Do you have employees who report to more than one manager? Perhaps because they work on multiple projects at the same time, or have more than one role in the organisation.
If so, you’ll know how tricky absence approvals can be. In an ideal world, an employee should be able to submit a single time off request, but have everyone that needs to know – or authorise – the absence notified automatically.
Which is exactly what the latest update to Cezanne HR lets you do.
Configurable multi-approver process
You now have the option to add up to four approval stages, each associated with a different set of approvers and approval options.
For example, take Sam. Sam’s working on three key projects, each with a different supervisor, and has a line manager who’s responsible for her longer-term career development and performance. Cezanne HR, you now have the option to automatically send the absence request to each of her project managers to approve; notify her line manager once it’s been approved, and perhaps let HR know too.
Or there’s Charlie. He’s covering reception in the morning and working for finance in the afternoons. This time you could set the system to get approval from the finance supervisor and finance director, before routeing it to the office manager, so everyone can check they’ve got appropriate cover in place.
You can set up as many different processes as you need, and at each step, you’ve the option to specify who the request should go to, and the action that each participant needs to take. Different absences can be managed in different ways. For example, for maternity leave, you could simply choose to notify anyone that needs to know, or a sickness absence could be routed through an additional approval or notification stage.
There’s a new approval history screen that provides a quick visual check of who approved the request, who’s rejected it and who is yet to authorise. Rejected requests are managed in the same way as now; the employee will receive an email, so they can adjust the dates and re-submit their request.
Auto-approval option
For companies that don’t want a formal sign-off process, there’s now the option to set the system to auto-approve absence requests. As with every other absence, the time booked will automatically be deducted from any relevant entitlement, and appear in the team calendars and “who’s off” notifications.
User Nominated for Absence, Performance and Timesheet approvals
Last, but not least, this release adds the option for HR to configure Cezanne HR to let participants choose who to involve in the next step of the process. It’s handy, for example, if an employee knows his project manager isn’t available to sign off his timesheet, but it needs to be submitted and approved, so finance can include it in the invoicing.
It’s also got an important role to play in the new functionality we’ll be rolling out later this summer for 360 performance reviews. Watch this space!
For full information about the latest release, please log in to the support portal.
Read more about our Absence module here.
Sue Lingard
Sue studied Personnel Management at the London School of Economics before taking on management roles in the travel, recruitment and finally HR software industry. She's particularly interested in how technologies enable HR teams - and the people they support - to work better together.
