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Module: SSW Employment Guidelines

๐Ÿ“– Leave

Created 3 years ago by Tiago Araujo|

Modified 3 days ago by Levi Jackson

When to use EasyLeave vs email?

A. Use EasyLeave

When leave hours need to be taken or added.

B. Send an email

When there is no change to leave hours.

Pre-Requisites to use EasyLeave

In order to let EasyLeave do all the work for you when you want to take a few days off, be sure that your TimePro settings are in order.

  1. Go to TimePro | Your profile picture (top-right) | My settings
  2. Setup your Working Hours
  3. Choose the relevant time zone under Other Preferences
  4. Click Save.

Annual leave (not for SSW Contractors)

Need a break? As a full-time employee, you are entitled to 20 days annual leave + 6 days per year (see Sick Leave below) + 1 YOLO Day.

Leave begins accumulating pro-rata from the first day you work, and you can take leave as soon as you accumulate it.

โœ… At SSW, we have auto-approved leave. All we ask is to give us the most notice you can. As a guide, 4 weeks is an appropriate warning.

Notes:

  • If you resign, annual leave requests that take place during your notice period will not be granted. This is because of the importance of a good handover.

China Office: Please refer to Taking Leave in China

French Office: You are entitled to 25 days annual leave per year.

Additionally, you may be entitled up to 12 RTTs. Please refer to the "SSW EU Work Time Agreement" that you have signed as part of your employment package (ask your manager if you are unsure).

Viewing your leave balance

You don't have to ask the accountant to check your leave history or balances.

  1. Follow the Expenses and reimbursements standard to set up your Xero Me access.
  2. You can check all your leave requests and balances in Xero Me. Navigate to Xero Me | Leave, then review your past/future leave requests. To view your balance, tap on "View balances".

โœ… Figure: Good example - Checking Xero Me Leave balances

China Office: Contact SSWChinaAccountants@ for your leave balance.

Warning: Don't request leave through Xero Me!

โŒ Figure: Bad example - Don't request leave through Xero Me. More info at Expenses and Reimbursements

Requesting leave

If you are taking leave while booked for client work, email the client to let them know (Cc'ing your manager). If it's sensitive, first give them a call.

  1. Check that you have enough leave. This can be done in Xero Me or on your payslip

  2. Go to TimePro | EasyLeave | Add Leave

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  1. Select a leave type (Annual Leave is selected by default) and set the Start and End dates. If you're taking partial days, untick All day and specify the Start Time and End Time

Notes:

  • You cannot mix full days and partial days.
  • If you need to take 1.5 days off you'll need to create 2 leave requests, one for 1 full day and one for half a day.
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  1. (Optional) When taking partial days, you can override your lunch break duration if you plan on working during lunch.
Lunch Break Override
  1. Provide a brief reason or destination in Leave details. (e.g., "Holiday in the Bahamas" or "Road trip to the Sunshine Coast โ˜€๏ธ")
  • In the CC employees field, add Adam if you would have been working for him at the time. Also add your Scrum Master so they can inform your team as needed

  1. Click Save to set your request to Pending Approval. This will create a calendar appointment and generate a timesheet for the day, marked as a Non-working Day โ€“ Annual Leave. You can check your calendar to ensure everything has been set up correctly.

  2. To help let your colleagues know what you are up to, you may want to set a FollowUpThen to set a reminder on the day before your leave to set a descriptive Teams status

Report visibility (everyone)

Can be seen on Intranet | Booked in Days. This populates Power BI when using "Set Regarding"

Figure: Leave shown on Booked in Days report.

Monitoring your mailbox when on leave

When you are on leave for a few days, make sure that your mailbox is checked from time to time, in case there is something urgent.

Note: At SSW we use email for tasks. Usually it is not a requirement to reply to emails until you've done a task. Therefore we generally don't use 'Out of Office' automatic replies, unless you have something cool to tell people. E.g. "I'm in antartica for 2 months, and not able to reply to emails."

Sick Leave (Not for SSW Contractors)

There are occasions that you will be unable to attend work due to sickness. E.g. You had your left leg gored by a wild boar or have been shot by an angry client and are recovering in hospital.

The process for putting in sick leave is basically the same as normal leave, except the leave type. Choose Sick Leave in the leave type dropdown.

SSW gives 6 'bonus days' of annual leave (accruable) + 1 YOLO day per year to everyone. As a consequence, any sick leave taken is reduced out of your annual leave balance.

Note: You can also work from home on days that you're feeling a bit under the weather, which can help limit unneeded leave.

History - Up until 30/6/2002 SSW provided sick leave entitlements of 5 days (unaccruing) per year (Fair Work later changed this to 10 days accruing). The yearly average per employee ranged from 1.1 to 2.2 days. These figures demonstrate SSW never had a problem with sick leave, however, sick leave was unevenly taken by different staff... Some people took none of it, some people took all of it.

French Office: French labour law on sick leave prevails.

If you are sick, send an email as soon as possible to SSWFranceAbsence with your medical certificate, then inform the CPAM.

What if you are super sick? (Australia only)

โœ… SSW's contract gives the benefit of 20 annual leave days + 6 'bonus days' + 1 YOLO day

โœ… The bonus days accrue and are paid out when you leave

โœ… No medical certificates needed

The SSW leave system has worked very well for most people, and some employees have had large payouts when they do leave because of it. They have also enjoyed the flexibility of being able to take any leave for any reason at any time, without needing to justify themselves or provide any evidence. We have a great team culture at SSW, and this is part of the reason.

However, we have a safety net in place for our employees in case anyone needs it (or just prefers the standard Aussie system). Even after your annual 26-day leave balance has been exhausted, you can switch systems to get the extra 4 days of sick leave, provided you have an approved medical certificate.

This change also backdates, meaning that if you ever need to take substantial sick leave in the future, your previous 4 days per year are still available to you (or 3 if you took a YOLO that year). This ensures you can safely stay on the 26-day system, knowing you still have this safety net if needed.

You can switch at any time, but in almost all circumstances, you're financially better off with the SSW system, and only switching when you need it.

From that point forward you will switch to the standard Aussie system:

  • You will get 20 days annual leave per year instead of 26
  • You will get 10 sick days per year (with medical certificates required)
  • When you leave SSW, your sick leave balance is not paid out
  • You will forgo entitlements to yearly YOLO days
  • Once you switch systems, you stay on it. It would be too much admin work for the accountants to have people switching back and forth. If you donโ€™t want to switch system, then those additional days can be unpaid leave.

Public Holidays

We have all the usual national and state public holidays.

All employees are given the public holidays for their home country/state, no matter where theyโ€™re working at the time physically. However, any public holiday can be worked as "Time in Lieu" if you are on client work, or just want to take that day off.

Some public holidays vary from region to region (e.g, Queensland Show Holiday). Weโ€™ve created separate EKKA holiday groups for remote employees.

You donโ€™t need to manually fill out timesheets for public holidays. Once the person in charge creates the public holiday in EasyLeave, the corresponding timesheet will be generated automatically.

However, if you do need to manually enter a timesheet for a public holiday in SSW TimePro, please use the following values:

  • Client ID - SSW
  • Project ID - Non-working day (e.g. Leave)
  • Category ID - Non-Working Day - Public Holiday

The person responsible for sending public holiday appointments in your country can be found under Employee Responsibilities - "SSW.Accounts Send Public Holiday Appointments" on the Intranet.

China Office: The Intranet link is โ€œSSW.Accounts Send Public Holiday Appointmentsโ€.

Happens Rarely

See the module Rare - Leave and Overtime.