HR keeps the people side of the team: each person's record and documents, their time off, their reviews, and what is done when someone starts and when someone leaves. It is built on what the app already keeps (the team, the time clock, the calendar, Contracts, SOPs and Training), so nothing is typed twice. It lives where the team is managed: an HR tab beside the people under the team's section, an HR tab on each person's page, and My HR in everyone's own menu.
Turn it on
An owner switches HR on in Admin, Modules. It is off until then, and while it is off nothing changes anywhere: the calendar, online booking, the pay run and the payroll file are exactly as they were. The demo has it on.
The HR records switch on each login (under Settings, Logins) keeps HR for everyone: the records, documents, policies, settings and every request and review. Owners and admins have it to begin with.
A manager is whoever a person reports to, set on their record. A manager sees the people who report to them: their work details, their time off (and decides it) and their reviews (and writes them), and the personal details and documents the business lets a manager see, under HR, Setup. A manager who works a chair and has no team section manages from My HR, My team.
Everyone keeps their own under My HR, with no switch at all.
A person's record
A record is kept for everyone on the team, including people who never sign in:
- Work: job title, how they work (an employee, a contractor or a booth renter), whom they report to, the day they were hired, their work email and phone, where they work, their login and whether a punch code is set. Whoever keeps HR changes the work details.
- Personal: a personal email and phone and a home address. The person keeps their own, and so does whoever keeps HR.
- In an emergency: up to six people to call, each with a phone or an email.
The app keeps no Social Security number or other government ID number, anywhere. A W-4, an I-9 or any other tax or identity form stays with your payroll service; do not upload one here.
Documents
A person's Documents gather what is kept about them wherever it is kept, and never copy it:
- Offer letters, agreements signed elsewhere and other files, added here as a PDF or a picture, each with the day it runs out where it does (it is marked 30 days ahead).
- Agreements drawn and signed under Contracts with them as a party.
- The handbook and policies: SOPs marked as policies under HR, Setup (switch SOPs on for them in Admin, Modules, under HR). Each says whether the person signed the version in effect, an older one, or none yet. They are written, versioned, approved and signed under SOPs.
- Certificates and licenses from Training and from their Licenses.
A document is seen by the person, whoever keeps HR, and their manager when the business allows that kind. Every time one is opened, who opened it and when is written to Compliance's access log, and whoever keeps HR sees the last looks on the person's documents.
Time off policies
Whoever keeps HR writes the business's policies under HR, Setup. No policy is assumed and no law is claimed: sick leave, vacation and paid time off rules differ by state and by city, and the app does not know yours. Set each policy as your state and your own practice require.
Each policy has:
- A name (Vacation, Sick, Personal, Unpaid leave) and whether it is paid, with the payroll code your payroll service uses for it.
- How it is earned: no balance kept (asked for and decided, such as unpaid leave); hours a year, granted on the first day of its year (a first year begun partway can get its share); earned from hours worked on the time clock, so many for every so many worked; or earned each pay period.
- The most it holds, past which nothing more is earned, and the most carried into a new year; the rest is lost on the year's first day.
- When its year starts: on a date, or on each person's hire day.
- When balances count from. Hours on the clock before that earn nothing; an owner corrects a balance carried over from before the app.
- Whom it is for: everyone, how they work (employees, contractors, renters), a seat on the team, a location, or people by name.
A changed policy works its balances out again from its new terms at once.
Balances
A balance is worked out whenever it is read, as of any day, from the policy and the time clock's hours: what was earned (held to the cap), less what was taken, with an owner's corrections. HR, Balances shows everyone's on any day; a person sees their own under My HR. An owner corrects a balance on the person's page, under HR, Time off, with the hours and the reason; a correction is kept for good, and another correction undoes it.
Asking for time off
A person asks under My HR, Time off: whole days, or part of one day, under a policy that is for them, with a note. Before it is asked the app says how many scheduled hours it takes and what the balance would come to; a day they are not scheduled to work takes nothing. A manager, or whoever keeps HR, can ask for someone else from the HR tab or the person's page.
Their manager and whoever keeps HR are told by a to-do and the app's own email (a demo sends none). They approve it, or decline it with a sentence the person is told. Nobody decides their own.
