA leave. Thus, your employer might charge four of the five FMLA leave days to the employee’s vacation and illness plans in the following manner: three days vacation and one day illness; one day would be charged to FMLA leave.
If you chose to create absence transactions, Time Off charges the FMLA, vacation, and illness plans accordingly. This step opens the Allocate Hours of Leave page.
- The Total Hours Taken field is the length of the employee’s leave of absence. This field is the same as the Hours Away field on the Leave Information page.
- The Hours Allocated To Other Plans field is the sum of the amounts you enter into the Allocate fields on this page. The Hours Left To Be Allocated field shows the result of Total Hours Taken minus Hours Allocated To Other Plans.
- The plan area of the page lists all the plans in which the employee participates. Each plan lists the available hours you can allocate to that plan.
- To allocate time to other plans, enter the number of hours in the plan’s Allocate field and then select a Reason from the drop-down list adjacent to the Allocate field. This becomes the Absence Reason in the new transaction record.
Note: Each time you allocate hours to a plan, the Hours Allocated To Other Plans field updates according to your entries and the Hours Left To Be Allocated field recalculates to reflect a new amount.
Click when you finish to move to the next step.
Review Absence Transactions
The Absence Transactions page lists the employee’s updated absence transactions, including the absence transactions you just processed with the Return from Leave of Absence step.
Review the list and make necessary changes before you complete this step. You can add, modify, or delete any existing transactions.
Review Attendance Enrollment
The Attendance Summary page enables you to review the details of each attendance plan in which the employee currently participates. Before you return the employee from the leave of absence, review the attendance plans in which you previously enrolled the employee prior to the leave of absence. You might have to adjust the Start Date. After reviewing the employee’s attendance plans, click to move to your next scheduled step.
Review Benefit Enrollment
The Review Benefit Enrollment step enables you to review the employee's savings plans and insurance plans before you return the employee from a leave of absence. The Savings Benefits page is the first page in the Benefits Enrollment step.
When you finish working with the employee's savings plans, click to access the Insurance Benefits page. This page lists all the insurance plans in which the employee participates.
When you finish reviewing and updating the employee's insurance plans, click to move to the next step.
Change Payroll Status
The Change Payroll Status step enables you to change the employee's payroll status before you return the employee from a leave of absence. Click Complete to open the Current Pay tab of the Current Pay page, where you can change the employee's payroll status.