Overlapping Absences

  • Last updated on June 17, 2024 at 8:48 AM

Note: Can't find this in your Cloud? This article contains features available with the Plus Plan of TimeMoto Cloud. If you want to get the most out of your TimeMoto account, make sure to upgrade your plan to your needs!

In our article about Planning Absences, we discussed the steps you should follow to successfully plan your employees' absences. However, bank holidays (and other overlapping absences) can make things work a little differently. Here's what you need to know to set everything up correctly.

How do I know my employees already have an absence in their planning?

There are three ways an employee could have a pre-planned absence:

  • Company-wide bank holidays: To set up bank holidays that apply to the entire company, use the 'Bank Holiday' option in the [Breaks and Absences] settings. More information is available here.
  • Location-specific bank holidays: If the roster of bank holidays changes depending on your different locations, we recommend using the [Location] settings to set up your bank holidays instead. More information is available here.
  • Other absences: You may have added absences for your company or a particular location that are not part of the regular holiday rosters. In this case, you can find such absences in the Calendar.

In any case, check the employee's calendar for the required period to make sure that your planned absence does not overlap with any other absence.

Planning a series of full-day absences containing a bank holiday

Note: The following section applies to businesses, which consider bank holidays as paid absences. This may vary depending on local law and type of business.

Let's suppose your employee requests some time off from Monday till Friday. The days will be deducted from their holiday balance. Usually, you would click on their schedule on Monday and set up an appropriate full-day absence that repeats until Friday. However, during this particular week, there will be a bank holiday on Thursday.

You will notice that an absence is already scheduled for Thursday (per your bank holiday settings). If you now schedule full-day absences from Monday to Friday, the full-day absences on Thursday would overlap. 

With this setup, the employee would have five days deducted from their holiday balance, while only four were necessary. How can we fix this?

Planning around the bank holiday

Since Thursday is already considered a day of absence, you will only have to schedule absences for those without such an absence. In our example, this includes the days from Monday to Wednesday and Friday.

First, click on the schedule on Monday, select [Add absence], and plan a full-day absence and set the end date to the following Wednesday.

Leave Thursday as is since we don't have to add anything to the existing bank holiday. Finally, add one more day of absence on Friday. 

You now have five days of absences planned, four of which will be deducted from the employee's holiday balance.

Good to know: While in most cases, this procedure will apply to bank holidays, this method works with any overlapping absences.

Any questions?
Looking for answers but not sure where to start? Check out our Glossary! It's a great resource to help you find the information you need. If you need further assistance, please contact us via the Contact Form.

Was this article helpful?