Visits booked in the time asked for are listed on the request, each with a way to move it: give it to someone else at the same time, or open it on the calendar. The request is approved once none is left, so approved time off never contradicts the calendar.
Approved, whole days become days off on the calendar, marked Time off with no reason given, and part of a day becomes blocked time. Online booking never offers the person then, and the desk cannot book over it. The person is told in the app and by email. A person withdraws their own request while it waits, and takes an approved one back before it begins; their manager or whoever keeps HR takes one back with a reason. Its days return to the schedule.
HR, Who Is Out shows the team's time off by week and by month, with the days two or more are out marked so cover can be planned.
Time off and pay
Approved paid time off reaches Time and pay: the pay report shows the hours of each policy in the period, paid at the hourly rate for someone paid by the hour; a salary already covers it. The ADP file carries the hours under each policy's payroll code, and a payroll connection sends them the same way. See Time and pay.
Reviews
Under HR, Reviews, whoever keeps HR keeps the templates: sections of questions, each a rating from 1 to 5 (each number said in words) or answered in words, and whether the person writes a self-review first. Two starters, a 90-day review and an annual review, become the business's own the first time they are used, and change as you like. A review already begun keeps the questions it began with.
A review is scheduled for a person with a template, a day it is due and who writes it (their manager when nobody is picked). Under HR, Setup, the 90-day review and the yearly review can come due on their own for employees, 90 days after the hire day and on each hire anniversary; each comes onto the list 30 days ahead, and its manager is told 14 days ahead and on the day (by a to-do and the app's email; a demo sends no email).
- The self-review, when asked for: the person writes it under My HR, keeps it as they go and hands it in. The manager can go ahead without it when the person cannot.
- The manager's review: every question answered, goals for the next period with a day for each, and a summary, saved as they go.
- Signed: the manager signs by typing their name. It is kept as it is and handed to the person.
- Acknowledged: the person reads it and acknowledges it by typing their name, with a comment of their own if they like. Acknowledging says they read it, not that they agree. The review is done.
A review is read by the person, the manager writing it, the person's own manager and the owners, and by nobody else: never another manager, never the rest of the team, never an assistant or a program.
Starting and leaving
Checklists are the business's own lists for someone starting or leaving. Their steps tick themselves where the app keeps the work: the handbook signed, the agreement signed, a training current, a document on their record, a punch code set, a login of their own. A task is ticked by hand. The checklist chosen under HR, Setup begins the day a person is added to the team; one for leaving begins when a leaving is recorded.
Leaving is recorded on the person's page under HR, Record, by whoever keeps HR: the last day, and why, in your own words, kept private for whoever keeps HR (no program is told why). On the day:
- their logins are paused, their punch code is cleared and their weekly hours end;
- time off after the day is taken back, and reviews not yet signed are canceled;
- visits still booked with them after the day are listed to move, and they come off the calendar once none is left.
Before the day it can be taken back if they stay; after it, a new hire day brings them back. Their record is kept as Compliance says: under its retention, People who left says how long after the last day their personal details, emergency contacts, documents and the words of their reviews are kept. Their name, job, dates and the time off they took stay, for pay and the books.
Programs and the assistant
The API's HR calls read and change work details, time off and who is out, as the key's maker may (the hr:read and hr:write scopes), and its events say when time off is asked for and decided, a review is completed, and someone is hired or leaves, never why. Reviews and the documents HR keeps are never given to a program. See Connections and the API.
The assistant reads only the person's own balances and requests, and can put forward a time off request for them to approve. It never reads a review, a document or anyone else's record.
Best practices
- Write your time off policies as your business really gives time off, and say in each who it is for. BookNovi assumes no policy and claims no law: check what your state and city ask of you.
- Set whom each person reports to on their record. Their manager then decides their time off and writes their reviews, without needing the HR records switch.
- Keep HR records to the owners and the one or two people who look after the team: it opens everyone's personal details, emergency contacts and documents.
- Before you approve time off, move the visits listed under the request, so the calendar and the time off always agree.
- Put the handbook and other policies under SOPs as policies, so each person's signature and the version they signed are kept, and the new-hire checklist ticks itself when they sign.
- Record a leaving as soon as you know the last day, so their logins pause and their punch code clears on that day, and nothing is left open in their name.