Line Manager user guide

This guide is for users with Line Manager permissions

A very warm welcome to Breathe.

Your company has joined thousands of other SMEs in ditching spreadsheets and switching to easy-to-use HR software.

Breathe is designed to save you valuable time so that you can focus on what matters: your team.

This guide will equip you with everything you need to feel confident using Breathe and help you get the most out of the system.

This is your go-to Breathe manual. It will walk you through what you can see and do within your account as a line manager.

This guide is also here to answer any system queries that you might have along the way.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through each of Breathe’s features. Here’s what’s in store:

Your dashboard is specific to you and your team. It shows all of your upcoming events and any tasks that need completing.

You can manage most requests and tasks directly from this page. This could be a leave request, one-to-one request or an open sickness that needs closing.

Your dashboard will also notify you of important things that are coming up in the next week, such as birthdays and probation reviews.

The next part of the dashboard is the ‘My profile’ area. Here, you can make requests and submit information relevant to you.

This is where you’d go to request leave, update your location, read a document, submit an expense, plus much more.

Your profile is where all of your information is stored. This includes:

• Leave booked, taken and available

• Sickness

• Training

• Performance

• The ‘More’ tab

You’ll also notice the ‘Personal’ tab – your personal details (salary, sensitive info etc.) are stored securely here. Don’t worry - this can only be seen by you and the HR/admin users within your account.

While you’re here, head over to the ‘Email notifications’ tab and make sure your email notifications are switched on. This will ensure you’re kept in the loop and receive any updates or requests from your team. (These will show on your dashboard too, of course)

The ‘Company’ menu holds all your organisation-specific information.

These details are all determined by the HR user(s) and are a useful point of reference.

As a line manager, it’s important to keep track of your team. Here’s where Breathe’s Reports feature comes in handy. This data-packed module can help with absence reporting, sickness tracking, deliverables, objectives and much more.

Pretty much any report you’d ever need to produce about your team is available through Breathe’s reporting tool.

Head over to the ‘Reports’ menu in the main left-hand navigation bar to see what you can do.

Please note: If you’re logging in and not seeing all of these reports, you’ll need to speak to your HR team about changing your settings.

Your calendar provides a useful overview of any events that are coming up, such as holiday booked, training events or one to-ones.

You’ll also be able to see any sicknesses logged. You’ll see information for the whole of your organisation by default. You can adjust your filters to show data for just your team. You’ll only be able to see sickness information for people that you manage (if your permissions allow you to see this).

You may notice that not all of your people appear on the calendar at any one time. The Breathe calendar likes to keep things simple and uncluttered – it only shows people who have an event booked within Breathe or have been off sick.

If an employee has nothing booked within the period shown, they won’t appear on your calendar.

To view the people you look after as a line manager, head over to...

People > My people.

If you manage another line manager, you can see their employees too, but this depends on your account settings and whether you’re using the two-tier management structure that’s available.

These settings are determined by your HR user(s).

Top Tip: Navigate straight to a person’s profile by selecting the arrow

under the ‘Actions’ column.

The Recruitment module is a paid add-on that can be activated by the admin user of your account.

If you’ve activated this module, as a line manager, you can be made a recruiter for any vacancies within your team. This means you’ll have the ability to view

applications, review candidates and respond to applicants – all in one place.

Click on an individual vacancy to take a look at your applicants and action them. If they sound like a good fit, why not invite them in for an interview? Or if they’re not

quite up to scratch, you can reject their application.

For further information, please speak to your HR user.

Does managing your team’s performance sit at the top of your list? Good news: the Breathe Performance module can help.

Stay on top of one-to-ones, performance reviews and objectives all in one place with this handy - and popular - tool.

One-to-ones

One-to-one meetings can be booked within Breathe to check in with your people on a regular basis. These could take the form of yearly/half yearly performance reviews, monthly check-ins, probation reviews and more.

To add a new one-to-one, navigate to your employee’s profile and head over to...

Performance > ‘One to ones’ tab > blue ‘+’ button.

The employee will then receive an email to let them know about their upcoming one-to-one.

Objectives

Assign your team projects and tasks using the ‘Objectives’ tab. You can keep track on their progress by scheduling regular one-to-ones.

You can also link the one-to-one to the associated objective and upload any supporting documents to the objective to keep things in one place. Throughout the journey, mark the objective with a percentage to reflect their progress.

Deliverables

Make projects more manageable with the Deliverables function. Deliverables allow you to organise tasks and break objectives down into bite-size chunks for your people to work through.

You can link deliverables to the associated objectives to keep things simple and centralised.

Here, you can add training for your team. You’ll need permissions from your HR user to access this functionality.

Head over to the ‘Training’ tab and click the blue ‘+’ to add new training for someone in your team.

Add details including the training type, category, status and date. ‘End date’ should be when the training session finishes, and ‘Expires on’ is when the certificate expires.

You can see all training records in one place by heading to Reports > Personal Information> Training.

Top tips

As a line manager, you have a level of control over what you can do and see within Breathe.

Please speak to your HR/admin users to find out what’s available to you.

Spread good vibes around your team with the Kudos tool.

Show your appreciation for an individual or your entire team, shout about a job well done, or simply say “thank you” for going the extra mile.

With the Breathe Refer a Friend scheme, when you refer friends, family, or members of your network to Breathe, you can personally earn up to £300 for each new customer you refer, plus they’ll benefit from 15% off for 6 months of their new account.

It's our way of saying thanks to you for sharing the gift of time and convenience with others.

All that is left to say is a big thank you for using Breathe and joining our paperless HR revolution.

We hope you enjoy using Breathe

Team Breathe