Contents of this article are applicable to the following users
Tier: ALL
Platform: Web, Mobile
Access Level: Owner
Off-In-Lieus (OIL), or Replacement Leaves are a popular way for employers to compensate their staff for working extra. Often, employers award their staff with OIL in the following cases:
Clearing shifts on a Public Holiday
Working on an Off Day
Working OT
Clearing Off which coincides with a Public Holiday
In StaffAny, you can set up OIL leave types to reward your staff for working extra, track their current OIL balance, and manage the expiry date of earned OILs.
This guide will cover the following:
Setting up an OIL leave type
OIL Leave Types are special leave types that do not possess the concepts of entitlement periods and accrual policies. Balances are defaulted to 0, and the only way to gain more balances is through Bulk Adjustments (more later). To create an OIL Leave Type:
In StaffAny, go to Settings > Off and Leave > Manage Leave Types > Add Leaves.
Select “Off-in-lieu” in the dropdown.
Fill in the Leave Types details similar to other Leave Types (Refer to guide here). However, only the following fields are required for OIL Leave Types.:
Leave Name
Leave Tag
Selected Staff(s)
Other settings
Click “Save”.
Award OIL for your staff via Bulk Adjustments
After creating an OIL Leave Type, you can now proceed to reward OIL balances for your staff! In StaffAny, this is achieved by creating Bulk Adjustments, which allows you to award balances to one or more staff at one go!
Create a new Bulk Adjustment
In StaffAny, go to “Leave” Tab > Leave Management
Select the intended OIL leave type from the drop-down.
Click on “Create Adjustment”. You should see a Leave Adjustment popup appear.
Fill in the details for the new bulk adjustment in the popup
Adjustment Reason: This should be the reason for creating this OIL adjustment. For example, if you are awarding your staff(s) for working on Chinese New Year (CNY), you can input “CNY PH Leave” as an adjustment reason.
Adjustment Days: This is the number of days of OIL awarded to staff(s). Upon creating the bulk adjustment, your staff’s total OIL balances should increase by the same amount.
Adjustment Type: Select “Credit (Add)” to give balances to your staff(s).
Start Date, End Date & “Never Expire” option:
Start Date: This should be the date when the staff earned the OIL balance.
End Date: This is the expiry date of this bulk adjustment. After this date, any remaining OIL balance gained from this adjustment will expire.
“Never Expire” option: By selecting this option, the OIL balance gained from this adjustment can only be consumed, and will not expire automatically.
Staff Selection: Select the staff(s) to reward OIL balances to them. Use our sort and filter features for Contract, Role and Section to quickly find the relevant staff(s). Alternatively, you can simply search for them in our search box
Press Save to exit the Leave Adjustment popup. The newly created Bulk Adjustment will be visible in the Bulk Adjustment tab.
Tag/Untag Staff to existing Bulk Adjustment via edits
From Leave Management, click “Edit” to edit a specific Bulk Adjustment previously created. A Leave Adjustment popup will appear.
Edit the Bulk Adjustment accordingly. Only the following fields can be edited
Adjustment Reason
Staff Selection: You can tag new staff to existing bulk adjustments (if have already been tagged to the OIL leave type), or remove currently tagged staff.
Press "Save" to save changes and exit the Leave Adjustment popup.
Track Created Bulk Adjustments
In the Bulk Adjustment tab, you can view all previously created Bulk Adjustments for this leave type. Each new row represents one Bulk Adjustment.
Fields in green represent fields that have been edited.
To track changes made to a Bulk Adjustment,
Click on “View”
An audit log showing past changes made to the Bulk Adjustment will appear.
Setting up OIL Automation
Instead of manually creating bulk adjustments, you can also opt for the system to automatically reward Off-In-Lieus to your staff using our OIL automation feature! With this feature, our system will automatically create and assign users to bulk adjustments whenever they work on a PH!
Note: We are currently testing this feature with selected users, if you are interested in this feature, reach out to our customer support!
Setting up Special Dates for Public Holidays
To use the OIL Automation feature, you have to ensure your Special Dates (or Public Holidays) have been set up.
