Policies are the rules and settings related to requesting a time away reason. You can have unlimited policies for each reason and build each one differently, including whether they are calculated in days or hours. Policies can also be duplicated, making it easy to reuse and adjust existing setups. You can then decide which policy applies to which employee.
Set Up Time-Off Policies with AI
Generate complete, compliant time-off policies in seconds, just by describing what you need. Whether you're expanding to new regions or formalizing existing policies, our AI makes it simple to create clear, tailored policies based on local best practices.
How It Works
Tell the AI what you need
Just type a prompt like: "Create vacation policies for our New York and London offices."
Prompts can be related to specific sites, tenure or executives, and we have suggestions on how to phrase these requests.Get instant results
The system will generate detailed time-off policies that reflect local labor laws and HR standards.Edit if needed
You'll have the option to review and customize the drafts further if needed.
Default Policy
Every reason created will have a default unlimited policy, meaning employees will not be limited to a fixed number of days they can request. The default policy also requires approval from managers (this can all be edited.)
How to Manually Create a New Policy
In addition to generating policies with AI (above), you can also build one step-by-step:
Go to Time Management → App Settings (⋯ top right) → Time Away Management.
Select the Time Away Reason you want to add a policy to.
Click + New Policy (or duplicate an existing one to reuse its settings).
Give the policy a clear name (e.g., "Vacation – Senior Employees").
Choose whether the policy is measured in Days or Hours.
Configure the policy settings (see below).
Click Save.
Note: The Days/Hours selection cannot be changed after the policy is created. If you need to switch, you'll need to create a new policy.
The steps below apply to Holiday policies. For other reason types:
Time Off & Working Away → Setting Up Time Away Reasons — Time Off & Working Away
Special Leave → Special Leave Policy section below
Configuring Policy Settings
When does your Time Away year start?
Since policies work on a yearly basis, you can determine when the start of that year is.
How many days/hours does an employee receive annually?
You can choose how many days/hours an employee can earn throughout the year.
Unlimited Time Off — the employee can request as many days/hours as they want
Annual Time Off allocation — there is a fixed number of days/hours allocated each year. You can choose when the employee will receive them (e.g. all upfront yearly, or a portion each month).
Do employees get additional days based on tenure?
After a defined number of years from an employee's start date, they receive a specified number of additional days based on their tenure.
Note: Tenure is evaluated once, at the start of each time-away allocation period — not continuously throughout the year. If an employee crosses a tenure milestone partway through the period, the additional days are applied at the start of the next allocation period, rather than being added mid-period.
How should days be granted?
Choose how each employee's FTE (part-time %) affects their entitlement:
Grant fixed amount regardless of FTE — every employee on the policy receives the full entitlement, regardless of FTE.
Scale entitlement by FTE % — the employee's entitlement is scaled down in proportion to their FTE.
Accrue from tracked hours — available only for employees with tracked working hours enabled; days are earned based on actual hours worked out of the required hours (relative accrual). Fixed accrual, by contrast, adds the same amount each period regardless of hours worked.
Note: For new accounts, FTE is set under Compensation rather than Role (existing accounts are unaffected).
Can unused days/hours be carried over?
You can determine the rules about unused time away days/hours at the end of the year — whether they carry over, and if so, whether there are limits. You can also set a customizable expiration date for carried-over days/hours.
Carry-over limits
Carry-over can be capped in one of two ways:
Number of days — e.g., a maximum of 5 days carries over, regardless of the employee's unused balance
Percentage — e.g., a maximum of 20% of the annual allowance carries over
Carried-over days are updated automatically when the leave year resets, following the rules defined in the policy. Any unused days that exceed the configured limit are not transferred automatically.
What if an employee needs more carry-over days than the policy allows?
Additional days beyond the policy limit must be added manually by an Admin. This typically happens after the time-away year has reset:
Go to the employee's Time Management tab
Click Adjust Balance
Add the extra days with a note explaining the reason
Note: Document and get approval for any manual balance adjustments to maintain transparency and compliance.
Is there a maximum balance an employee can accrue?
Set the highest amount of time off an employee can accumulate, preventing further accrual once that limit is reached.
The ceiling is applied at the moment of each accrual, before any time off taken in the same period is counted. Days above the ceiling are discarded at that point rather than held in reserve, and taking days later in the period does not bring them back.
