Creating and Managing Leave Policies

What Are Leave Policies?

Leave policies define the types of time off available to your employees and the rules around them. Common examples include vacation days, sick leave, and unpaid time off.

CrewHR comes with three default leave policies created during signup:

• Sick Time: For illness-related absences
• Vacation: Accrual-based vacation days
• Unpaid Time Off: Time off without pay

You can customize these or create new policies to match your organization's needs.

Accessing Leave Policies

Navigate to Settings > Leave Policies from the settings sidebar.

Creating a New Policy

1. Click New Policy
2. Configure the policy using the tabbed interface:

Settings Tab

Basic Information:

• Policy Name: A clear name like "Annual Vacation" or "Sick Leave"
• Color: Pick a color for visual identification on calendars and reports

Policy Type:

• Balance-based: Employees get a fixed allowance (e.g., 15 days per year) that they spend when taking time off
• Accrual-based: Employees accumulate time off over time (e.g., 1.25 days per month)
• Tracked: Time off is recorded but not limited by a balance (useful for unpaid time off)

Unit:

• Days: Track time off in full or partial days
• Hours: Track time off in hours (better for hourly employees)

Accrual Settings (for accrual-based policies):

• Accrual rate: How much time is earned per period
• Accrual frequency: How often time accrues (monthly, bi-weekly, etc.)
• Proration: Whether to prorate accruals for employees who start mid-period

Carryover Settings:

• Carryover limit: How much unused time can carry into the next year (or none)
• Expiry: Whether carried-over time expires after a certain period

Distribution:

• Spend order: FIFO (oldest time used first) or LIFO (newest first)

Assignments Tab

Select which employees this policy applies to:

• All employees: Auto-assign to everyone, including new hires
• Specific employees: Choose individual employees
• Auto-enroll: Automatically assign this policy to new employees when they are added

Editing a Policy

1. Click on a policy from the list
2. Make your changes on the Settings or Assignments tabs
3. Click Save

Changes to a policy affect all assigned employees going forward. Historical balances and transactions are preserved.

Archiving a Policy

If a policy is no longer needed, you can archive it. Archived policies stop accruing and are hidden from new assignments, but historical data is preserved.

How Policies Work in Practice

1. Admin creates a policy and assigns it to employees
2. Balances accrue automatically based on the policy type and rules
3. Employees request time off selecting the policy they want to use
4. Admin approves or denies the request
5. Balance is deducted when the request is approved
6. At year end, carryover rules apply to any remaining balance

Tips

• Start simple: If you are new to CrewHR, start with the default policies and customize them as you learn your needs
• Use accrual for vacation: Accrual-based vacation is the most common setup and ensures fair accumulation over the year
• Use balance-based for sick time: A fixed annual sick day allowance is simpler to manage
• Use tracked for unpaid time off: This lets you record the absence without managing a balance

Common Mistakes

Forgetting to assign the policy to employees

A policy does nothing until it is assigned. Check the Assignments tab to make sure the right employees are included.

Setting carryover to unlimited

While generous, unlimited carryover can create large liability. Consider setting a reasonable cap.

Next Steps

• Assign leave policies to employees
• Approve and deny time-off requests
• Understand leave balances and accruals