Go to Settings > Special Dates
Add new events, or public holidays as needed, by specifying the date and name for the the PH.
Check on "Include in Auto Off-in-lieu" column for event dates that you want to be considered by our OIL Automation engine. These event dates will be automatically populated into all new and existing rules.
Click "Save" to finish.
For more information related to special dates, please refer to this Help Article.
Create a Rule for OIL Automation
In our Off and Leave tab, click on the Off-in-lieu leave type and you will see a side drawer appear. Here, you can set up your automation rules. These rules determine the conditions in which staff will be automatically awarded balances (via Bulk Adjustments).
To add an OIL Automation Rule:
On the leave details side drawer, click on the Add Automation Rule button.
The popup modal to create a new rule will appear. Next, proceed to fill in the following:
Rule Name: e.g. PH OIL Automation
Amount Awarded: This is the number of days of leave balances automatically awarded to staff if they fulfill the specified condition
Expiry: Fill in the expiry period for the OIL balances awarded.
Select the intended Adjustment (or Automation Rule) Type: Currently, we only support awarded staff OIL for their work on a PH (or Special Events in our system).
Note: Automation for working on OFF days & clearing OFF on PH will be coming soon!Fill in the "Total Duration" staff needs to clock in a day before the automation will award them with leave balances. For example, if a staff should only be awarded OIL if they work more than 4 hours, you should set up as [Min Duration - 4 hours, Max Duration - 24 hours]
Double-check "Falls on" to make sure the correct PH dates are reflected in the automation rule.
Note: Reach out to customer service if you want the ability to manually select which PH/event dates apply to each rule!
Click on Save.
Example
If your company has the following policy of awarding OIL on a PH:
0.5 day OIL for staff who worked less than 4 hours
1 day OIL for staff who worked more than 4 hours
You should set up 2 separate rules, one for each case above
Case | 0.5 day for 0-4 hours worked | 1 day for 4 or more hours worked |
Rule Name | PH OIL (<4hrs) Automation | PH OIL (>4hrs) Automation |
Amount Awarded | 0.5 | 1 |
Balance will expire in | 3 months (same for both) | 3 months (same for both) |
Adjustment Type (or Automation Rule Type) | Work on Special Event Day | Work on Special Event Day |
Min Duration (more than or equal to) | 0 | 4 |
Max Duration (strictly less than) | 4 | 24 |
Important: Ensure the duration for both rules do not overlap. If they overlap, e.g. in the case of 0-5 and 4-24 hrs, then a staff who clocked 4 hours will receive OIL balances from both rules!
Rule Archival
In the event of a change in company policy for awarding OIL, you can archive the old rules that you no longer require and set up new ones. The balance that has been awarded from previous rules will not be affected when archiving the rule. The new rule will only affect dates that have not yet been run by the OIL automation
Activating Rules with Automation Scheduler
Upon the creation of a rule, the system will show a new section called “Automation Scheduler”. The automation scheduler decides when all the rules will run for all staff in the organization.
In the above example, the system will reward OIL for staff 1 day after the event date (e.g. Public Holiday).
Once the automation rules & scheduler are set up, all staff tagged to the OIL Leave Type will automatically receive OIL balances whenever they work on a PH!
Timesheet
Whenever the automation is triggered, there will be an indication displayed under the “Status” column in the timesheet. For example, if 2 days of balances are awarded for the Off-In-Lieu leave type “DOI”, then 2 DOI [automation] will be shown.
Track Automated Off-In-Lieu Creation in Leave Management
Our OIL Automation engine creates a Bulk Adjustment whenever users fulfill the conditions of a rule (e.g. worked on a PH). This created Bulk Adjustment, like user-created ones, can be viewed and edited on our Leave Management page.
Bulk Adjustments created by our Automation Engine will display “StaffAny” under the column “Edit by”. This is to distinguish them from user-created Bulk Adjustments. You may continue to edit the bulk adjustments by tagging/untagging staff from it.