For example, an employee sitting at a 14-day cap who would have accrued to 16 days has those 2 days dropped at the accrual. If they then take 2 days off, they end the period on 12 days, not 14.
Can the employee exceed their balance?
Allowing an employee to exceed their balance means they can take more time off than they've currently accrued, resulting in a negative balance.
Are days prorated or fixed when an employee joins mid-period?
You can choose whether accruals are prorated or fixed when an employee joins mid-period.
Prorated (Default): Employees receive a partial accrual based on their specific start date within the period.
Fixed: Employees receive the full accrual amount, regardless of when they join during the period.
Note: This setting is configured individually per policy.
Is a supporting document required for this leave?
You can configure a policy that requires a mandatory document for absences exceeding a set number of days.
When a request is approved, should anyone besides the employee be notified?
Configure dynamic recipients in the Time Away Reason Policy to be notified when a booking is approved. Every employee listed in the policy will receive a notification, even if they don't have permission to view the booking or the person who made it.
Managers with manager-level permissions will always be notified for any booking, so there is no need to add them here.
Approval Notification Example
Special Leave Policy
Special Leave uses a unique policy configuration that differs from standard time-away policy types. Unlike Time Off or Working Away, Special Leave is based on a fixed allocation model — the allowance is defined upfront, made available immediately with no accrual, and does not expire. When setting up a Special Leave policy, you can configure the maximum number of days per leave instance, booking fractions, whether active leave should pause accruals for other reasons, approval requirements, and whether a supporting document is required.
Approval Settings
Requiring manager/non-manager approval means the employee's time off request won't be confirmed until it's reviewed and authorized by the approver. You can configure which role approves time-away requests on a per-policy basis, giving greater flexibility for organizations that centralize approvals.
When setting up a policy, you can choose from the following approver roles:
Direct Manager: The employee's assigned manager.
Admins: Users with administrative permissions.
Super Admins: Users with full system access.
To assign an Admin as an approver, update their permission role to include the "Employees' Time Management" scope.
How It Works
Each policy can have a unique designated approver group.
The designated approver receives actionable notifications (Approve/Deny) via Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email.
Other informed managers receive a "no action needed" notification for visibility.
Users who can view the request but are not the designated approver will see the action buttons greyed out.
The direct manager notification toggle in Time Management settings is adjustable (previously locked to "always-on").
How to Configure
Go to Time Management → App Settings → Time Away Management.
Select the policy you wish to edit.
Navigate to Approval settings.
Choose your preferred approver role and save your changes.
Allowance Rounding for Yearly Accrual
Admins can enable rounding for accrued leave balances to help prevent the accumulation of unusable fractional days. This simplifies leave management and supports compliance with regulations such as UK leave policies.
Rounding options: Round to the nearest 0.5 or 1.0 day.
Availability: This feature is available exclusively for Yearly Accrual policies set to "Days." It is not available for:
Hourly policies
Monthly or bi-weekly accrual schedules
How to enable:
Navigate to your Time-away policy settings.
Select the Yearly Accrual policy you wish to update.
Enable the rounding feature and choose your preferred increment.
Save your changes.
Blocking Sub-Half-Day Time-Away Bookings
Admins can restrict employees from booking time off in increments smaller than a half-day. This helps standardize booking increments across your organization.
How it works:
Booking constraints: Employees are limited to Full-day or Half-day increments only.
Interface updates: The custom day-fragment input field is automatically removed from the "Book Time Away" screen for affected employees.
How to configure:
Navigate to Time Management → App Settings → Time Away Management.
Select the specific time-away policy you wish to modify.
Locate What fractions of a day can employees book? and choose the required setting.
Save your changes.
Policy History and Effective Dates
Editing a policy does not overwrite it in place. When you save a change, you choose when it takes effect — apply it today, or set a future date — and the change applies only from that date forward.
Balances stay historically accurate: time before the effective date continues to be calculated on the old rules, and only time from the effective date onward uses the new ones. Editing a policy never rewrites past balances.
Each policy opens in a drawer with View History and Edit policy actions:
Scheduling a Change
Go to Time Management → App Settings (⋯ top right) → Time Away Management.
Select the policy you want to edit and make your changes.
Choose when the change takes effect: apply it today, or set a future date.
Save the policy.
A change scheduled for a future date can be canceled at any point before it takes effect.
Viewing a Policy's History
Every policy also has a Policy History timeline listing each version of the policy, the date that version took effect, and who made the edit, so you can see how a policy has changed over time.