On the Adjustment Detail page, you will find a comprehensive list of staff members who have been awarded balances through the automation.
Delete Bulk Adjustments
If you notice a mistake in either a user or system-created Bulk Adjustment, you can delete them via:
Click “Delete” for the row corresponding to the Bulk Adjustment to be deleted.
Click on “Yes” after reading the warning modal to proceed with deleting the Bulk Adjustment. Note that deleting a Bulk Adjustment is an irreversible action.
Track OIL Balances & Expiry
Unlike other leave types, OIL balances typically start being active the day after it has been earned and expire a few months after being earned.
With our Adjustment Detail page, you can easily track the breakdown of OIL balances each of your Staff has, and whether any of their earned OIL balances are expiring soon!
Click on the Adjustments Detail tab. Here, you can view the details of each OIL balance adjustment awarded to each staff.
To view individual OIL balances that have not been cleared, simply filter by “Show untaken leave” under our search and filter feature.
To view OIL balances that have expired or are expiring soon, use the sorting function by clicking on the “Expiry Date” column header.
Note: Remember to remind your staff to clear their OIL before it expires! (They will not have access to this page)
Assign & Apply OIL Leave
Balances for OIL Leave Types (awarded via Bulk Adjustments) can be consumed like normal leave types via schedule and/or our Mobile App. When you assign the leave through the Web App schedule menu, you will see the Off-in-Lieu balances available for the user. The available balances are separated into individual adjustments, each containing a different adjustment reason and validity period.
On the Mobile App, you can also assign OIL leave balances through the schedule menu.
Employees can also apply for leave via the My Leaves menu and keep track of the balances for the OIL leave type.
Special Use Case: Giving PH OIL / PH Leave in Advance
Some companies practice awarding PH OIL or PH Leave upfront for the year. This can be easily performed through Bulk Adjustments:
Create one Bulk Adjustment for each Public Holiday in the year, at the start of the year. Ensure all existing staff are tagged to each Bulk Adjustment created
You may want to have staggered expiry dates for each created bulk adjustment during your set-up.
E.g. New Year’s Day PH leave expires on 1st April 2024 (3 months after the new year), while CNY Day 1 PH leave expires on 10th May 2024 (3 months from CNY)
Whenever a new employee joins the company, tag them to the relevant Bulk Adjustments corresponding to PH occurring after their join date.
Special Use Case: Auto OIL setup when not all staff are eligible for the same PH
In some cases, not all staff in a company are eligible for the same PH dates in a year. For example, staff from a certain religion might be eligible for PH related to their religion.
In such cases, reach out to our customer service to enable the ability to define which PH dates are eligible for each Auto OIL rule. Once this is enabled, setup your Auto OIL for PH as such:
Create one non-entitlement-based (PH OIL) leave type for each group of users eligible for the same PH dates.
Tag users to only one PH OIL leave type, depending on which PH they are eligible for.
Set up one Auto OIL rule for each leave type, based on your practice
You should now be able to select different PH dates when creating each rule.
After a rule is created, you can also edit the PH dates applicable for the rule. This is useful when you need to add new PH dates for the next year into the rules.
Select the Edit icon
Edit the "Falls On" section to include only the intended PH dates.
Click "Save.
Proceed with the rest of the Auto OIL setup as per normal.
FAQ
Q: I’m currently using a normal leave type to track OIL balances, how should I migrate over to the new OIL leave type?
A: You can migrate over by the following:
Create a new OIL leave type
Tag all eligible staff to this new leave type
Start awarding only via the new OIL leave type moving forward
Allow your staff to finish clearing current balances in the old leave type
Once the balances have been cleared, you may want to download your staff(s) current leave report and untag them from the old leave type
Once all balances for all staff have been cleared, download the leave report for the leave type, and delete the previous leave type.
Q: My staff clocks in for his shift on a PH but did not receive PH OIL? Why?
A: Auto OIL will not run with a missing clockout. Missing clock out has to be overridden before the scheduler run for auto OIL to apply. If the missing clock out is overriden after the scheduler run, create adjustment to award PH OIL